Catherine Boivin ×
Erica N. Cardwell

Cycles of Healing

daphne’s new opening date in 2021 (postponed from their initial plan to open in 2020) coincided with a short trip I took to visit my sister-in-law. It was an uncomfortably warm October day in Montreal, a humidity reluctantly attributed to the reordering of seasons caused by the climate crisis. I peeled off my jacket and scarf before entering the gallery, where their inaugural exhibition was being installed. Executive Director Lori Beavis greeted me warmly; we sat in the back, with space between us, observing the careful distancing of the early pandemic. Named in honour of the artist Daphne Odjig, the centre was founded by a collective of Indigenous artists—Skawennati, Hannah Claus, Nadia Myre, and Caroline Monnet. daphne shares the vision of Odjig’s own artist-run space—New Warehouse Gallery, which opened in Winnipeg in 1974, by elevating Indigenous artistic visibility in the Canadian visual art landscape.

On another humid, but breezier afternoon in July 2022, I returned to daphne for the vernissage for Catherine Boivin’s exhibition and work, Nikotwaso. Montreal appeared to have rekindled its signature freshness and sunny connectivity, after two years of separation and isolation. Boivin and I were finally able to meet—her stature in contrast to my short height and poor French made our exchange slightly comical, as we tried our best to communicate. At long last, we decided on a recorded conversation. I would write questions about Nikotwaso, and Boivin would record her answers in French. A dear friend, and organizational coach and facilitator, Stephanie Guico, would provide the translation.

Catherine Boivin discovered the concept for Nikotwaso while running. Calisthenics and regular physical exercise are a consistent part of Boivin’s life, a routine that brings her in tune with the land and calls forth her Atikamekw people. During her daily runs, she communes with her nomadic ancestors who traversed the territory, each step imbued with corporalité, each movement. Eventually this process allowed for a new curiosity to emerge. Boivin wondered, what would it be like to record this?

Nikotwaso means “six”—the artwork involves six video screens featuring six female figures who represent the seasons within Atikamekw cultural tradition, including pre-spring and pre-winter. Each woman incarnates one of these seasons. According to Boivin, each woman also represents the passage of time: “the cycles of life, and the year, and the transmission between generations.” The screens are placed in a circle, facing inward, each displaying a full-length image of a woman, dressed in a traditional Atikamekw jupe à carreaux, who periodically spins around herself. The women have various backgrounds: they are dancers, tennis players, folks from Boivin’s community whose unique talents she wanted to incorporate. “I participate also in this piece,” Boivin tells me, “to be in connection with these women who are with me and connected to me through the screens.” Each woman wears garments representative of her Atikamekw Nehirowisiw heritage, “of our grandparents and our grandmothers, of their own parents too, worn by Atikamekw women autrefois.” All the traditional garments were designed by Boivin’s cousin. “The fringes represent the Fancy Shawl dance for pow wows, so I also wanted to bring that beauty through.”

Catherine Boivin, Nikotwaso, 2022. Photo: Mike Patten. Courtesy of daphne.

Each woman speaks on a recorded loop, “words of goodwill and kindness, nice things.” Boivin explains that these phrases address intergenerational trauma and “that today we want to sever ourselves from what is transmitted/handed over. We want to put a stop to it. Through what is handed off between generations. I want what is beautiful, what good came of this.” To experience the exhibition, viewers of Nikotwaso must stand in the centre of the circle to obtain a full view. I observed some people assuming bashful positions by lingering along the edge of the circle or not entering at all, while a few conscientious others—white and racialized settlers—displayed concern for taking up space and would move aside quickly. Others observed the experience from afar, perking up as they witnessed each new person enter the space. “I place my spectators in the middle of the circle, and they can [have] their turn [and] be enveloped in that kindness. The spectator is invited to twirl with them and follow that cycle too.”

When I ask Boivin to define inheritance, or l’héritage in Atikamekw culture, she recalls spending time with her mother in the forest, the notcimik, and observing her while she cleaned fish. “For me, that’s a part of inheritance.” Lately, Boivin has started documenting her exercise routines on Instagram; she exercises with her young daughter, who sits in front of her or climbs onto her chest or hip during a leg lift. Now, as a mother, Boivin considers l’héritage as oral transmission: “All the stories are tools. If I start telling stories in Atikamekw to my daughter, that's good for her development because the more she hears the language, the more she will know and be able to guess the words and what they represent.” 

- Translated with support from Stephanie Guico.

Young multidisciplinary Atikamekw artist Catherine Boivin expresses herself in several artistic forms, from video and photography to sculpture and performance. Born in 1989, and originally from Wemotaci (Québec), her videos have been shown in the exhibition De tabac et de foin d’odeur. Là où sont nos rêves at Musée d’art de Joliette (2019) and a sculptural work included in the Essence and Regalia exhibition at Ashukan Cultural Space (2019). She has also participated as a performance artist at Ondinnok Productions’s festival l’État de la situation sur les arts autochtones (2017), Rassemblement internations d'art performance autochtone (2017), and Présence autochtone (2019).