The Many Worlds of Manuel Axel Strain

Manuel Axel Strain is a 2-Spirit artist from the lands and waters of the xʷməθkʷəyəm (Musqueam), Simpcw and Syilx peoples, based in the sacred region of their q̓ic̓əy̓ (Katzie) and qʼʷa:n̓ƛʼən̓ (Kwantlen) relatives. Strain’s mother is Tracey Strain and father is Eric Strain, Tracey’s parents are Harold Eustache (from Chuchua) and Marie Louis (from nk̓maplqs), Eric’s Parents are Helen Point (from xʷməθkʷəy̓əm) and John Strain (from Ireland).¹

Before encountering Manuel Axel Strain’s work, one must first engage with an introduction from the artist in which they locate themselves not only within space and time, but within their community and family. This introduction isn’t simply presenting where and whom they come from, but, also, where and whom they have responsibilities toward. The centering of land, community, and family is a theme that has been reconstructed and fortified repeatedly within their career. Strain attended Emily Carr University of Art + Design, has exhibited extensively throughout turtle island, and, in 2022, was longlisted for the Sobey Art Award. In their work, Strain prioritises “Indigenous epistemologies through the embodied knowledge of their mother, father, siblings, cousins, aunties, uncles, nieces, nephews, grandparents and ancestors.”²

In late winter and early spring of 2023, Saskatchewan was lucky to host Manuel Axel Strain for two exhibitions. “Why does this land seem so small?” was installed at College Gallery 1, located at the University of Saskatchewan, and “threshold” at Neutral Ground Artist-Run Centre in Regina. While both shows activated the central theme in Strain’s work–”to confront and undermine the imposed realities of colonialism”³–each exhibition presented a unique perspective and body of work.

“Why does this land seem so small?” curated by Leah Taylor, focuses on the experiences, memories, and relationships of Strain’s immediate family. The artworks in this show feature large-scale portraits of Strain’s relatives alongside sculptures crafted from found objects that work together to reveal narratives of “subjects enveloped in numerous forms of relation: with ancestral and community ties, Indigeneity, labour, resource extraction, gender, and Indigenous medicine and life forces.”⁴ The artist is heavily present within the works, with each piece revealing another facet to the world that Manuel Axel Strain both exists in and creates. The collection of works selected for this show come together in a way that parallels an intimate look into a stranger’s home. In the space, surrounded by Strain’s kin, I experienced an overwhelming feeling of being held.

Dancing between mediums, Strain is equally at ease with oil, sculpture, found objects and photographs. Although Strain is always present within this work, they do not exclusively centre it upon their personal experiences, often working in active collaboration with their family, ancestors, and the land. Each of the pieces within this show reflect not only the challenges that Strains relations have faced, but their strengths in overcoming these barriers. In many of the works, Strain’s kin is represented through painted portraiture or family photos, giving the show an overwhelming feeling of care and nostalgia. Strain is generous with their stories, using family dynamics and personal histories in direct opposition to colonial narratives. This results in a deeply personal and rich display that challenges colonial norms of white superiority through acts of vulnerability.

Large oil paintings, like Cutting through a sickly white child to show my nephew and my brother, simultaneously reference the western tradition of painting and turn it on its head. Strain was taught at a young age the style of Northwest coast painting and drawing that subtly comes through in their painted works.⁵ Slicing through the imagery of a white child rendered in a style reminiscent of popular 18th-century works, the gazes of Strain’s brother and nephew meet the eye of the viewer through Coast Salish form-line cut-outs that disrupt the Victorian image. Through this appropriation, Manuel Axel Strain challenges the Eurocentric gaze that “sucked away the life power of Indigenous ways of seeing, honouring and upholding women and 2-Spirit people.”⁶ By making space within these paintings for their siblings and their children, Strain is showing us not only an Indigenous present but an Indigenous future. Additionally, the landscape backgrounds “both real and imagined”⁷ featured within Strain’s paintings contain autobiographical meaning. Strain addresses the power dynamics surrounding pastoral and “Canadiana” painting traditions that portray the land as tamed and controlled, subverting these traditions by inserting landscapes that they or their family have personal relationships with.

In addition to the paintings, “Why does this land seem so small?” also features sculptural works. In The regalia my dad tried to pass on to me, two pairs of blue work overalls suspended on a rope stretch out across the wall, framing a photograph of Strain’s father and uncles. Strain’s family is part of the legacy of the longshoremen, who work at the water and are in charge of taking cargo off of massive freighters. In this work, Strain draws lines between the traditions of longshoremen, who often recruited their sons and nephews (and, more recently, daughters and nieces), and the passing down of Indigenous knowledge. Although Strain’s father wanted them to follow in his footsteps, Strain knew from the age of five that they were going to be an artist.⁸ The regalia my dad tried to pass on to me is a reflection not only on the post-colonial history surrounding longshoremen, but the role that Musqueam and Coast Salish have performed for millennia: ‘Standing at the water, watching over which resources came into the land.”⁹ Further layers of meaning within this work reveal the interconnectedness of human experience, and the links between labour, kinship, the land, extraction, and safety.

The overalls in The regalia my dad tried to pass on to me are embellished with tourniquets and high-visibility vests, cut and arranged in reference to Indigenous dance regalia. Strain has presented this connection between safety vests and dance in previous works, most notably in the 2020 exhibition “Ancestral Ties to the Flood” at Fort Gallery in the Fraser Valley in BC. Included in this show was a video work in which they “danced before the Fort Langley railway crossing wearing regalia fashioned from deconstructed neon safety vests, asking the question: who or what is deemed safe and visible?”¹⁰ While the geographical context has shifted between these two works, Strain’s use of art and dance as tools for Indigenous agency remains unchanged.

When entering “threshold” at Neutral Ground Artist-Run Centre, one is immediately immersed in an atmosphere of bubble-gum pink. A site-specific installation with many parts, this exhibition maintains a sense of ambiguity while at the same time extending an invitation to look closer.¹¹ Although “threshold” is an entryway, it remains up to the viewer to determine whether it is one through which they shall pass. In the gallery, painted doors flank an open space, creating another passage. This inclusion of both physical and psychological entryways “generates an appreciation of experiences and memories that exists beyond the settler colonial perspective, without the need to fully comprehend, intrude, or possess”.¹² In the same vein as Cutting through a sickly white child to show my nephew and my brother, Strain utilises the motion of “moving through” to centre contemporary Indigenous experience and challenge the Eurocentric gaze.

Done in collaboration with six family members, Strain spent a week at Neutral Ground creating and installing the show. The pink tone that enveloped the exhibition was chosen after Manuel’s Auntie Iva told them it was her favourite colour a few weeks earlier at the opening for “Why does this land seem so small?” in Saskatoon.¹³ Strain wanted to give her something to hold onto as a thank-you for making the journey down to Regina from her home in northern Saskatchewan.¹⁴ Additionally, the paddle dress suspended from the ceiling featured reflective images of Strain’s grandmother Helen. The dress is floating over a bed of diatomaceous earth, a resource traditionally found in st̕it̕əwəq̓ʷ ( Second Beach, Stanley Park).¹⁵ Here, Strain speaks to the history of diatomaceous earth being used to paint ceremonial objects and notes its transition from venerated medium to bed bug powder.¹⁶

The right-hand door in the exhibition featured painted pictographs of a coyote and a double-headed serpent, and on the left, a salmon and a cedar tree. Alongside the pictographs was a video work inlaid into one of the doors, which shows a gathering surrounding the ‘Warriors Walk for Healing Nations’ that made the 2000-km journey from Whitehorse to Kamloops in honour of both those that lost their lives and survivors of residential schools.¹⁷ Whitefish skin from the Yukon, gifted from Strain’s chosen relative Jeneen, anchored the gathering at a personal level.¹⁸

The web of relationality that Strain spins with each show is seemingly endless, with each thread leading to another family member, story, or history. However, it is not without its secrets. The inspiration behind “threshold” is the Coast Salish tradition of keeping spiritual practices private. The vagueness of spiritual power, the safekeeping of sacred knowledge, and how these traditions translate into visual culture are all themes that Strain brought up in a conversation with me in late May when reflecting on the show.¹⁹ They mentioned a social media post made by the Museum of Anthropology that quoted a recently released publication, Where The Power Is: “The vagueness of the creatures depicted on whorls may have been intentional: in Coast Salish spiritual practices, an individual’s relationship with their power is private, and often requires visual representations of the power to be cryptic”.²⁰ For Strain this is a familiar concept, one of the many teachings passed down from their ancestors, and one that they activated throughout the duration of “threshold.”

Although many Indigenous artists use positionality to ground their work within a cultural and geographical context, Manuel Axel Strain takes this to another level, immersing us in a reality beyond oppressive structures. This building of worlds is carried throughout their practice, culminating in a body of work that is both responsive to the contemporary realities of living under colonialism, and uplifting of the embodied and ancestral knowledge held within Indigenous bodies. “Why does this land seem so small?” and “threshold” may have finished their run in Saskatchewan, but you can be sure that the effects of their presence, stories, knowledge, and memories will continue to resonate within our communities.

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Aurora Wolfe is a researcher, multimedia artist, and musician of Cree and Scottish descent. Her work focuses on lived experience, blood memory, and relationships with the land. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Indigenous studies and Studio Art from the University of Saskatchewan and is currently pursuing an MFA at the same institution. Her joys in life include beading, gardening, and making breakfast.

Instagram: @aurorawolfe

1. “Manuel Axel Strain,” accessed May 30, 2023, https://www.manuelaxelstrain.com/.
2. “Unit 17,” https://www.unit17.org/manuel-axel-strain.
3. Unit 17.
4. Didactic, “Why does this land seem so small?” 2023, College Art Gallery, University of Saskatchewan.
5. Conversation with artist, May 23, 2023.
6. Conversation with artist, May 23, 2023.
7. Didactic, “Why does this land seem so small?”
8. Conversation with artist, May 23, 2023.
9. Conversation with artist, May 23, 2023.
10. Fort Gallery, “Ancestral Ties to the Flood,” an exhibition of new work by Manuel Axel Strain, 2020, http://www.fortgallery.ca/.
11. Neutral Ground, “threshold,” December 21, 2022, https://neutralground.sk.ca/threshold/.
12. Neutral Ground, “threshold,” https://neutralground.sk.ca/threshold/.
13. Conversation with the artist, May 26, 2023.
14. Conversation with the artist, May 26, 2023.
15. Conversation with the artist, May 26, 2023.
16. Conversation with the artist, May 26, 2023.
17. Group finishes walk from Yukon to B.C. honouring children and residential school survivors,” The Canadian Press, August 9, 2021, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/group-finishes-six-week-walk-to-honour-children-survivors-of-residential-schools-1.6135621.
18. Conversation with the artist, May 23, 2023.
19. Conversation with the artist, May 23, 2023.
20. Bill McLennan, Jordan Wilson, Karen Duffek, In collaboration with the Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia, Where The Power Is: Indigenous Perspectives on Northwest Coast Art ( Figure 1 Publishing 2021),  60.

This article is published in issue 40.2 of BlackFlash magazine. Get this issue