Curated by Greg Hill, Candice Hopkins, and Christine Lalonde

For millennia, human beings have constructed their histories through before-and-after narratives of first inhabitants and newcomers. Lodged deep in the collective consciousness, these stories have manifested themselves in various art forms over the centuries, and their retellings continue in literary and artistic practices, their tone dependent on the sociopolitical climate and the identity of the speaker. “Sakahàn” (To Light a Fire) surveys the contemporary topography of indigenous art, featuring more than 150 works made during the past decade by eighty-one international artists—including Jimmie Durham, Brian Jungen, and Teresa Margolles—who acknowledge their own indigenous heritage and question what this label might mean now. Ambitious in scope and scale, the project represents years of research by its organizers, who will also present their findings in the catalogue, alongside essays by eleven artists, curators, and scholars, providing a much-needed reassessment of this age-old topic’s complexities.

— Kristina Van Dyke