"To find out more about the new virtual exhibition and McMaster's work, we caught up with curators Verity Seward and Oceana Masterman-Smith of The Baldwin Gallery"

How did you come to be involved as curators and how did you go about curating this exhibition?

OM-S: Having helped found The Baldwin Gallery, which is committed to bringing First Nations and Native American art into dialogue with the European art world, I had had my eye on Meryl's career for some time. In 2017 The Baldwin opened The Sublunary World, a group exhibition that brought together sculpture by Royal Academician Tim Shaw, photography by environmental Canadian photographer David Ellingsen and work from Meryl's series In-Between Worlds and Wanderings. After The Baldwin curated a solo exhibition for Indigenous Canadian artist Sonny Assu at Canada House, Verity and I spearheaded a proposal to bring McMaster to Canada House in 2020.

As the first solo presentation of McMaster's work in London, what has the public response been like so far?

OM-S: After a hugely well-received launch, due to COVID-19, As Immense as the Sky closed to the public just one week after it had opened. However, we are planning on extending the show just as soon as the situation allows.

VS: I was so honoured to see such a great attendance for the opening back in March. It was magical to watch people encounter Meryl's work for the first time. Often, the photographs are not like anything people have seen before and they can be appreciated immediately on an aesthetic level and for their technical brilliance. We were incredibly fortunate to be joined by Rheanne Chartrand, Curator of Indigenous Art at McMaster Museum of Art and Dennison Smith, Novelist and Creative Director of The Baldwin in the panel discussion who brought up some fascinating perspectives on the work.

Are the themes exhibited in McMaster's work relevant to our current times? And if so, what can people learn from her work? 

OM-S: Meryl's artwork is more relevant than ever. COVID-19 has exposed the realities of global inequality. Just as black communities have been disproportionally affected by the pandemic, Native American communities in the United States have also suffered major blows. Meryl's photographs open up an understanding of the economic and social imbalances experienced by Indigenous peoples in a way that avoids rigid polarisation. This is the exact form of communication we need at the moment.

VS: The impacts of British colonialism are not taught widely or early enough here. I'm ashamed to admit how little I knew about what really went down in Canada (and so recently) before I lived there and the enduring legacies and systemic oppressions which still impact First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities. The events of the past few weeks remind us that, obviously, white capitalist hegemonies are engrained and persist and how damaging it is to understand colonialism as something that is finished. McMaster engages with numerous events within Canada's violent history along with the cultural, political and environmental challenges society still faces in the present – the trauma of enforced assimilation and residential schools, the necessary preservation of Indigenous knowledge, the erasure of key species in the eco-system due to agricultural and extraction industries – to name a few. Her work addresses her European and Indigenous heritage and is born out of the conversations she has had with relatives and elders on both sides. This practice provides us not only with a valuable model for listening and engagement but offers British audiences a great entry-point into various complex topics in our colonial and capitalist reality, translated into an accessible and emotionally-resonant medium.

Can you explain how the virtual gallery works and how people can still enjoy the exhibition with the gallery being closed?

VS: The virtual gallery contains a few notes from me – a bit like a curator's tour that you don't have to stand up for. I chatted with Meryl for nearly two hours back in January to learn more about her process and the depth of research she undertook to create this series. There is just so much going on so I hope it's helpful to understand a bit of backstory to the landscapes, costumes, myths and family history that she is referring to in each image. Also, for As Immense as the Sky, Meryl wrote a series of accompanying poems which we've included along with readings in Plains Cree by Dorothy Thunder. Although you won't get as much of the visceral wow factor that you might by viewing the works in the gallery at their intended scale, I hope the virtual gallery will inspire people to slow down, look closer and appreciate the minute details and nuanced symbolism that makes each image so unique and multi-