A spectacular film featuring multidisciplinary Tlingit artist, cultural lead, community engagement specialist, language speaker and regalia creator Megan Jensen (BFA 2020) creating a monumental artwork in the snow is all the more spectacular for the many threads it draws together off-screen, Megan says.

Produced along with a team of artists for Travel Yukon, Megan says she was still feeling awed by the experience more than two months after filming had wrapped.

“Starting out, I had no idea it was going to turn into something so beautiful and meaningful, with so many different layers,” she tells me from her home Whitehorse, where she moved after graduation and now works as an art media specialist with the Yukon First Nation Education Directorate. “This video made me really believe in how things happen for a reason.”

The film, titled How Raven brought light to the world, features Megan telling a creation story about Raven. By transforming himself, the Raven tricks a great Chief into giving him three coveted boxes, containing the sun, moon and stars. Once opened, the celestial bodies are released spinning into the sky, bringing light to a dark world.

Megan’s telling of the story is spoken in Lingít (Tlingit). Megan is of Dakhká Tlingit and Tagish Khwáan Ancestry from the Dahk’laweidi Clan (killer whale) which falls under the wolf/eagle moiety. And while Megan is the focus of the film, she stresses the project was a team effort, with each member’s contribution a vital part of the epic work.

Full article by Perrin Grauer: https://www.ecuad.ca/news/2021/film-snow-artwork-myriad-influences-megan-jensen