By Mathieu Génon, courtesy of Brian Jungen “Carapace,” 2009, is a work made from industrial waste bins by Brian Jungen of the Dunne-za First Nations in British Columbia. “Strange Comfort,” an exhibition of his sculpture, is at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian until Aug. 8.

An emu on roller skates and a two-tone crocodile—both crafted from plastic luggage—hang from a mobile in the Potomac Atrium. In the retrospective’s gallery, a whale skeleton hangs resplendent under lights. Only upon closer inspection does it become clear that the whale’s bones are cut from common plastic chairs.

Jungen, 40, of the Dunne-za First Nations in British Columbia, is called the best Native artist of his generation by Paul Chaat Smith, curator of “Strange Comfort.” Jungen’s work is usually shown by modern art galleries in cities such as New York, Montreal, Rotterdam and Munich. Never have his creations been made available, as they are now, to the zoo-going set.

The museum is visited by about 40,000 schoolchildren a year. On a recent Wednesday, about a dozen third-graders from Emmanuel Christian School in Springfield, Va., found themselves sitting on the gallery floor, surrounded by Jungen’s “Carapace.” The children didn’t know the word carapace means exoskeleton or shell.

So the museum’s lead cultural interpreter, Sharyl Pahe, who is San Carlos Apache and Navajo, asks the students to do a little deductive work.

“If we look at what is all around us,” she asks, “what does it look like?”

Trash bins, the third-graders answer in unison.

“You’ll see that this artist has taken something useful like a trash bin and cut it in two,” Pahe says. “Is it still useful?”

No, the children almost sing.

“But what does this make you think of?”

A hut, a fort, a forest or bleachers, the third-graders offer.

“Could it be a turtle shell?” Pahe asks.

The children look with new eyes at the plastic shell.

“Why is this turtle shell so big?”

The children look quizzically at her. She explains, “To some tribes, the turtle represents the earth. The shell is important because it is like the land.”

The children nod in understanding. They’ve visited this landscape of the imagination before, though perhaps not through the works of a Dunne-za artist who could be the age of their parents, but who, like them, lives in a society where white plastic chairs and green garbage cans can be the backdrop of imagination.

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By Kara Briggs
American Indian News Service

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Gunnison, a Mellon fellow at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, is studying how to protect and preserve the plastics used in a large mobile that the museum plans to install this fall titled “Crux (as seen from those who sleep on the surface of the earth under the night sky)” by artist Brian Jungen of the Dunne-za Nation near Vancouver, B.C.

To view some of Jungen’s works, including “Crux,” go tohttp://www.catrionajeffries.com/b_b_jungen_work_55.html.

Courtesy Anne Gunnison Conservation intern Anne Gunnison holds open the mouth of a green, plastic crocodile from a new work in the National Museum of the American Indian’s collection.

“It’s very colorful,” said Gunnison, who is 29 and from Sacramento, Calif. “He uses a lot of different colors of luggage to make figures. By starting now, we can take steps to conserve the piece upfront.”

A recent graduate with a master’s degree from University College of London’s Institute of Archaeology, Gunnison’s research will be in the growing field of conserving plastics.

A million dollar grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation currently funds conservation fellowships and internships.The museum strategically intends these internships to foster a new generation of professionals adept in the innovative ways in which the museum involves Native peoples in the care of materials.

“We introduce them to our methodology so they learn about collaboration with the people who created these objects,” said Gina Ward, development officer at the National Museum of the American Indian. “We put culture and collaboration on an equal footing with science.”

In 2007 the Mellon Foundation pledged $1.5 million toward an endowment for Advanced Training in Conservation at the museum with the understanding the museum would raise another $3.5 million. To date, the museum has raised all but $500,000 toward this goal.

The Mellon fellows have hailed from museums in London, Vienna and Auckland. They have worked in museums such as the Guggenheim, the Chicago Institute of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Mellon Foundation donations to other museums are used to fund conservation, develop departments and other works. It is unusual for the foundation’s contribution to be used for a training fellowship program, said Marian Kaminitz, the head of conservation at the museum.

Like Gunnison, most leave with a unique specialization after being assigned to an exhibition and being responsible for working with the related indigenous community.

Brian Jungen is a celebrated young sculptor whose work from such materials as deconstructed Nikes and luggage has won international acclaim. He has shown in such events as the Biennale in Sydney, Australia. To see that exhibition go to www.bos2008.com/app/biennale/artist/39. This summer he is working with Gunnison, talking through long-term questions such as how much change is acceptable for his plastic.

Highly flammable collodion and celluloid plastics began appearing in the 1800s. By the 1920s, plastic was everywhere. Over time, older plastics have decayed, cracking and fading, and sometimes damaging other objects next to them. Now conservationists are taking a proactive approach to caring for contemporary plastics.

“Plastics conservation is a growing field,” Gunnison said.

She hopes that planning, including perhaps making changes to the environment around the plastic art, will keep Jungen’s mobile from ever needing large-scale repair.

Maybe the Mellon fellowship works in somewhat the same way, Kaminitz said.

“By training conservators at the start of their careers, the museum can encourage respect for indigenous communities around the world,” she said. “Through the Mellon Fellowship program, we introduce conservators to this methodology and encourage them to fit this approach into their professional work in the future.”

By Kara Briggs
American Indian News Service

By R.A. Whiteside, National Museum of the American Indian Macklin Becenti, a 19-year-old Navajo, traveled to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian after winning the 2009 Student Artist Competition.

Becenti traveled from his home on the Navajo Reservation to Washington in late July to be honored at the Office of Indian Education and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.

His winning lead pencil drawing, depicting a Navajo woman weaving at her loom while a child does schoolwork, is a subtle interpretation of the competition’s theme, “Tradition is my Life, Education is my Future.” To view all the winning entries, go to kids.indianeducation.org/file/2009_SAC_art_winners.pdf.

This year’s competition attracted entries from 604 students from 30 states and more than a dozen Indian nations. Entries were judged in age categories ranging from preschool through high school. Becenti, the winner in the 11th- and 12th-grade category, received the additional honor of being named an Emerging High School Artist by the museum and receiving a trip to Washington.

It is “an opportunity of self-discovery and to gain new personal experiences that can only add to personal growth and greater self-confidence that is often needed by young adults,” said Keevin Lewis, Navajo, a programs coordinator at the National Museum of the American Indian.

Becenti and his mother, Velma Toddy, live in Pine Springs, a community on the south end of the Navajo Reservation where the 19-year-old said he is related to everyone. Living seven miles from Houck, Ariz., and a 90-minute bus ride from school, Becenti draws, weaves, sculpts, sews moccasins and makes silver jewelry. He credits his grandmother, who makes baskets and pottery; a great aunt who weaves; and his uncles, who work in many traditional Navajo arts, with inspiring his artistry.

“When I was small, my uncles who were artists told me I was OK,” Becenti said.

After learning of the contest, Toddy said her son stayed up two nights sketching his entry. She told him, “I know you are going to win. I know it. When he brought back the message that he won, I said, ‘I told you so.’”

Of the drawing, Becenti explained, “I was thinking about education, and a little child growing up around her grandmother or in her tradition. She just got back from school and is doing her work while her grandmother weaves.”

Becenti specializes in portraiture, a skill he developed drawing from photographs. He hopes to study video production in college.

His illustration is included in a traveling art exhibition of all the winning entries. It opened at the U.S. Department of Education on July 21, and will also be shown at the National Museum of the American Indian and the Oklahoma City History Center.

Indian nations represented among the children who won include Northern Paiute, Sault Ste. Marie Tribes of Chippewa Indians, Cherokee, Gila River Indian Community, Mississippi Band of Choctaw, Hopi, Seminole Tribe, United Houma Nation, Oneida Indian Nation, San Carlos Apache, White Mountain Apache and Ponca Tribe.

By Kara Briggs
American Indian News Service