Close Encounters: The Next 500 Years is a critical reader and exhibition catalogue that presents 33 international Indigenous artists from across Canada, the United States, South America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, including newly commissioned work from Rebecca Belmore, Faye HeavyShield, Kent Monkman, Edward Poitras and Jimmie Durham. Fourteen contributors present essays that map four distinct sub-themes of the exhibition related to the imagined future for Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. By radically reconsidering encounter narratives between native and non-native people, Indigenous prophecies, possible utopias and apocalypses, this publication proposes intriguing possibilities for the next 500 years. “We all in different measure have carved out the future,” observes Hopi photographer and filmmaker, Victor Masayesva, in his book Husk of Time. “We are all clairvoyants, soothsayers, prophets, knowingly assuming our predictions.” Featured artists: KC Adams, Maria Thereza Alves, Shuvinai Ashoona, Mary Anne Barkhouse, Michael Belmore, Rebecca Belmore, Colleen Cutschall, Wally Dion, Jimmie Durham, Rosalie Favell, Jeffrey Gibson, Brett Graham, Faye HeavyShield, Marja Helander, Jonathan Jones, Brian Jungen, James Luna, Kavavaow Mannomee, Tracey Moffatt, Kent Monkman, Reuben Paterson, Archer Pechawis, Edward Poitras, Postcommodity, Pudlo Pudlat, Lisa Reihana, Paul Anders Simma, Doug Smarch Jr., Skawennati, Christian Thompson, Marie Watt, Linus Woods, Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun. Curators: Candice Hopkins, Steve Loft, Lee-Ann Martin, Jenny Western Contributors: Richard William Hill, Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair, Megan Tamati-Quennell, Joane Cardinal-Schubert, Edward Poitras, David Garneau, Jaimie Isaac, Victor Masayesva Jr., Loretta Todd Editor: Sherry Farrell Racette Design: Sebastien Aubin Published by Plug In Editions. Presented by the Winnipeg Cultural Capital of Canada 2010. Organized by Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art with The Winnipeg Art Gallery,Urban Shaman: Contemporary Aboriginal Art and partnering organizations ISBN 978-0-921381-36-5 Hard cover, 224 pp, full colour.
