Artist Statement

Video (01:30)

Tags: Video Installation, VIDEO/PLAY

The video installation “everlasting” (2016) incorporates imagery of the Everlasting Tree wampum belt and close-up footage of a cluster of white pine needles. On the wampum belt, the purple triangular forms represent the Tree of Peace: the great white pine designated by the Peacemaker, under which the five founding nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy buried their weapons. The footage of the white pine in this installation was shot on the mountain of Montreal/Tioh’tiá:ke.

• Hannah Claus is a transdisciplinary artist of Kanien’kehá:ka / English heritage who engages Onkwehon:we epistemology in her artistic practice. A 2019 Eiteljorg Fellow and 2020 recipient of the Prix Giverny, she has exhibited her installations in Àbadakone (National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; 2019-20) Blurring the Line (Eiteljorg Museum, Indianapolis; 2019), Changing Hands III (Museum of Art and Design, New York NY, 2012), and Little Spirits (North American Native Museum [NONAM], Zurich CH; 2005). Her artwork belongs to the National Gallery of Canada, the Eiteljorg Museum, NONAM, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Global Affairs and the City of Montreal. Claus joined the Board of Directors of the Conseil des arts de Montréal in 2018 and is a co-founder of daphne, a new Indigenous contemporary arts centre based in Tiohtià:ke [Montreal]. Hannah Claus is a member of the Tyendinaga Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte. hannahclaus.net