Making Believe: Questions about Mennonites and Art by Magdalene Redekop

Abstract

Reviewed by: Making Believe: Questions about Mennonites and Art by Magdalene Redekop Marlene Epp Magdalene Redekop, Making Believe: Questions about Mennonites and Art. University of Manitoba Press, 2020. 380 pp. When one glances at the title of this book, one might understandably assume it is about Mennonite artists, or art about Mennonites. In fact, it is neither of these directly, although it touches on both. The title Making Believe is dynamic and questioning, pointing to Redekop's premise that the concepts "Mennonite" and "art" interact in a spielraum, a playing space for tricksters and clowns that challenge anyone who dares to pin down definitions of either notion. While Redekop says there is "no such thing as Mennonite art," (xiv–xv) her study nevertheless describes a renaissance or "flowering" of art by Mennonites that occurred in the 1980s and 1990s. She quotes Andris Taskans who described this as a "Mennonite miracle" (3). Redekop's overall argument is, first, that the phenomenon of Mennonites and art responded to a "crisis of representation" and, second, that "cultural identity is dialogical" (xv). The question is less about what a particular art form tells us, or what the artist intended, but how it is represented as Mennonite. Further, [End Page 165] ideas about Mennonites and art, and the art itself, are formed in multiple spaces—"contact zones"—where insider and outsider meet and dialogue. The art forms highlighted in the study are music, visual art, and creative writing, with brief forays into photography, film, theatre, and dance, media that scholarship on Mennonites has rarely brought together for collective analysis. The Low German dialect itself, appearing as metaphor and story throughout the book, becomes an art form as well. The individuals she writes about are artists "who happen to be Mennonite" (xxv), not to be confused with the label "Mennonite artists." Yet many of the artists she references in detail or in passing have tangential relationships with a Mennonite ancestry. Most of her examples are at least originally from Manitoba, Redekop's home province, and have ancestry in the Dutch/ Russian Mennonite ethnic stream. The specific artists and works of art that Redekop chooses to analyze are intriguing. Some are very well known, while others are less so. Some are self-declared Mennonites, others are so-called "outsiders" creating works of art that represent Mennonites, while others exist in the liminal space between insider and outsider whether by choice or positioning. To her credit, Redekop does not fuss too much about defining her usage of the label Mennonite since she describes such a community as "a floating imaginary construct" (xvi). Her personal ambivalence about that identity helps to situate her as both critic and actor in her narrative. Following an extensive "On Beginnings" introductory section, in which Redekop posits theories about the historic roots of the "flowering" of Mennonite artforms, Making Believe has six chapters divided in two parts. Part 1, "Reframing Old Questions" explores the issue of representation using the diverse examples of Peter Power's photography of Old Order Mennonites, Glen Gould's radio documentary Quiet in the Land (and the choreography which followed), and the (in)famous feature film Stellet Licht by Carlos Reygadas. The latter stars well-known Canadian writer of Mennonite background Miriam Toews, whose work appears throughout Making Believe. Redekop discusses the role of nostalgia and anti-nostalgia in works by Paul Hiebert and John Weier, Redekop's choices revealing her own nostalgia for the Canadian prairie that pervades the book. Part 2, "Witnessing a New Phenomenon" begins with a survey of the "literary bumper crop" (165) of the Mennonite artistic renaissance. Of necessity, Redekop begins with author Rudy Wiebe, who is from Alberta, but then quickly focuses on the poetry, novels, and life writing published by and about Mennonites in Manitoba in the 1980s and 1990s. The abundance of poetry, in particular, challenged the "centuries-old dominance of [End Page 166] Mennonite historical and theological narratives" as well as "the literalism of fundamentalist thinking" (180). Poets become tricksters as they disassemble Mennonite identities. Chapters 5 and 6 focus primarily on music and visual art respectively. Musical representations include hymn singing, choral conducting, radio broadcasting, and composition. All of these...