As an early celebration of International Inuit Day, we’re hosting a free one-day Inuit Film Festival on Friday, November 1. Featuring pieces from asinnajaq, Lindsay McIntyre, Glenn Gear, and the feature film Tautuktavut from directors Carol Kunnuk and Lucy Tulugarjuk. With special performance by PIQSIQ.
3pm Screening in the Reliance Theatre
6pm Performance by PIQSIQ followed by reception
We hope to see you there!
On behalf of Griffin Art Projects, Jake Kerr Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research and the Aboriginal Gathering Place at Emily Carr University, we are pleased to invite you to attend the Future Worldings Conference on Saturday, September 28, 2024 from 9 AM to 7 PM at the Reliance Theatre at Emily Carr University.
Registration is free through eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/future-worldings-conference-tickets-996368744737
[Click image for larger version.]
The Future Worldings Conference is presented in partnership with the Aboriginal Gathering Place + Jake Kerr Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research at Emily Carr University, and in collaboration with the UBC Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice.
The Future Worldings Conference considers approaches to shared “worldmaking,” employing a collective and collaborative methodology that arises from the contributions of partners, presenters and audience members. It provides a forum to work alongside and with one another to articulate and reflect on our shared relations to the unfolding concerns of thinking through decolonial futures together. It also considers how it may be possible to retain the specificities of site, body, history, access and cultural understandings in order to “world” together.
Featuring presentations with Nura Ali, Lisa Baldissera, Sven Christian, Randy Lee Cutler, Bongi Dhlomo, Sun Forest, Dora Alejandra Gaviria-Sernal, Mimi Gellman, Wezile Harmans, Lebogang Mogul Mabusela, Pebofatso Mokoena, David Ng, Usha Seejarim, Daniel Stompie Selibe, Sikho Siyotula, Karen Tam, Pat Vera, Daina Warren, and Xwalacktun.
The day’s events will also feature a special post-conference Reception & Performances with Pebofatso Mokoena and See Monsters, to be held from 5 PM to 7 PM at the Aboriginal Gathering Place.
Free registration through eventbrite.
Click on the image below to see the Future Worldings Booklet. Includes the conference schedule, detailed information on panel topics, panelist biographies, and more!
In addition to the conference, the Future Worldings exchange also feature a number of public programs which will be taking place over the forthcoming weeks:
Sunday, September 15 — 12 – 4:00 PM
Open Studios & Performance with Future Worldings Artists
Presented in Collaboration with Contemporary Art Society Vancouver
In Person: Griffin Art Projects, 1174 Welch Street, North Vancouver
Explore Open Studios with the Future Worldings artists, featuring three South African artists—Lebogang Mogul Mabusela, Pebofatso Mokoena and Wezile Harmans—and three Canadian artists—Nura Ali, Sun Forest and Xwalacktun—as part of the Future Worldings residency at Griffin Art Projects. Presented in Collaboration with Contemporary Art Society Vancouver.
Friday, September 27 — 6 – 8:00 PM
Future Worldings Opening Reception & Artist Walkthrough
In Person: Griffin Art Projects Residency Studios and Griffin Art Projects, 1180 Welch Street + 1174 Welch Street, North Vancouver
Join us for the opening reception and tour of Future Worldings, curated by Lisa Baldissera, Usha Seejarim and Karen Tam, featuring Canadian artists Nura Ali, Sun Forest and Xwalacktun, and South African artists Lebogang Mogul Mabusela, Pebofatso Mokoena and Wezile Harmans.
We look forward to welcoming you to the Future Worldings Conference!
For more information and details on the full Future Worldings project, visit Griffin Art Projects.
Future Worldings is generously supported by funding received from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Freybe Foundation, the Government of Canada, the Hamber Foundation, Metro Vancouver’s Regional Cultural Project Grants program, the Michael and Inna O’Brian Family Foundation, North Vancouver Recreation and Culture, the Peter and Betty Haworth Fund at the West Vancouver Foundation, and the Vancity Community Branch Grant. Xwalacktun’s South African residencies were generously supported by funding received from the BC Arts Council’s Professional Development grant.
Future Worldings is produced in partnership with the Aboriginal Gathering Place and the Jake Kerr Faculty of Graduate Studies at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Artist Proof Studios, Bag Factory, Contemporary Art Society Vancouver, NIROX Foundation, Similkameen Artist Residency and Transformative Memory Network / Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, University of British Columbia.
The staff in the Aboriginal Gathering Place recognize the life and art of Preston Buffalo, a Two-Spirited Cree student who passed away on June 12, 2024.
Preston was a member of the Samson Cree Nation in Maskwacis, Treaty 6 territory. He began his journey at Emily Carr in 2018, a time in which his sister recalls that his art career “exploded to this creative amazement.” Earlier that year he had designed a logo for CBC that honoured both Pride and Indigenous History Month.
In an interview with CBC, he talked about wanting to evolve and modernize Indigenous art and how the impact of colonialism had caused two-spirited voices to be lost. SUM Gallery, where he had recently completed a four-week artist residency, shared how “his overall objective [was] to create visual expressions that encourage new perspectives on Indigenous art, emphasizing its significance in contemporary society and its contribution to an ongoing dialogue.”
Fellow ECU student, Nevada Lynn, shares “It was inspiring to have Preston attending Emily Carr during my time there. His work was always executed with intention and precision, he had a unique and visionary approach to making, and his pieces were always beautiful and thought provoking. I looked up to him for his strength and confidence as an artist and I loved his work. He shone brightly and in his quiet way raised the bar for all of us.”
Our thoughts go out to his family and friends. He will be missed.
***
CBC Arts. (2018, June 1). Because June is Pride and National Indigenous History Month, we commissioned this radiant new logo. https://www.cbc.ca/arts/because-june-is-pride-and-national-indigenous-history-month-we-commissioned-this-radiant-new-logo-1.4686501
Grauer, P. (2021, June 3). Preston Buffalo is Taking the Power Back. Emily Carr University of Art and Design. https://www.ecuad.ca/news/2021/preston-buffalo-is-taking-the-power-back
Phan Nay, I. (2024, July 3). Vancouver-based artist, hairdresser Preston Buffalo dead at 44. CBC. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/preston-buffalo-remembered-1.7252803
SUM Gallery. (n.d.). Artist Residency-Preston Buffalo. https://sumgallery.ca/artist-residency-preston-buffalo/
Originally posted on ECU News.
The Board of Governors at Emily Carr University of Art + Design (ECU) is pleased to announce Carleen Thomas’s reappointment as Chancellor of the university.
“As the Board Chair of Emily Carr University of Art + Design, it has been an absolute pleasure to work with Carleen on enhancing our impact in the community,” says Don Avison, K.C. “I look forward to progressing our centennial year goals with Carleen’s invaluable guidance and support.”
She begins her appointment on August 1. Carleen is currently the Acting Principal at the Tsleil-Waututh Nation siʔáḿθət School and was previously the Special Projects Manager in the Treaty, Lands, and Resources department.
“I am deeply honoured and delighted to be reappointed as Chancellor of Emily Carr University,” says Carleen. “Returning to this vibrant community is a privilege, and I am committed to continuing our work towards decolonization and Indigenization. Together, we can foster an environment that supports the flourishing of Indigenous knowledge, art, and culture. I look forward to working closely with the students, staff, faculty, and the wider community to realize these goals.”
Prior to her position as Acting Principal at the siʔáḿθət School, Carleen served eight two-year terms as an elected council member for the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, where she held the Community Development portfolio covering health and education.
Carleen holds a bachelor’s degree in education from the University of British Columbia. She has previously worked for the North Vancouver and Burnaby school districts as a district resource teacher in Indigenous education. She has also sat on the Burnaby School District’s Aboriginal Advisory Committee and served as the Aboriginal Representative Chair in the Capilano University Senate.
“Under Carleen’s leadership, our university will continue to strive toward our vision of excellence by delivering a world-class education in art, media, and design for our students,” says Trish Kelly, President and Vice-Chancellor. “Collaborating with Carleen for the last three years has been an incredibly rewarding experience, particularly as ECU advances our Indigenization and decolonization initiatives. She has shown fearless leadership and unwavering dedication to advocating for students across all educational levels.”
The Chancellor serves as the ceremonial head of the university, a member of the Board of Governors and the Senate, and an external ambassador for the institution. The Chancellor presides over major ceremonies, including Convocation and confers degrees to graduating students.
The staff in the Aboriginal Gathering Place wish to recognize the incredible life and work of Alex Janvier who recently passed away at the age of 89. Born on Le Goff Reserve, Cold Lake First Nations, Janvier was of Dene Suline and Saulteaux heritage.
At the age of eight, he was made to attend the Blue Quills Indian residential school. He spoke of losing his “world of communication” and used his time in art class to think about home and connect to his community’s traditional art forms. He described these Friday afternoon classes as his safe haven. By the time he turned fifteen, people were already referring to him as an artist.
He went on to attend what is now the Alberta University of the Arts and graduated with honours, becoming one of the first accredited First Nations artists in Canada.
In the 1970s he became a founding member of the Professional Native Indian Artists Incorporated (PNIAI) which aimed to address what Viviane Gray described as the “struggle to be recognized as artists by Canada’s art institutes and public galleries.” Janvier wanted to bring Indigenous art out of ethnological and war museums and into mainstream Canada, stating that “we had a vision and we believed that we had something.”
PNIAI came to be known as the Indian Group of Seven, though Michelle Lavallee notes that the members never referred to themselves this way. Their work in fighting against exclusionary practices in mainstream galleries and museums created a momentum for Indigenous artists and organizations that continues today even after their dissolution in 1979.
Janvier had a distinct style with a signature sinuous line. He was able to bring together his western art training with his Dene culture, incorporating aspects of quillwork and beadwork into his modernist paintings. As Marc Mayer described, Janvier’s work is “recognizable for its calligraphic lines, vivid colours, Dene iconography and forms that evoke land, sky, galaxies and microscopic life.” He honoured the land while also commenting on the difficult relationships between Indigenous Peoples and the government over traditional territories.
“I come from people who lived directly in nature. As a child, I loved to listen to stories told by the old ones, and I watched them beading and working with porcupine quills…We sat around in circles. We had to be quiet and we observed. This storytelling was my inspiration to create.”
Throughout his career he received numerous awards and honours including Member of the Alberta Order of Excellence, Member of the Order of Canada, Member of the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts and the Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts.
His work can be found in prominent public and private collections and has been exhibited nationally and internationally.
References:
Hill, G. A. (2016). Alex Janvier (L.-A. Martin, C. Dueker, & A. Janvier (Eds.)). National Gallery of Canada.
LaVallee, M. (2014). 7: Professional Native Indian Artists Inc. MacKenzie Art Gallery.
National Gallery of Canada. (2017, March 2). Alex Janvier: in Conversation [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/I5XRRF2FZcg?si=Bp8kLjZsYoQmr9AC
Launched in 2023 by the Aboriginal Gathering Place at ECU, this year’s event brought together nearly two dozen Indigenous artists and designers to showcase their work.
The second annual Indigenous Summer Market at Emily Carr University of Art + Design (ECU) brought together nearly two dozen Indigenous artists and designers to showcase their innovative and thoughtful practices to the public.
Launched in 2023 by the Aboriginal Gathering Place (AGP) at ECU, the event brings a focus on creative practice in the present to National Indigenous History Month.
“These markets provide a low-barrier opportunity for Indigenous students and working artists to gain experience and grow their practices,” says Sydney Pascal, AGP Aboriginal Program Coordinator. “We regularly see ideas and material techniques exchanged between participants, and there’s a real sense of care and community infusing the event. We view it as a positive, fun and meaningful way to support and drive interest in Indigenous creativity.”
Vendors included Indigenous ECU students and alums, while Indigenous staff and faculty at ECU were also invited to participate. A small number of tables were offered to experienced, local Indigenous practitioners from around Vancouver, including a great exchange of artists with the Native Education College. In all cases, no fees or commissions are collected for participation.
A wide variety of items, from clothing and jewelry to prints, paintings and other objects and artworks, were available for sale.
Artist and third-year ECU student Kimberly Ronning (BFA 2025) says the event advances the AGP’s mission to provide a hub for community connection and culturally specific material-based practice. The Aboriginal Gathering Place is a vital resource for Indigenous students who may be considering studying outside their home communities, she adds.
“The Summer Market brings together people from different Nations to represent different types of art and helps them grow their networks,” she says. “It’s also a great way to get our crafts out there, get us working with our hands again and bring back our traditions. It’s a good opportunity for us to showcase everything we do with friends and the public.”
Artist and ECU alum Leila Berg (BDes 2023), who participated in previous Indigenous markets as a student, says the event offers a chance to explore new corners of their creative practice.
“Participating in the market allowed me to get to know what I like as an artist rather than as a student making work for classes,” they say. “The things I make for the market are more personal than anything I did throughout school. And students can get a taste of what it’s like being a working artist. For me, that was an important lesson.”
The second annual AGP Winter Market will take place at ECU in November 2024.
By Perrin Grauer. Originally posted on ECU News.
The artist and ECU staff member + alum brings her distinct voice and material language to her first solo outing at a major public gallery.
New work by artist and Emily Carr University of Art + Design (ECU) staff member Sydney Frances Pascal (MFA 2023) is featured in a solo exhibition at The Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver.
Titled Sydney Frances Pascal: We raised ourselves together and alone, the show includes seven animal hides in a meditation on the anxious and hopeful act of looking to the past and future at a moment of great change.
“I wanted to think seven generations back and to imagine whether there will be seven generations going forward given the uncertainty with the world, with life in general,” says Sydney, a member of the Líl̓wat Nation and Aboriginal program coordinator at the Aboriginal Gathering Place.
The seven hides are anchored to the gallery’s walls and ceiling by yellow construction rope. Some are adorned with photo transfers featuring historical figures, while others bear a “personal symbology” rendered in red ochre. The hides include buckskin, rawhide and smoked rawhide — all different stages of the traditional hide-tanning process.
The hides themselves point to Líl̓wat traditions that continue to connect families and communities. Meanwhile, the construction rope references colonial forces that aim to pull those communities apart. This relationship parallels how Indigenous people must “learn to adapt, learn to live in this space — it’s just part of the tension of life now,” she says.
We raised ourselves together and alone embodies the paradox of this tension, from despair to promise. For Sydney, that promise is most clearly reflected in the practice of acknowledging and honouring tradition, history, family and community — values she believes offer hope for humanity’s most entrenched problems.
An image of Sydney’s great-great-grandfather, Líl̓wat Chief William Pascal, taken at Spence’s Bridge during the signing of the Líl̓wat Declaration of Independence, is featured in the work, while the use of red ochre gestures toward stories Sydney heard about ancestors painting their faces with red ochre to protect themselves from powerful energies. Ochre was also used by Lil̓wat7ul to paint pictographs, some of which remain visible today.
Sydney had her brother mark the back of each hide with a “fingerprint of ochre with bear grease as a form of protection,” she says.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about pictographs and how I can create my own symbology to tell a new story using old forms. So, by integrating an old symbology and old forms of storytelling into the present time, I can create my own symbology that makes sense for this time. It’s like bringing them into the room to witness what’s happening.”
The title of the work is drawn from a poem titled Who Am I?, written by her grandmother when she first reconnected with Sydney’s mother. The pair were forcibly separated decades earlier by child welfare authorities during the Sixties Scoop.
One of the hides in the show was tanned by Sydney’s hide-tanning mentor, master tanner Mara Cur. And Sydney’s brother Daniel, who now works with The Polygon, assisted her with the installation of the work.
“Hide-tanning — and just art in general — are community-based. It’s not just me. There are so many people involved in helping me,” she says, adding that seeing these works in a major public gallery suggests the tradition may remain durable even in an uncertain future. “Having hide-tanning in institutional spaces and seeing more artists view hides in their own way as a form of expression or storytelling makes me feel like the practice is coming back.”
Sydney Frances Pascal: We raised ourselves together and alone runs through Sept. 22 at the Polygon Gallery. As part of the exhibition, a screening of film works by Sydney and artist Aerial Sunday-Cardinal (Nehiyaw, Plains Cree) will take place on Thursday, June 20, at the Polygon. The screening will be followed by a conversation between Sydney and Aerial, moderated by exhibition curator Joelle Johnston. Admission is free and open to the public.
Listen to Sydney and Joelle, who also works as Indigenous liaison and community outreach at Polygon, speak about the show with reporter Jeremy Ratt on CBC’s North by Northwest.
Visit Sydney’s website and follow her on Instagram to learn more about her work.
The filmmaker and ECU faculty member brings a pair of personal projects to the renowned fellowship programs in New Mexico and New York.
Artist, filmmaker and Emily Carr University of Art + Design (ECU) faculty member Lindsay McIntyre has been awarded a pair of prestigious fellowships from the Sundance Institute and Forge Project.
Having returned from the initial in-person intensive at the Sundance Institute’s Native Lab, held this year in New Mexico, Lindsay spoke in glowing terms about the experience.
“It’s an incredible group of people,” she says of her peers and the mentorship team at Sundance. “They’re brilliant and very supportive and it’s made a world of difference to have people care so deeply and invest in thinking about what I’m doing, what it could be and how it could happen. It was fantastic being in Santa Fe.”
Lindsay’s focus at Sundance is the script for her upcoming feature film, The Words We Can’t Speak. She’s been working with the story in various forms since 2004, but writing the dramatic feature has been a focus for the past five years.
The narrative is based on the lived experience of Lindsay’s Inuk grandmother in the late 1930s. A version of the story animates Lindsay’s recent, award-winning short, NIGIQTUQ ᓂᒋᖅᑐᖅ (The South Wind), which Lindsay views as a kind of preview of the broader story she hopes to tell.
The Words We Can’t Speak represents Lindsay’s entry into feature-length drama. She notes the time she’s taken with development is a function of the care and integrity with which she insists on treating the story and its telling at every stage.
“To assume you can entertain somebody for two hours or that your story is important enough to tell at that length is not something I’ve ever felt before,” she says. “But this particular story is based on a true story, and in making it, I aim to honour my grandmother, the Inuit community connected to the story and the story itself. It will only be told once and it has to be done right. It’s a story I want everyone to feel in their bones.”
Lindsay adds that community consultation and reciprocity have figured into every part of the film’s development and will continue to do so. For instance, shooting on location in Nunavut is a “non-negotiable,” she says. Likewise, it will be important to create mentorship opportunities for Inuit youth throughout pre-production and production and limit hierarchical filming structures.
This model for film production is unusual, Lindsay continues. However, filmmakers such as Zacharias Kunuk, Rhayne Vermette and Sarah Polley are already demonstrating how great films can be made while overturning longstanding paradigms.
“I think it’s important to hold fast to your vision for a project,” she says. “That’s how we make work that is unique, different and important, and that tells important stories.”
Read the full story on ECU News.
We are excited to be hosting our 2nd Indigenous Summer Market at ECU as part of Indigenous History Month. This year we will host over 20 Indigenous vendors in the Michael O’Brian Exhibition Commons (right outside the AGP on the second floor). Please join us!
Indigenous Summer Market
Emily Carr University of Art + Design
520 E 1 Ave, Vancouver, BC
June 14: 1pm to 7pm
June 15: 11am to 4pm
We are excited to announce an upcoming exhibition at the Libby Leshgold Gallery, Your Old Way Kind of Vision, curated by Daina Warren.
Opening Reception
May 31, 2024, 6pm-9pm
Exhibition Dates
June 1 – 30, 2024
Your Old Way Kind of Vision brings together the works of four artists – Siku Allooloo, Catherine Blackburn, Wally Dion, and Charlene Vickers – who explore their Indigenous backgrounds through distinct artistic practices. Using Allooloo’s poem as a jumping off point, the exhibition uplifts ways of seeing, living, and making that evoke a sense of possibility, return, and expansion in relation to contemporary Indigenous identities. Through a diversity of approach each artist builds nuance through materials and ideas that speak equally of traditional material cultures and contemporary vision. Far from a dichotomy of past and present, Your Old Way Kind of Vision expresses a deeply layered and sensory engagement, highlighting an expansive re-imagining of traditional concepts – and the practices that are shaping Indigenous contemporary art into the future.
Artist/Photo Credit: Wally Dion
bison quilt, 2023. 127.25H x 106.25W, fabric, copper pipe
Libby Leshgold Gallery
Emily Carr University of Art + Design
520 E 1 Ave, Vancouver, BC
Open daily, 12pm-5pm