Emily Carr University is pleased to announce the appointment of curator, writer, educator and arts administrator Daina Warren (BFA 2003) as Executive Director, Indigenous Intiatives.

Warren is a member of the Akamihk Montana First Nation in Maskwacis, Alta. Her appointment, which began Sept. 27, 2023, comes after an extensive international search led by Leaders International, a firm specializing in Indigenous and diversity recruitment practices.

“I am very thankful that Daina has decided to come work at Emily Carr,” says Trish Kelly, Interim President + Vice-Chancellor at ECU. “Aside from her warmth, kindness and intelligence, she is a deeply committed and engaged practitioner. Through her work and studies over the years, she’s forged enduring connections with ECU and the broader BC community. And her longstanding emphasis on supporting Indigenous-focused cultural production and learning is extraordinary. She is a person of exceptional integrity and vision, and we’re lucky to have her.”

Warren comes to the university from Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she worked both as an independent curator and as Program Manager of the Artist-in-Residence Program at the Institute of American Indian Arts. She holds a BFA in Visual Arts from Emily Carr University and a Master of Arts in Art History (Critical and Curatorial Studies) from the University of British Columbia.

“I’m thrilled to be returning to Emily Carr,” Warren says. “When I was studying at ECU, I remember how exciting and fresh everything felt. It was such an important time for me. It feels incredible to be able to be a part of that again, and to work with the AGP to support Indigenous programming and creative practice for students, staff and faculty. I feel very grateful for this opportunity.”

From 2000 to 2002, between her diploma and BFA studies at Emily Carr University, Warren was a curator-in-residence at grunt gallery in Vancouver through Canada Council’s Assistance to Aboriginal Curators for Residencies in the Visual Arts program. This led to a permanent position with grunt, where she remained as Associate Curator and Administrator until 2008. During this same period, Warren served for four years as Curatorial Assistant and Arts Administrator with the LIVE Biennale of Performance Art in Vancouver.

In 2010 and 2011, she worked as the Canada Council Aboriginal Curatorial Resident at the National Gallery of Canada in Ontario. There, she curated the group exhibition Don’t Stop Me Now. Other exhibitions of note include If These Walls Could Talk and Contains Animal Byproducts!, created for the CODE Screen 2010 Vancouver Olympics project.

From 2011 to 2022 she worked as Director and Curator at Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art in Winnipeg, Manitoba. During her time with Urban Shaman, she mentored a half dozen individuals in arts programming development, arts administration, grant writing, installation and preparatory work.

Warren has co-instructed courses with Dr. Jessica Jacobson-Konefall at both the University of Manitoba and the University of Winnipeg. She has served as a grant jury assessor for organizations ranging from Emily Carr University and the City of Vancouver to the Ontario Arts Council, British Columbia Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts. She has given curatorial talks and been an invited speaker at institutions across the country as well as internationally.

In 2015, Warren was awarded the Emily Award from Emily Carr University. That same year, she was selected as one of six Indigenous women curators as part of the Canada Council for the Arts Delegation to participate in the International First Nations Curators Exchange in Australia (2015), New Zealand (2016) and Canada (2017). In 2018, she won the Hnatyshyn Foundation Award for Curatorial Excellency. In 2020, she participated in the 22nd Biennale of Sydney, NIRIN, on invitation from Australia Council for the Arts’ Visiting International Curators program. In 2022, Daina received the Manitoba Arts Award of Distinction, which is awarded biannually in recognition of the highest level of artistic excellence and contribution to the development of the arts in Manitoba.

Watch ECU’s Alumni Stories video spotlight on Daina Warren, produced in 2015 on the occasion of her Emily Award recognition.

Artist and ECU faculty member Mimi Gellman is the recipient of a 2023 West Coast Teaching Excellence Award (WCTEA).

The prestigious award, which celebrates excellence in university teaching, was launched in 2021 by the BC Teaching and Learning Council with support from BCcampus.

“Mimi is an enormously giving and generous faculty member,” says Diyan Achjadi, Interim Vice-President Academic + Provost. “Her grace, her gentleness, her ability to bring Indigenous knowledge into the university in a way that’s generative and exploratory and supportive of community is amazing. She is there for students in every way, at all times. These qualities are endemic to how Mimi approaches the pedagogical process. She is a truly inspiring educator, and I could not be happier to see her recognized for her work.”

Mimi’s extraordinary impact on her students — and on pedagogy at Emily Carr more broadly — also points to the vital importance of a well-resourced Teaching and Learning Centre that is able to support faculty development and teaching, Diyan adds.

By Perrin Grauer, originally posted on ECU News

Recent MFA grad Eliot White-Hill, Kwulasultun (MFA 2023) was the subject of a feature article in The Discourse. The interview was also republished via Indiginews.

In a wide-ranging interview, the Snuneyumxw artist and storyteller spoke about sculpture, history, his work in the 2023 MFA exhibition and the meaning of the sacred.

“A lot of my work has been centered around a quote from elder Bill White, that Coast Salish art is to make the sacred visible,” he tells The Discourse. “I’ve been thinking about that and unpacking that. What does that mean to me? There’s certain kinds of sacred that aren’t meant for the public. And when we work as Salish artists, we don’t represent that in public.

“But there’s a lot of stuff that my great grandmother would talk about, that sacred is all around us. Sacred is every part of our being, and every part of our lives in our existence here. And so what does it mean to make art in light of that? That’s been the central point of my work here.”

Eliot also spoke with Indiginews in 2022 about his journey to becoming an artist.

Visit Eliot’s website and follow him on Instagram to learn more about his work. Watch Eliot speak about his 2021 public art project, at Beban Park Swimming Pool in Nanaimo, Xe’xe’ Squpastul u tu Thewum Qa’ ‘i’ Kwatlkwa, via YouTube.

For years before landing a job as manager at the Aboriginal Gathering Place (AGP) this past November, Kajola Morewood (BFA 2011) had wanted to work there.

The artist, educator and ECU alum worked in several departments at Emily Carr over 25 years. More recently, she worked as Indigenous initiatives and services librarian at Okanagan College. But she always remembered her first interactions with Brenda Crabtree, director of Aboriginal Programs at ECU and Special Advisor to the President on Indigenous Initiatives.

“She was so welcoming,” Kajola tells me. “She was always saying, come into this space, learn more about your culture. Because I didn’t really have a lot of that. So, I feel like she kind of changed my life.”

Kajola, whose birth mother is Inuit, grew up in a settler family between Southern Alberta and BC. She had little understanding of Inuit culture as a child. What little she knew, she learned through videos, books or presentations in school.

Brenda encouraged Kajola to foster her curiosity about her culture. In Kajola’s early days as a staff member in Student Services, Brenda helped her secure time off for a trip along the coast of Baffin Island. For the first time, Kajola saw landscapes like her mother might have known growing up in Kuujjuarapik. She also met some of the people who lived there.

In one community, Kajola visited a school gym where students were hip-hop dancing and eating country food. One of the students approached her and said he and his classmates thought she looked Inuit.

“I said, yeah, I am. He said, where do you live? I said Vancouver, and he was like, what are you doing there?” Kajola recalls.

“It was pretty cool to be recognized in that way. Because that doesn’t happen so much here. So, having the opportunity to make that trip was pretty incredible.”

This experience was an early introduction to the power of reconnecting with community.

The aspiration to share this experience with others has defined Kajola’s work. And it has deepened her exploration of the many ways Indigenous people encounter — and bridge — versions of the cultural disconnection she experienced.

Read the full article on ECU News.

By Perrin Grauer

Designer and ECU faculty member Leo Vicenti helped lead the development of the scholarship which aims to support Indigenous voices in the field of design.

A new scholarship led by the Type Directors Club (TDC) will support Indigenous designers in typography, type design and linguistic work.

Designer and ECU faculty member Leo Vicenti helped lead the scholarship’s development.

“The Ezhishin scholarship is groundbreaking,” he says. “Our hope is to acknowledge and respect the spiritual life of Indigenous languages, and support the empowerment of the linguistic diversity of this continent, which has historically underrepresented Indigenous worldviews.”

The TDC announced the Google-funded scholarship during its first Ezhishin conference in November. Ezhishin takes its name from the Ojibwe word for “s/he leaves a mark.” The event is billed as the “first-ever conference dedicated to Native North American typography.”

Leo and Ksenya Samarskaya, managing director at the TDC, coordinate the scholarship program.

“There are few Native American type designers operating today,” the TDC says in a statement. Meanwhile, “much of the type used by Native practitioners [is] designed by non-Natives.”

Leo adds that the Ezhishin scholarship fills this long-overlooked gap in the design world. Creating financial support for Indigenous designers in type-related disciplines will help Indigenous voices flourish in the design field.

Read the full article on ECU News.