Artspace

Rolande Souliere

Identifies as: First Nation from Turtle Island/Australian citizen
Language Group: Anishinaabe
Website: www.rolandesouliere.com.au
Instagram: @Rolande.Souliere

My action is an intervention. The work How to Make A Pussy Hat is a series of photographs and videos documenting an intervention in an urban nail salon.

Artist bio

Multi-media artist, Rolande Souliere is best known for her large-scale site specific immersive installations created from caution and street barrier tape to address how colonial infrastructures define, mark and control space and the inhabitants within them.

For a decade, Souliere has been working with material and metaphors of the road to address how systems, namely political and cultural systems inform, construct and impact personal and collective histories in contemporary society.

Utilising repetitive strategies of wrapping, binding and layering, Souliere’s artworks incorporate reflective road signage, automobile headlights and brake lights, GPS systems, construction clothing and delineators. These universal materials are stripped from their usual contexts, manipulated and repurposed into dynamic installations that discuss narratives that shape our understanding of infrastructural intervention, economic expansion and growth with the oncoming of colonial settlement.

Souliere is a member of Michipicoten First Nation, born in Toronto, Canada and is an Australian citizen with a PhD from Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney. Souliere became a visual artist after relocating to Sydney in the late 1990s. She has exhibited in North America, Austria and Australia and has held national and international art residencies. Souliere’s public art commissions include Mediating the Treaties (2017-2018) commissioned by The City of Winnipeg, Frequent Stopping V,IV,III (2019-2018) for Translink BC and Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver and Bringing Back Wabakinine (2015) commissioned by City of Toronto.

16.11.2020

Nail art has a long and complicated history that is often interconnected with racial and class discrimination.

In previous times the colour one wore on their nails was often associated with their social status. For example, in 3500 BC men painted their nails to mark their status; the colour black was reserved for upper class and green for lower class. In the 1940s and 50s painted nails were exclusively for wealthy females. Historically, working class womxn, Indigenous people, womxn of colour and non-heterosexual individuals were derided for their painted nails whether long, short, boldly coloured or embellished. In this regard nail art provides an ideal platform to build awareness of womxn issues whether social, political, cultural and historical.
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Photos: Anke Stacker
Photoshop: Lorraine Ward, Neo One Int.

Special thanks to:⠀
Anusha Lee, Angie Abdilla, Dan Tafeuni,
Nails Avenue North Sydney

17.11.2020

An everyday action, such as getting your nails done, can be a powerful and ideal means to address important political, cultural and social concerns locally and globally. Nail salons are just one means in which society imposes class and race signifiers in a most unexpected place. In most nail salons one can see a variety of people from different ethnic groups, ages and classes getting their nails done. Each person is expressing themselves and their individuality through their choice of nail shape (whether coffin or stilettos), colour, pattern and or embellishments. In this regard a multiplicity of voices on gender, feminism, queer or two-spirited histories are being made visible.

Photography credit:Anke Stacker
Photoshop credit: Lorraine Ward, Neo One Int.

Special thanks to:⠀
Anusha Lee, Angie Abdilla, Dan Tafeuni,
Nails Avenue North Sydney

18.11.2020

The growing use of Womxn in society aims to build a more inclusive, transparent and meaningful community.

Womxn is an alternative spelling of woman/women and used to create a gender-neutral language. It is used to avoid sexism, to be inclusive of transgender, intersex and non-binary people and promote equal rights for all bodies. Womxn enables the expression of the unique and lived experiences that come from being associated with a marginalised group. It is empowering and allows people of all colours, genders and body parts to be who they are and be accepted and loved. As a symbol of resistance and progressive advocacy it is happening in non-traditional spaces ….in nail salons!

Photography credit:Anke Stacker⠀
Photoshop credit: Lorraine Ward, Neo One Int.
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Special thanks to:⠀
Anusha Lee, Angie Abdilla, Dan Tafeuni, Nails Avenue North Sydney

19.11.2020

‘Blak Pussy’ is all about empowering the female body part of POC. It’s about resisting racialised gendered sexual subjection and putting forth erotic agency that was historically denied. By using the spelling of Blak (a term derived from American hip hop or rap music) by some First People of Australia it reclaims stereotypical, representational, romanticised and historical notions of blackness. The combination of the two words make it even more powerful for people to express themselves individually or collectively.

Photos: Anke Stacker @ankestar
Photoshop: Lorraine Ward, Neo One Int.

Special thanks to: Anusha Lee, Angie Abdilla, Dan Tafeuni, Nails Avenue North Sydney

20.11.2020

The combination of signs and symbols in this image is about empowering the pu$$y rather than degrading it. Hence, the term ‘bow down’. Ever since Trump said ‘grab them by the pussy’, the term has become even more empowered through womxn marches and collectives. The ‘pussy bow’ blouse has a long feminist history charged by gender politics – why not extend it to undergarments and normalise equality?

Photos: Anke Stacker
Photoshop: Lorraine Ward, Neo One Int.

Special thanks to: Anusha Lee, Angie Abdilla, Dan Tafeuni, Nails Avenue North Sydney

21.11.2020

The term ‘see this’ is all about bringing awareness to womxn issues, be it underrepresentation of womxn in Western art, gender imbalances in institutions, human rights, equal rights, abuse of power, feminism and so on. Issues such as Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women (WWIM), the social movement of Me Too in the exposure of sexual abuse and the harassment womxn have been subjected to by people in power. Know My Name also gained recognition for womxn stories, experiences and histories. Frieze editor Jennifer Higgie’s Bow Down podcast about significant women in Art History is a most welcome addition to online platforms. With the help of social media these social movements gain wider audiences thereby increasing the visibility of womxn issues.

Photos: Anke Stacker @ankestar
Photoshop: Lorraine Ward, Neo One Int.

Special thanks to: Anusha Lee, Angie Abdilla, Dan Tafeuni, Nails Avenue North Sydney