Kent Monkman: The Miss Chief Eagle Testickle Picture Show

Nuit Blanche 2019

Kent Monkman’s films speak to subjectivity and authority in colonial art history. These six films in particular address the adventures and stories of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, Monkman’s gender-fluid alter ego. Miss Chief reverses the colonial gaze to challenge received notions of history and Indigenous peoples. This show will feature the films “Dance to Miss Chief,” “A Nation is Coming,” “Shooting Geronimo,” “Group of Seven Inches,” “Robin’s Hood Trilogy,” and Monkman’s most recent film project, “Miss Chief’s Praying Hands.” The newest film evokes the style of dramatic, elegant commercials for decadent status items. Commenting on how the colonial project on Turtle Island has forced the “gift” of European religion, education, sickness, shame and prejudice upon Indigenous peoples for generations, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle will give it all back. The glistening form of “Miss Chief’s Praying Hands” will insert a piercing, yet playful, perspective into the conversation on reconciliation and Indigenous resilience.

Nuit Blanch 2019: Continuum

The city of Toronto and its inhabitants are in a constant state of becoming, part of an ongoing continuum of experience and ideas. This progression follows many paths through the night of Nuit Blanche. The cycle of creation and destruction, the elevation of the notable into a place of renown nobility, the challenge of finding inner calm and enlightenment in the midst of it all. Underlined by the ever-present renewal of night into day, Nuit Blanche 2019 responds to the interconnected, increasingly polarized and often contradictory paradoxes of life in the changing city.

Photos courtesy of the City of Toronto