Postcommodity In Conversation with Gerald McMaster at Remai Modern as part of Time Holds All the Answers Exhibition

September 18th, 2021 at 1:00PM (CST)

On Saturday September 18, 2021, Gerald McMaster joined Cristóbal Martínez and Kade L. Twist of Postcommodity interdisciplinary arts collective for an exciting talk introducing the breadth of Postcommodity’s work over the years, providing context for the new works on view in Time Holds All the Answers at Remai Modern. This event was live-streamed as part of the opening weekend of the Time Holds All the Answers exhibition that will be on view until January 23, 2022.

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Following the talk, attendees were invited to regroup at Wanuskewin for a walk to the medicine wheel. Joined by members of the Wanuskewin Elders Council, the artists spoke to the significance of this monument, and how their encounter with it has informed their new work.

Drawing of medicine wheel at Wanuskewin, c. 1980s. PH-2017-73-25, courtesy of Saskatoon Public Library.

Time Holds All the Answers | Exhibition at a Glance

Curated by Dr. Gerald McMaster and hosted by Remai Modern in Saskatoon, Time Holds All the Answers is Postcommodity’s most significant museum exhibition to date. In addition to two of Remai Modern’s largest gallery spaces, works will be featured throughout the building. With a selection of new pieces created for the occasion, the exhibition includes architecturally-scaled sculpture and immersive multimedia installations that incorporate sound and text. The exhibition touches on subjects including resource extraction and land use, toxicity and containment, intersections of the global market with human elders, translation across Indigenous and colonial languages, and the mythologies of modern art and architecture.

Postcommodity deploy a creative methodology of hacking, intentionally breaking predetermined products or structures in order to modify their original use and inspire alternative outcomes. In practice, hacking undoes, reimagines and resets. How can this be accomplished? Using art as a wedge, Postcommodity inject Indigenous Knowledge Systems into the museum space to expand common points of reference. In their work, the artists transform the museum into a site where their concept of re-imagined ceremony takes shape. While ceremony is generally associated with a religious or spiritual gathering that celebrates a particular event, Postcommodity’s approach creates an immersive narrative environment throughout the museum, welcoming visitors into a realm of symbolic exchange that enacts respect, responsibility and reciprocity.

Postcommodity create works of art that personify a shared Indigenous lens and voice, examining aspects of 21st-century life to inspire a uniquely Indigenous futurism. Using provocation as a tool, they spark constructive conversations that challenge the social, political and economic processes that destabilize communities and geographies.