The Metal Museum has rolled out its last exhibition of this year’s “Tributaries” series with Morgan Asoyuf’s “Royal Portrait.” The exhibit highlights Tsm’syen culture in the Pacific Northwest and confronts issues spurred from colonization that have affected and infiltrated Indigenous communities.
Historically, Asoyuf explains, in Tsm’syen culture, a matriarch held the special high-ranking role of maintaining the well-being of the community, but colonization dispersed patriarchal ideals, setting the traditional Indigenous power structure off-balance.
“Now, you see the money go more toward men,” Asoyuf says. “A lot of times you see the chiefs dressed really well, but the matriarchs, who are actually supposed to have more power, don’t have any of those things.”
So Asoyuf, who works in goldsmithing, wood carving, and fashion design, has sought to rectify this through her art by uplifting the sovereignty of Indigenous women and queer and two-spirit people who advocate for land rights, environmental custodianship, and missing and murdered Indigenous women and two-spirit individuals.
“They tend to shoulder a lot of responsibility in these activism spaces,” Asoyuf says. “I’m trying to highlight our activists and land defenders and show their royalty, … that royalty [means] to respect the culture and take care of our land.”
As such, the pieces in her exhibition incorporate crowns, scepters, and necklaces — which she calls “mantles of responsibility” — made from a mix of what one might expect in European-style regalia, like diamonds and sapphires, and the unexpected, natural items, like bear claws and salmon bones, which are significant to Northwest coast culture. But the artist insists that main focus of each piece is the Northwest coastal item, with the stones and gems serving as accents.
“It’s challenging the European idea that [regalia] has to have things [like gems] to make it look expensive and royal,” Asoyuf says. “It’s like, we actually have our own materials and stuff, and our value of royalty is so different.”
“The message of art needs to be active,” she adds. And by that, she means, these pieces aren’t made for display cases; they’re meant to be part of a living culture, meant to be worn — which is why the exhibition also includes photos of various activists wearing her jewelry, dressed in full gowns and costuming. In fact, the artist often lends, trades, or gifts her pieces to activists to wear while they do their work out in the world.
“It’s not about my voice,” she says. “It’s about these people’s voices and how I can amplify that and make them stronger. What I do is the art form, the regalia, the spiritual power, but I can use that for the greater good.”
“Tributaries: Morgan Asoyuf |Royal Portrait,” Metal Museum, on display through September 25th.