CONCEPTS HAVE TEETH

Welcome to the Concepts Have Teeth platform for contemporary art. The site features artists living on Blackfoot territory in Canada and in the U.K. who are connected with mootookakiossin.ca, a project that shares the knowledge from historical Blackfoot items held in British museum collections. In some cases, the connection is direct, such as Blackfoot artists who are creating new artworks informed by their ancestor’s items imagery and techniques. For all the artwork you will find here, Mootookakio’ssin supports artists in addressing the legacies of colonialism that museum practices can reveal, the relationship between physical and digital artworks, and how identity is entangled with these practices.

While creating this site, we asked ourselves how the design could encourage an experience of the creative works that interrupted typical art-viewing like you might find at a gallery or museum as well as counter the disembodied experience of viewing art online. It was important to encourage interaction with the works so we added lots of paths for you to follow. We replaced straight lines with curving ones and tried to create a sense of depth and space. We really wanted to get beyond a digital exhibition space as just a virtual white wall.

Learning from the Elders who are directing Mootookakio’ssin , Concepts Have Teeth embraces the Blackfoot perspective that there is no clear distinction between animate beings and inanimate objects: the word “object” has no place in the Blackfoot worldview because cultural material is alive. We have built this platform to support the exchange of knowledge – between the objects, artists, researchers, students, museum professionals, and audience.