head-smashed-in buffalo jump

By Mathieu Matthew Conway

 

A performance at Osheaga Festival
July 31st and August 1st, 2010

 

Running from fear of predatory man in hot pursuit, hordes of majestic mastodons run over a ledge plummeting to their death breaking their skulls on the rocks below. Somewhat unfamiliar to eastern Canadian culture, this is how many bison were hunted in the great planes. The native hunters of the prairies had strategically devised this hunting technique approximately 5,700 years ago.
For thousands of years, the bison provided the Aboriginal peoples of North America's Great Plains with many of life's requirements - meat for food, hides for clothing and shelter, sinew, bone and horn for tools, and dung for fires. The principal means of killing large numbers of bison was the buffalo jump, where herds were stampeded over cliffs and butchered at the bottom. Buffalo jumps were common on the northern Plains. But the biggest, oldest and best-preserved buffalo jump in North America is the Head-Smashed-In (or estipah-skikikini-kots in Blackfoot) Buffalo Jump in the Porcupine Hills of southwestern Alberta. This project is named after this Albertan heritage site.

This artwork brings elements of print and performance together to weave meaning through experience, imagination and interpretation. A bison is printed on large Japanese paper. The bison is subsequently cut out and mounted as silhouette shaped kite. The project takes on its full semantic dynamic when the swarm of kites are taken to a buffalo jump (or any field if lack thereof), flown up in the air in a tempestuous gush of wind and then brutally crashed to the ground.

 

Mathieu Matthew Conway is a multidisciplinary artist working in Montreal. He received his academic training from Concordia University under the Painting and Drawing major. He works principally in drawing, painting, print media and installation art. He has also been involved in curatorial activities, notably for Skol art center. He has participated in numerous group shows. He is presently employed by Atelier Circulaire, a production and promotion center for fine art prints.