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Indigenous resistance through tangible art

Whess Harman uses comic art and textiles to share lived experiences in the XIÁM exhibition at Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art

August 1, 2024

Whess Harman was never a “bad kid.” The worst thing he could think of doing was sneaking out to go to the movies. 

“I snuck out to go see the Lord of the Rings,” he confesses. “So my version of ‘bad kid’ was so nerdy.” 

Harman thinks youth in general are given a bad rap. He remembers being bullied relentlessly at school, only to have it stop one day. He didn’t know why. 

Ten years later, he found out his cousin, who is barely older than Harman, beat up all the bullies for him. 

His cousin was the “bad kid,” says Harman, “but I always felt like it was well-intended.” 

The experience stuck with him through the years, and today, Bad Kids is Harman’s blanket installation currently on display at the Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art in Vancouver. It’s part of XIÁM, an exhibition that combines traditional storytelling with comics. 

XIÁM in the SENĆOŦEN language means “to tell stories, specifically fictional or traditional stories”. 

The first-floor exhibition is filled with comic art from five Indigenous artists: Whess Harman (Carrier Wit’at), Jordanna George (T’sou-ke), Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas (Haida), Gord Hill (Kwakwaka’wakw), and Cole Pauls (Tahltan). 

While visitors to the gallery are met with an array of comic art interpretations, Harman’s textile installation (using Melton wool, embroidery thread, canvas, acrylic paint, plastic buttons, bone beads, glass beads and grommets) is the most radical.

XIÁM tells stories until May 19

Harman says he wanted to contribute something tangible. 

“I couldn’t help putting my curator hat on and thinking about how I could break up the wall,” he says. 

Harman is the curator at grunt gallery, at #116–350 East 2nd Ave. He says it can be hard to switch off the curatorial part of his brain when working as an artist for an exhibition space. 

The blanket, with its bold wings and dancing characters, tells the viewer a lot about Harman. He’s ambitious and loves movement. He also loves going to punk shows. 

“So I always want to capture that feeling as best I can,” he says. “That feeling of being pummelled.” 

Since Harman’s first blanket project in 2020, he’s become “obsessed” with blankets, he says. Each piece stems from, and has become part of, the Potlatch Punk series Harman is known for [https://www.whessharman.com/potlatch-punk] — a collection of thrifted jackets that offer a “loving homage” to acts of resistance against the Canadian government’s potlatch ban during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 

While comics have only recently been accepted as a more sophisticated form of art, they have a history of acting as a tool for people on the fringes of society to share news, education, lived experiences or a laugh. 

This is what Harman is sharing with his blanket. He says they’re not meant to be regalia, but to communicate a message. 

It’s important to Harman that they’re worn. 

“I want that sense of movement,” he says. “But it’s hard to do that when you don’t have dancers and songs and things to do with that.” 

Harman would like to one day have enough blankets and jackets to have a ceremony with them and have them danced in. 

“That’s my ultimate goal,” he says. “But I don’t think my relationship with my family is there yet.” 

Harman, whose home community is Fort Babine in central B.C., is the only person in his family who does not live there. 

“Part of making these blankets is that the blankets feel more like home to me,” he says. “And the intention is always for them to eventually go home.” 

XIÁM with guest curator Jordanna George, is on display at the Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art, 639 Hornby St., until May 19. Learn more at billreidgallery.ca