Tsēma Igharas, formerly known as Tamara Skubovius, is an interdisciplinary artist and member of the Tāłtān First Nation based in Vancouver, British Columbia.[1][2] Igharas uses Potlatch methodology in making art, to assert the relationships between bodies and the world, and to challenge colonial systems of value and measurement of land and resources.[1][3]
Igharas’ practice can be understood through the methodology of Potlatch, a ceremony rooted in reciprocity and nation building. For Igharas, artmaking becomes a “ceremony that affirms and solidifies relationships to every thing and body”.[1] Her conceptual artwork primarily tackles colonial systems of valuing land and resources, and Western measurements of wealth, and examines the way these systems historically and continue to impact Indigenous lands and cultural practices.[1][7] Igharas' practice is influenced by Indigenous resistance strategies, familial and embodied knowledge, and acts of decolonization, in order to understand the Canadian imaginary and the impacts of its industrialization; Igharas also aligns with Indigenous Futurisms as a way of understanding our relationship with time and the land.[4]
In the exhibition future generations at Artspace, Toronto, Igharas examined Indigenous futurity as a means of survival and survivance. Through working with her understandings of Tāłtān traditions, and objects and materials rooted in Western settler culture, Igharas presented strategies and gestures of resistance against neo-colonization, and imagined futures of Indigenous peoples.[1]
The series and workshop Riot Rock Rattles at the Gardiner Museum, Toronto, continues Igharas’ examination of the material relationships between the body and the land.[8] In the workshop, participants build and engage with Igharas’ “riot rocks” – rocks imbued with materials of cultural, industrial, and resistive significance – in order to communally practice Indigenous methodologies and gain an awareness of the connections between body and land.[8]
Selected exhibitions
Igharas has exhibited across Canada and internationally, in places such as Chiapas, Mexico; Asheville, USA; and Santiago, Chile.[9] Notable exhibitions include Interweavings, which featured emerging First Nations artists who had won the YVR Art Foundation scholarship; the Contemporary Native Art Biennial: Culture Shift in Montreal; and the Luminato Festival in Toronto.[8] Igharas is also a member and representative of ReMatriate Collective.[9][10]
2009 Art Hamlet, The Old Church Venue, Smithers BC[5]
2014 Interweavings, Richmond Art Gallery (RAG), Richmond, BC[20]
2015 Coming to the Fire, Roundhouse, Vancouver, BC[21]
2015 Make Re|make Un|make: Repetition and the Artistic Process Group Exhibit, Seymour Art Gallery, North Vancouver, BC[22]
2015 México es una Fosa Común (Mexico is a Mass Grave), Public Group Performance directed by Jesusa Rodríguez as part of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics course, “Art, Migration and Human Rights” San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico[5]
2015 Envelopments: Paths Taken and Not Taken, Robert Kananaj Gallery, Toronto, ON[23]
2016 OMEGA: I Am Woman, Windsor Gallery, Vancouver, BC[24]
2016. Reverb: Sound Seeds, Performance collaboration with Julie Nagam as part of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics Encuentro, "eXcéntrico: dissidence, sovereignties, performance," Santiago, Chile[5]
2016. Doomsday; A Survival Guide, Luminato Festival, Toronto ON.[5]
