Identity as Contigency: Meryl McMaster’s In-Between Worlds

by Ellyn Walker

In-Between Worlds is an ongoing series by Ottawa-based artist Meryl McMaster that grapples with complex questions of identity; addressing the ways contemporary Indigenous and cross-cultural identities are represented. Begun in 2013, the series draws on inter-disciplinary practices and presentation strategies to reflect on what cultural theorist Stuart Hall considers the production of identity: that “which is never complete, always in process, and always constituted within, not outside, [of] representation.”((Stuart Hall, “New Ethnicities,” in Black Film/British Cinema (London: ICA, 1988), 222.))

Using sculpture, performance and photography to reveal the layered and multifaceted nature of identity, McMaster explores and confounds traditional codes of identification to make the point that identity categories are provisional and in constant transformation. Being of Plains Cree, British, Dutch and Scottish ancestry, McMaster embodies the confluence of many rather than one identity. She uses her body as a signifier to represent the complexity and fluidity of the self, or what Hall describes as an equal process of “being” whilst also “becoming”.

Inspired in part by coming-of-age excursions in the remote Canadian wilderness—akin to “vision quests” practiced by many Indigenous groups—McMaster’s photographs call attention to the landscape as an important site of identity representation. For example, the work Terra Cognitum (2013) emphasizes the fact that the land has been ‘known’ by Indigenous peoples since time immemorial. The image portrays McMaster’s outstretched body, photographed from overhead, posed on a bed of dried leaves. The beading of McMaster’s navy bodysuit signifies centuries of trade between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. The circular pattern recalls European topographic maps used to border and claim land. Here, it is McMaster’s body that is being mapped. The areas of her body that remain incompletely graphed symbolize a continued exploration of the self, a self that is forever betwixt and between Western and Indigenous worldviews. The artist gazes out to address the viewer, insisting that they see her as more than an ethnographic subject. McMaster’s reclining body interrupts tidy, settler-colonial representations of the landscape to critically reinvent the ‘figure in the landscape’ genre by complicating conventions of subject and ground. The landscape, like the artist’s body, is also in a state of constant transformation. In these photographs, the changing landscape reinforces  various states of in-betweeness and the evolving nature of the self.

In each of the photographs in the In-Between Worlds series, McMaster “performs” different roles using specific postures, makeup, costumes and props. In Aphoristic Currents (2013) McMaster dons an extravagant oversized frill reminiscent of an Elizabethan ruff, made out of select twisted newspaper representating the increasing influence of language, technology and communication in culture. Her head pokes out near the centre of the frill, which appears like flowing water or wind around her. Her gaze is directed away from the viewer. Her face is painted white, a strategy found in other works such as Ancestral (2008-2012). The white face makeup calls attention to McMaster’s European heritage whilst highlighting the ways in which “whiteness has been imposed on Indigenous bodies and their cultures,”((Ellyn Walker, “Representing the Self through Ancestry: Meryl McMaster’s Ancestral Portraits,” Reconstruction Journal, ed. Matthew Ryan Smith, Vol. 15, No. 1 (2015): 2)) including her own Algonquian ancestors. McMaster makes the point that “Indigenous peoples have survived and succeeded in spite”((Walker, “Representing the Self,” 2.)) of Canada’s history of colonialism, emphasizing the fact that those of Indigenous ancestry embody important histories of resistance.

Brumal Tattoo (2013) exemplifies the resilience of Indigenous peoples. Standing tall over a massive drum while in the motion of beating it, McMaster’s armour-like outfit is decorated with pinecones, reminiscent of elk tooth dresses worn by Plains women. The artist’s face is obscured by her drumsticks, which splatter red paint that ricochets off the over-sized instrument. The drum stands in for her beating heart and is encircled with multicolored fringed, knotted and braided cloth, a textile configuration that represents the act of cultural inter-mixing. The use of sculptural elements theatricalize McMaster’s image in contrast with the quiet winter landscape behind her.

This photograph is symbolic of the way McMaster embodies multiple sites of identity, ostensibly between contrasting or opposing Indigenous and non-Indigenous worldviews. However, rather than reading the splatters of red paint as symbolic of blood or violence (as in war, or the brutality of colonialism), the red paint marks McMaster’s body and her surroundings like “a tattoo of [the] past, present and future,”((Emese Krunak-Hajagos, “In-Between Worlds: Interview with Performance Artist Meryl McMaster,” ARTES Magazine, October 24, 2013. http://www.artesmagazine. com/2013/10/in-between-worlds-interview-with-performance-artist-meryl-mcmaster/ (Accessed April 19, 2015).)) leaving evidence of Indigenous presence to counteract the ways that Indigenous bodies have been elided from Western representations of landscape.

In In-Between Worlds, McMaster considers identity as provisional, as Stuart Hall suggests, “lodged in contingency”,((Krunak-Hajagos, “In-Between Worlds.”)) and thus in constant dialogue with our realities. Her photographs make clear the fact that cultural identities are not static categories; rather, they are living embodiments. As such, McMaster’s portraits “belong to the future as much as to the past,”((Krunak-Hajagos, “In-Between Worlds,” 225.)) creating out-of-the-ordinary scenes by combining seemingly disparate historical and cultural references (Cree and European) to imagine future ways of being. As a specific discussion of Indigenous-non-Indigenous inter-culturalism, In- Between Worlds reflects on how representations of both landscape and identity in Canada have been colonized. By doing so, McMaster’s photographs activate critical thinking, moving viewers, regardless of cultural background, to consider the complexity of one’s specific experience and relationship to the colonial project.

Ellyn Walker is a writer and curator based in Toronto, on Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee and Wendat land. Her practice focuses on modes of cross-cultural engagement within the arts as potential site for resistance, re-imagination and conciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. Her writing has been published in Prefix Photo, PUBLIC Journal, Fuse Magazine, the Journal of Curatorial Studies and C Magazine, amongst others. Ellyn is currently a PhD candidate in Cultural Studies at Queen’s University.

This article was originally featured in BlackFlash Issue 32.3.