Sonny Assu
Longing #23
2011

Name: Longing #23
Brand: Sonny Assu
Price: 1200 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

Four years ago, I stumbled upon the site of a log-home developer on the traditional territory of the We Wai Kai Nation, my reserve on northeastern Vancouver Island. I found it comical that my nation leased a plot of land, on un-ceded territory, to a company that exploits our resources to assemble log homes to be shipped off to the wealthy around the world. While exploring the piles of discarded wood, I discovered a unique by-product of this industry: off-cuts that looked remarkably like pre-fabricated Northwest Coast masks. Left to be reclaimed by the earth or chipped up into cat litter, they are considered worthless by the developer and the consumer. These “masks” have an inherent beauty: the poetics of a chainsaw paired with centuries-old growth rings reveal the wisdom of these once majestic cedar trees. Each one has a face and story within—and therefore also an inherent wealth. The felling of the rainforest enables us to display wealth in the form of luxury vacation homes, but we often give little thought to the waste produced by such affluence. Historically, dominant cultures and ruling authorities have taken it upon themselves to preserve artifacts from perceived lesser societies, displaying the objects in galleries as a sign of their own wealth and authority. Today, we show our prosperity by accumulating posh, inanimate objects. And perhaps subconsciously we display the waste from this consumption (water bottles, disposable coffee cups, product packaging) as further markers of wealth. Longing is my commentary on what these waste products could have been. The display of these discarded objects, using museum-quality mask mounts, assigns wealth in an artistic and anthropological sense. Through this work I challenge the institutions to collect remnants of our consumption culture. Sonny Assu was raised in North Delta, BC, over 250 km away from his home ancestral home on Vancouver Island. Having been raised as you "everyday average suburban white-kid" it wasn't until he was eight years old that he discovered his Kwakwaka’wakw heritage. Later in life, this discovery would be the conceptual focal point of his contemporary art practice. Having cut his teeth in Vancouver's art scene, Assu packed up and moved to Montreal to be with the love of his life. Five years later, along with his wife and beautiful daughter, Sonny moved back to BC, settling in Surrey's Crescent Park. Having grown tired of the isolation of the area and the ridiculousness of the over-inflated housing market, Assu and his family moved "home" to unceded Liǥwildaʼx̱w territory (Campbell River, BC.). Assu graduated from Emily Carr University (2002) and was the recipient of their distinguished alumni award in 2006. He received the BC Creative Achievement Award in First Nations art in 2011 and was long-listed for the Sobey Art Award in 2012, 2013 and 2015. His work has been accepted into the National Gallery of Canada, Seattle Art Museum, Vancouver Art Gallery, Museum of Anthropology at UBC, Burke Museum at the University of Washington, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Hydro Quebec, Lotto Quebec and in various other public and private collections across Canada, the United States and the UK.

Creator:

Sonny Assu (1975, Canadian)

Creation Year:

2011

Dimensions:

Height: 15 in (38.1 cm)Width: 19 in (48.26 cm)

Medium:

Archival Pigment

Movement & Style:

Contemporary

Period:

2010-