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HANNAH CLAUS
Tsi Iotnekahtentiónhatie
Là où les eaux coulent
Là où les eaux coulent
September 21, 2024 to
January 12, 2025
January 12, 2025
A multidisciplinary artist who trained at the Ontario College of Art and Design (1997) – now known as OCAD U – and Concordia University (MFA, 2004), Hannah Claus weaves a Kanien’kehá:ka [Mohawk] worldview into her artwork. Using a technique inspired by beadwork, she creates suspended installations that reveal a particular narrative. Her work takes a cue from wampum belts, which, in the Kanien’kéha language are called kahion:ni: “river made by hand”. Part of Haudenosaunee [Iroquois] oral tradition, wampum belts are objects charged with the words of the treaties forged between Nations and even within governments.
In her exhibition tsi Iotnekahtentiónhatie (where the waters flow), Hannah Claus examines both human and non-human communities in Tiohtià:ke [Montreal] and her artwork focuses on the multiple but fragile ways to connect and to communicate. Claus’s suspended installation, chant pour l’eau [Kahrhionhwa’kó:wa], evokes a chain of wampum belts, left unwoven at each end. The hanging threads indicate that an alliance has been formed and continues to be valid into the future.
A member of the Kanien’kehá:ka community of Kenhtè:ke/Tyendinaga (Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte) in Ontario, Hannah Claus has lived and worked in Montreal since 2001. A co-founder of daphne, Montreal’s new Indigenous artist-run centre, she has served on the board of the Collectif des commissaires autochtones (2013-2018) and on the Conseil des arts de Montréal arts council (2017-2023). During her artistic residency at the McCord Stewart Museum in 2019, she mounted an exhibition of works inspired by the objects and ancestral figures from the museum’s permanent collection. She is a recipient of the Fondation Giverny Capitale prize (2020) and holds the position of Associate Professor at Concordia University.
In her exhibition tsi Iotnekahtentiónhatie (where the waters flow), Hannah Claus examines both human and non-human communities in Tiohtià:ke [Montreal] and her artwork focuses on the multiple but fragile ways to connect and to communicate. Claus’s suspended installation, chant pour l’eau [Kahrhionhwa’kó:wa], evokes a chain of wampum belts, left unwoven at each end. The hanging threads indicate that an alliance has been formed and continues to be valid into the future.
A member of the Kanien’kehá:ka community of Kenhtè:ke/Tyendinaga (Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte) in Ontario, Hannah Claus has lived and worked in Montreal since 2001. A co-founder of daphne, Montreal’s new Indigenous artist-run centre, she has served on the board of the Collectif des commissaires autochtones (2013-2018) and on the Conseil des arts de Montréal arts council (2017-2023). During her artistic residency at the McCord Stewart Museum in 2019, she mounted an exhibition of works inspired by the objects and ancestral figures from the museum’s permanent collection. She is a recipient of the Fondation Giverny Capitale prize (2020) and holds the position of Associate Professor at Concordia University.
Photo credit : Jean-Michel Naud, photographe
Autumn exhibitions
Each artist, in their own way, depicts the maritime world of rivers and riverbanks carved out by the restless movement of the tides. Through installations and photographs, Hannah Claus, who is of mixed Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) and English descent, explores her relationship with Kahrhionhwa’kó:wa [the Great River] and Tiohtià:ke [Montreal]. Photographer Jean-Thomas Bédard, inspired by his intimate connections to the shores of the St. Lawrence, shoots his images in close-up, turning them into stunning works of art. Magali Baribeau-Marchand, for her part, envelops the viewer in soft images of everyday places and things – an immersive world, creatively reimagined by the artist.
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