The Power Plant

"This season, we are presenting two accomplished artists who in their work challenge the conventions of medium-specificity in representations of the land and of the people who live on it. Lucy Raven's slowed-down epic of the postindustrial frontier reveals how landscapes have been shaped by extractive economies, while Jeneen Frei Njootli’s materially innovative works challenge and reimagine how Indigenous presences are represented. Together, these exhibitions are an invitation to reflect on how land carries the stories of those who live on it."

—Adelina Vlas, Artistic Director

Jeneen Frei Njootli: The skies closed themselves when we averted our gaze

Curators
Frances Loeffler, Curator of Exhibitions and Sarah Edo, TD Curatorial Fellow

Jeneen Frei Njootli lives and works in their Vuntut Gwitchin homelands in Old Crow, Yukon. There is an industrial and photo-adjacent focus in their practice, which incorporates culturally intimate materials that manifest in sculpture, regalia, performance, and sound. The skies closed themselves when we averted our gaze brings together a broad range of Frei Njootli’s materially diverse works—some exhibited here for the first time—to consider how representations of Indigenous life are produced and consumed.

In a number of works, the artist has printed images onto sheets of steel, a material that speaks of land, labour, and industry, as well as the history of contemporary art, from Land art to Minimalism. Steel is a material marked by its durability but also by its live reaction to the environment. Liable to rust, any image it captures—a figure in a landscape or a northern wild rose skillfully rendered in beadwork—will change over time. These are artworks that suggest concealment as a means of safeguarding; erasure registered as loss but also protection. The artist takes the same approach with several textile-based works. Objects evoking life on the land have been wrapped in fabric or cast in resin. In the gallery, they are seen, but only through outlines, residues, and traces.

These works cite a long lineage of artists working intentionally with materials that evoke specific personal and political references, from David Hammons to James Luna. In Frei Njootli’s case, they relate directly to the community they live and work in—the self-governing Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation—speaking of ancestral memory, the transfer of knowledge systems, labour, love, kinship, and land relations.

Jeneen Frei Njootli (b. 1988, White Horse, Yukon) lives and works in Old Crow, Yukon, on their Vuntut Gwitchin homelands. Their work has been shown internationally in solo and group exhibitions at venues including Frac des Pays de la Loire (2023–24), CCS Bard Hessel Museum (2023), New Museum Triennial (2021–22), McMichael Canadian Art Collection (2020–21), Vancouver Art Gallery (2016–18), and the Toronto Biennial of Art (2020). Njootli holds an MFA from the University of British Columbia and a BFA from Emily Carr University, and is represented by Macaulay & Co. Fine Art, Vancouver.

Lucy Raven: Murderers Bar

Guest Curators
Julia Paoli, Director & Curator, The Vega Foundation with Kate Whiteway, Assistant Curator, The Vega Foundation. Developed in dialogue with the Curatorial team at The Power Plant.

Every year since 2022, The Vega Foundation has organized an exhibition together with The Power Plant. Through this annual collaboration, both organizations bring their international reach to strengthen the presentation and appreciation of artists’ film and video in Canada. This year, we are thrilled to co-present Lucy Raven’s newest work Murderers Bar (2025) which was co-commissioned and jointly acquired by The Vega Foundation and the Vancouver Art Gallery. This is the latest work in Raven’s series The Drumfire, alongside Ready Mix (2021) and Demolition of a Wall (Album 1) and Demolition of a Wall (Album 2) (both 2022). These works explore themes of material state change, pressure, force, and cycles of violence. They investigate the development of photographic and moving image technologies and apparatuses whose resultant images were integral to the surveying, seizure, exploitation, development, and advertisement of the “Western frontier."

Murderers Bar is set against the backdrop of the largest dam removal project in North American history along the Klamath River, a landmark in river restoration led by the Yurok Tribe, Karuk Tribe, Hoopa Valley Tribe, Klamath Tribes, Modoc Nation, and the Shasta Indian Nation. Through a combination of aerial and underwater imaging, the film follows water and sediment surging through the former reservoir, reclaiming a river channel dammed for over a century. Raven’s lens emphasizes the dynamics of flow, resistance, and release, highlighting the tension between industrial control and ecological freedom.

The title of the work, Murderers Bar, refers to a colloquial name given to the site along the Klamath River in reference to the settler violence that occurred there; the area was later renamed “Happy Camp” by settlers. In the naming and shaping of the work, Raven pinpoints the violence, abstraction, and erasure that has long dictated the use and transformation of this site.

The dam, the immense reservoir behind it, and the river now coursing through both, are transformed through the duration of the work. Murderers Bar finds its form from the release of water at a colossal scale, a fluid dynamics that has shaped the physical and the imaged/imagined Western United States. The moving image is accompanied by a dynamic, quadraphonic soundtrack scored by Raven’s frequent collaborator, the composer and percussionist Deantoni Parks.

Murderers Bar is co-commissioned and jointly acquired by The Vega Foundation and the Vancouver Art Gallery.

This exhibition is organized and developed by The Vega Foundation and The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery. The Vega Foundation provides critical support for artists’ film and video through meaningful investments in the production of ambitious new work, collaborations with Canadian and international institutions, and the stewardship of a growing collection. For more information, please visit www.thevegafoundation.com.

Lucy Raven (b. 1977, Tucson, Arizona) lives and works in New York City. She received a BFA in Studio Art and a BA in Art History from the University of Arizona (2000) and an MFA from Bard College (2008). Her work has been exhibited internationally at venues including the Vancouver Art Gallery, Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin, Remai Modern, Serpentine Galleries London, Dia Chelsea, and the Hammer Museum. Raven’s films and photographs appear in collections including MoMA, the Guggenheim, LACMA, Tate Britain, and the Whitney Museum. She has participated in the Whitney Biennial (2012, 2022), the Montreal Biennial (2016), and the Dhaka Art Summit (2018), and teaches at the Cooper Union School of Art.

About The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery

The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery is Canada’s leading public gallery devoted to contemporary art, ideas, and conversations. Located at Harbourfront Centre on Toronto’s waterfront, The Power Plant is a vital forum for the creative culture of our time, sharing inspiring and transformative experiences with audiences through free admission to exhibitions and public programs. The Power Plant is guided by the commitment to provide a platform for artists from diverse backgrounds, drawing attention to pressing issues and connecting communities in Canada and worldwide through contemporary art. For more information, please visit thepowerplant.org.

If you are interested in attending the Press Preview, would like to request an interview, or receive advanced images and the artist’s biographies, please email media@thepowerplant.org.