Brian Jungen

Brian Jungen (b. 1970) is a Canadian artist of Dane-zaa First Nations and Swiss descent based in British Columbia. His practice transforms mass-produced consumer goods into works that interrogate the relationship between indigenous and Western material cultures, identity, and globalisation. His Prototypes for New Understanding series — ceremonial masks assembled from dismantled Nike Air Jordan trainers — are among the most discussed works in contemporary Canadian art, using Northwest Coast forms to analyse the aesthetics of sports consumer culture. Subsequent works transform golf bags, baseball gloves, and chest freezers into whale skeletons, extending this method of critical transformation.