Beat Nation: Hip Hop as Indigenous Culture

April 21 – June 6, 2009
Exhibition, Web Project, Books/Publications

About the Program

Beat Nation is a combination web project, publication, and exhibition coordinated by grunt gallery. It is curated by Skeena Reece and Tania Willard and includes the work of Jackson 2bears (Victoria), Sonny Assu (Vancouver), Corey Bulpitt (Vancouver), Kevin Burton (Vancouver), Enpaauk Andrew Dexel (Vancouver), Nicholas Galanin (Sitka, Alaska), and many others. Tania Willard describes it as: "Native graffiti art, Indigenized iPods, Inuit break dancing, Indigenous-language hip hop and video, Indian bling and urban wear: the roots of hip hop culture and music have been transformed by Indigenous cultures and identities into new forms of visual culture and music that echo the realities of Aboriginal people. Beat Nation is about music, it's about art and it's about the spirit of us as Indigenous peoples and cultures." The Beat Nation exhibition ran at grunt gallery from June 26 to August 1, 2009.

Beat Nation travelled to numerous other venues, including SAW Gallery in Ottawa, ON from April 21 to June 6, 2009; Vancouver Art Gallery in Vancouver, BC from February 25 to June 3, 2012; The Power Plant in Toronto, ON from December 15, 2012 to May 5, 2013, Kamloops Art Gallery in Kamloops, BC from June 29 to September 7, 2013; Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal in Montréal, QC from October 17, 2013 to January 5, 2014; Dalhousie Art Gallery and St. Mary’s University Art Gallery in Halifax, NS from March 22 to May 18, 2014; and Mackenzie Art Gallery in Regina, SK from July 5 to September 7, 2014.

www.beatnation.org

Curator

Tania Willard, Skeena Reece

Artist

Sonny Assu, Enpaauk Andrew Dexel, Corey Bulpitt, Kevin Lee Burton, Bracken Hanuse Corlett, Nicholas Galanin, Shadae Johnson-Paul, Morgan Asoyuf, Geronimo Inutiq, Jackson 2bears

Identifier

2009.0421 BEA

Collection

grunt gallery Programming Archive

Location

grunt gallery (second location)
116-350 E. 2nd Ave, Vancouver, BC, Canada, V5T 4R8
Unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ/selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations

In copyright. For uses beyond Fair Dealing, research requests, corrections, takedown requests, or other inquiries, please contact grunt gallery: archives@grunt.ca