We at the IM4 Lab want to send our greatest condolences to all the family and friends of the late Taran Kootenhayoo.

At the start of this year, we lost a friend to many at the ECU: an incredible Indigenous artist, storyteller, a talented contributor to the film, art and theater communities.

Taran was an IM4 collaborator who moderated our first ever Indigenous Immersive Speakers Series, and a good friend and frequent artistic collaborator to our Operations Manager Colin Van Loon. IM4 is also preparing a podcast with Cheyanna Kootenhayoo hosting. The immense void left behind is present.

We want to acknowledge this loss. This extends to many communities and is felt ever so intensely by the Indigenous community here in Vancouver and across turtle island. Taran was a rising talent whose work had and will continue to inspire us. His spirit, humour and presence will have a lasting impact on all those who had the privilege to meet, work with and develop a friendship with him.

We send our loving prayers to IM4 team member Cheyanna Kootenhayoo and the Kootenhayoo family.

Rest In Power. Rest In Peace. Taran Standing Sunrise Jerry Kootenhayoo.

Emily Carr University of Art + Design is pleased to announce the appointment of Marcia Guno as the university’s new Vice-Provost, Students.

Marcia is from the Nisga’a Nation. Her Nisga’a name is K’amyuuwa’a. She is Laxsgiik (Eagle) and is from the House of Minee’eskw.

For the past six years, Marcia has worked as Director of the Indigenous Student Centre at Simon Fraser University.

“As I prepare myself for the amazing new journey ahead of me at Emily Carr, I carry with me my cultural values and teachings,” she says. “I am grateful for our traditional medicines and for opportunities to get out onto the land. For me, the land is a beautiful canvas, rich with art, history, language and traditional teachings for us all.

“I think of all the people who have come before me, to help strive for more inclusion and representation of Indigenous people and people of colour at all levels of educational institutions. I look forward to joining the Emily Carr community. I look forward to being in a smaller campus community, surrounded by creativity, innovation and diversity that is rich with cultural teachings.”

Full article by Perrin Grauer:  https://www.ecuad.ca/news/2020/marcia-guno-appointed-vice-provost-students

“It’s like the little engine that could,” Connie Watts, Associate Director of Aboriginal Programs at Emily Carr University, wrote to me in an email at the start of December.

Connie was reflecting on the strength of the Aboriginal Gathering Place’s programming in a year that was anything but straightforward. She and her colleagues — Brenda Crabtree, Director of Aboriginal Programs and Special Advisor to the President on Indigenous Initiatives, Aboriginal Program Coordinator Angela Marston and Sydney Pickering, AGP lead researcher — have good reason to feel a kinship with the unstoppable blue locomotive that hauled an impossible weight up a mountain. The diverse range of programming the AGP managed to deliver despite the pandemic is almost unbelievable.

With recent reports that a vaccine is on its way, Connie said she and her colleagues are looking forward to a year that may see in-person gatherings once again. But, she adds, even if things stay as they’ve been the past nine months, “we will take advantage of anything we can to make sure our community is being engaged.”

With Connie’s boundless strength and optimism as our guide, let’s take a brief journey back through the AGP’s fall term.

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All photos are by Connie Watts; courtesy of Connie Watts and the Aboriginal Gathering Place.

Fibreshed Workshops

Three workshops in 2020 were held at the AGP as part of the Shumka Centre for Creative Entrepreneurship’s Fibreshed Field School initiative.

“Led by Emily Smith, Fibreshed Field School is an experiential mentorship program that investigates ecologically sensitive and economically viable methods of local textile production,” the Shumka Centre writes.

Brenda taught the first AGP Fibreshed workshop, treating participants to a lesson on cedar basket weaving (a technique which is part of Brenda’s own material practice).

Janey Chang taught the second class — a tutorial on how to tan fish skins into supple leather. Some of Janey’s fish skins were included in the Material Practice Wellness Kits the AGP sent to students during lockdown.

Full article by Perrin Grauer: https://www.ecuad.ca/news/2020/agp-looks-back-2020

Ask Brenda Crabtree about any part of her many practices, and her answer will inevitably turn to community, history, politics or pedagogy.

This isn’t deflection. As a rule, Brenda focuses simultaneously on both what is directly in front of her, and what’s going on all around her.

“For me, it’s all about community outreach,” Brenda says. This priority can be seen as a throughline that connects her own material, artistic practice with her work as a curator, mentor, cultural consultant, educator, director of the Aboriginal Gathering Place and most recently, with her appointment to Special Advisor to the President on Indigenous Initiatives at Emily Carr University.

“The sharing and the transfer of cultural knowledge, I learned that from my grandmother,” Brenda says. “And I know how important education is. Even though traditional knowledge is relevant, we live between these worlds of traditional knowledge and contemporary knowledge.”

She notes she was the first person in her family to get a university degree.

“It was a really big deal,” she says. “So, I really see education as being a huge component in being able to live my life the way I want to live it, and being able to share, learn, make connections …”

Indeed, in 2016, Brenda was honoured by the BC Achievement Foundation as an enduring champion for Indigenous artists, and has been a key figure in developing groundbreaking programs such as Decolonizing the Healthcare System through Cultural Connections, the Urban Access to Aboriginal Art Project, and the Aboriginal Canadian Entrepreneurs artist residency.

Full article by Perrin Grauer: https://www.ecuad.ca/news/2020/leadership-profile-brenda-crabtree