Santee Smith's latest work is a family affair, one involving four generations of Kahnyen'kehàka artists

Toronto's Gardiner Museum is ready to unveil a new work by the artist Santee Smith, a piece that will become a permanent feature at the top of its steps on Avenue Road. 

In form, the sculpture is an earthen vessel of monumental proportions. Cracked, yet tenuously re-assembled into a recognizable shape, its etched fragments are hung together on a metal frame, suggesting harm and healing in equal measure. 

And to officially unveil the work to the public, a series of free performances will be happening outside the museum starting Friday, June 10, running nightly at 9:15 through Sunday. 

The event is being presented by Kaha:wi Dance Theatre, the company Smith founded in 2005. And indeed, her background in pottery might be surprising to audiences more familiar with her work in dance and choreography, including her recent theatrical production The Mush Hole, a story about survivors of the Mohawk Institute Residential School that won five Dora Mavor More Awards in 2020 and which toured Ontario this past spring. 

But pottery design has been part of Smith's life since childhood, beginning at her parents' studio in Six Nations of the Grand River, Talking Earth Pottery. As a bit of an homage, Smith named her sculpture Talking Earth, but the piece has an even bigger story to tell — one that's personal, nonetheless. 

"The vision of the piece was to have multilayered meanings when one looks at it," Smith tells CBC Arts, and the idea of creating a shattered sculpture was key to that concept. "The shards represent a number of things: the fractures that have happened over time to our community, and our people in the land," says Smith, an artist from the Kahnyen'kehàka Nation (Mohawk). "They're shards of knowledge that remain sometimes buried or often in museums."

And then there's another layer, one about mending what's broken and reclaiming traditions — an aspect of the piece that's inspired by her own family and a pottery-making practice that's now been passed down four generations. 

It began with her grandmother, Elda "Bun" Smith, who's credited with reviving an artform that all but disappeared during the colonial period. For centuries, the Kahnyen'kehàka people living in the Six Nations area would have made pots and cups and all manner of things out of clay. Talking Earth, Smith's sculpture, references one traditional form of vessel, Rotinohnsyonni, a four-corner pot with a pointed bottom that would have been hung over the fire for cooking. 

In the '50s and '60s, there was still evidence of a pottery tradition around Six Nations, and Smith's grandmother became fascinated by the broken artifacts she'd discover while walking near her home, fragments she'd collect and observe. This pursuit prompted her to study pottery-making techniques and decipher methods used by Kahnyen'kehàka makers who came before her. She learned to harvest her own clay and fire pots without the aid of an electric kiln, and by the '60s, she'd opened her own studio — even gifting one of her works to the Queen, presenting it at Expo '67.

Her practice would end a decade later, but she passed her knowledge on to many others, including her son (Santee's father) Steven T. Smith. Santee's mother (Leigh Smith) was one of her students, as well. 

Smith says her parents' expertise was invaluable while she was making Talking Earth. Working out of a studio at McMaster University (where she's been chancellor since 2019), Smith built the sculpture with a team of collaborators including ceramic experts Jordi Alfrao and Carmela Laganse. Her mom and dad were often on her mind as she worked. 

"I'd be calling: 'Dad, what do you think about this?' And so yes, they were very much involved in the process of developing and trouble-shooting almost every aspect of it," Smith says. The clay slip, which gives the sculpture its colour, was actually supplied by her father, and the tools she used were designed by him as well, adapted from those invented by her grandmother.

Since her teens, when she began selling her pottery designs, Smith has collaborated with her father, whose own work is already part of the Gardiner Museum's collection. But the elder artist was forced to close his studio in 2018; a severe case of West Nile virus hampered his ability to work with his hands, and he is still recovering from the effects of the disease. 

"There was a point where I thought I wouldn't be doing pottery anymore," says Smith. But when the Gardiner announced a call for Indigenous public art proposals, she realized this could be an opportunity to return to the artform and tell a story that profoundly connects to her family history. 

The vision of the piece was to have multilayered meanings when one looks at it. ... The shards represent a number of things: the fractures that have happened over time to our community, and our people in the land. They're shards of knowledge that remain sometimes buried or often in museums.- Santee Smith, artist

At the performances this weekend, large-scale projections will illuminate the façade of the Gardiner as well as the sculpture itself. Pictures of Smith's family will appear as part of that multimedia component, and her daughter, Semiah Smith, will appear live alongside her, singing and creating pottery as part of a durational performance. 

After the weekend, the sculpture —Talking Earth — will remain in its place near the front of the museum. Smith requested that specific location. "I think it's important that it's right at the entrance," she says, "because it provides the context for pottery in this land" — being both a contemporary piece, and one directly inspired by Indigenous tradition. 

It feels like a gift, says Smith, to know that it'll be seen by every person who passes through the museum's doors — not to mention anyone passing by. 

"For me, it's something very special," says Smith. "I don't actually know how I will feel when I see it there."

Talking Earth appears at the Gardiner Museum, Toronto. Its debut will be marked by a series of free performances, running June 10-12 at 9:15 p.m. Visit the museum website for more information.