Headdress
2018-2023
LED Firebox with transmounted chromogenic transparency
Dimensions: 60 x 40 inches
In her series Headdress, Dana Claxton continues to extol indigenous cultural abundance. The personal collections of five womxn are featured: Jeneen’s collection of beadwork spans three generations from Old Crow Yukon, with designs that are specific to the Vuntut Gwich’in First Nation; Connie, matriarch of beadwork, adorns her own hand beaded pieces; Shadae mixes it up with hip-hop baseball caps, a Coast Salish woven cedar hat, and her husband’s pow wow/peyote fans; Dee and Dana wear pieces of the same inter-tribal collection made by beaders from the four directions. In these portraits, the beadworks cover and espouse the womxn’s silhouettes, becoming more than just objects: the beadworks are cultural belongings, and the womxn are cultural carriers.
Headdress – Shadae and her Girlz, 2023
Headdress – Connie, 2019
Headdress – Dana, 2019
Headdress – Shadae, 2019
Headdress – Dee, 2019
Toronto Biennial of Art, 2019. Photography by Toni Hafkenscheid. Courtesy of the Toronto Biennial of Art.
Headdress – Shadae and her Girlz, installed at Dana Claxton: Spark, Baltimore Museum of Art. August 4, 2024–January 5, 2025. Photo by Mitro Hood.
Headdress – Jeneen, 2019
Headdress – Jenneen, installed at Dana Claxton: Fringing the Cube, Vancouver Art Gallery, 2018. Photography by Maegan Hill-Carroll, Vancouver Art Gallery.