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Four Faces of the Moon

Four Faces of the Moon is a multi-media installation that provides a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the elaborate sets, puppets, and props created for the new stop motion animated film by the same name. The story is told in four chapters, which explore the reclamation of language and Nationhood, and peel back the layers of Canada’s colonial history.

A personal story told through the eyes of director and writer Amanda Strong, as she connects the oral and written history of her family as well as the history of the Michif (Métis), Cree and Anishinaabe people and their cultural ties to the buffalo. Canada’s extermination agenda of the buffalo isn’t recorded as fervently as it was in the United States, yet the same tactics were used north of the border to control the original inhabitants of the land. This story seeks to uncover some of that history and establish the importance of cultural practice, resistance and language revival from a personal perspective.

Artistic collaborators include: Bracken Hanuse Corlett, Raven John, Femke van Delft, Chloe Bluebird, Dora Cepic, Dusty Hagerud, William Weird, Daniel Guay, Lydia Brown, Terrance Azzuolo, Callum Paterson, Tim Daniel, Joce Weird, Ian Nakamoto, Lynn Dana Wilton, Zed Alexander, Danielle Wilson, Damien Buddy Eaglebear, Colour Sound Lab Studio, Boldly Creative, Outpost Media and Menalon Music, along with the support of many others.

ARTIST BIO

Amanda Strong is an Indigenous filmmaker, media artist and stop motion director currently based out of the unceded Coast Salish territory also known as Vancouver. She is the owner and director of Spotted Fawn Productions, an animation and media-based studio creating short films, commercial projects and workshops. A labour of love, Amanda’s productions collaborate with a diverse and talented group of artists putting emphasis on support and training women and Indigenous artists.

Amanda’s work explores ideas of blood memory and Indigenous ideology. Her background in photography, illustration and media extend into her award-winning stop motion animations. Her films Indigo and Mia’ challenge conventional structures of storytelling in cinema and have screened internationally, most notably at Cannes, TIFF, VIFF, and Ottawa International Animation Festival. Amanda has received numerous grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council and the NFB. In 2013, Amanda was the recipient of the K.M. Hunter Artist Award for Film and Video, and most recently the recipient of the Vancouver Mayors Arts Awards for Emerging Film and Media Artist. Amanda is currently working on her latest short animation Four Faces of the Moon for CBC Short Docs. The story is told in four chapters, exploring the reclamation of language and Nationhood, while peeling back the layers of Canada’s colonial history, revealing Canada’s extermination agenda on the buffalo.

Four Faces of the Moon is made possible with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, CBC, Telus, BC Arts Council, Creative BC, Ontario Arts Council and the NFB Filmmakers Assistance Program.

LINKS

> Purchase the exhibition catalogue online in our GIFT SHOP

> Spotted Fawn Productions

> Check out this timelapse video of the Four Faces of the Moon installation process, filmed by our wonderful volunteers Rosalina Cerritos and Jaime Torres:

***WE ARE EXCITED TO ANNOUNCE the addition of a live audio-visual performance to the Four Faces of the Moon exhibition opening night on July 21st at grunt gallery. At 8pm Mob Bounce will be performing a half-hour set and they will be joined by media artist Bracken Hanuse Corlett.

Craig Frank Eades aka the Northwest Kid and Travis Hebert aka Heebz the Earthchild formed Mob Bounce in 2010 and they have been touring the country ever since. With their conscious message, dynamic style, and powerful sound steeped in Indigenous oral tradition, they are part of a new generation of artists pushing forward while respecting their roots and culture. They recently released their EP Mob Medicine and a short documentary about them was also released under the same title.

Mob Bounce on Facebook

Mob Medicine EP review and Download

Mob Medicine Mini-Doc

 

 

 

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Spark Artist Talks

Free and open to the public, Spark Artist Talks are casual lunch-hour conversations, presentations, and talks on the third Thursday of each month from 12:15-1pm. Spark features emerging Indigenous artists with diverse art practices ranging from carving to spoken-word, and from photography to ceramics. Though Spark Talks were long held at the Native Education College, due to the COVID-19 pandemic they will be hosted online until further notice.

Did you miss or want to revisit a Spark Talk? Click here for some recordings of past Spark Talks!

Past Spark Talks:

Spark Artist Talk feat. Emily Critch
Thursday, March 17th 2022, 12:15-1pm
Online via Zoom

Emily Critch is a Mi’kmaw and settler artist, curator, and writer from Elmastukwek, Ktaqmkuk Territory (Bay of Islands, NL). She received her BFA in Visual Arts from Memorial University of Newfoundland (2018). She has had solo exhibitions of her work at the Tina Dolter Gallery (Corner Brook, NL), Eastern Edge (St. John’s, NL), St. Michaels Printshop (St. John’s, NL), and Galerie Sans Nom (Moncton, NB). Her work has been included in several group exhibitions at the Grenfell Art Gallery (Corner Brook, NL), The Rooms (St. John’s, NL), and Hafnarborg (Hafnarfjörður, Iceland). Her art practice has been supported by ArtsNL, and has been the recipient of several awards including the Ellen Rusted Award for Print Media, the 2020 VANL Cox & Palmer Pivotal Point Grant, longlisted for the 2021 Scotiabank New Generation Photography Award, and the 2020-2021 Don Wright Scholarship at St. Michael’s Printshop. Her work has been featured in publications such as Riddle Fence, Future Possible: An Art History of Newfoundland and Labrador, and Visual Arts News. She is currently based in St. John’s, NL, working remotely as the Program Coordinator with the Indigenous Curatorial Collective / Collectif des commissaires autochtones, and the 2021-23 Adjunct Curator with the Owen’s Art Gallery.

Spark Artist Talk feat. Keysha Rivera
Thursday, February 17th 2022, 12:15-1pm
Online via Zoom

Keysha Rivera is an emerging artist of Taino Indigenous ancestry, living and working on Chitimacha, Houma, and Choctaw territory also known as New Orleans. Keysha uses different modes of textile making to reflect on Puerto Rican identity, migration, colonialism, and Puerto Rican futurism. Rivera is building anticolonial narratives by using crafts such as sewing to stitch together intergenerational experiences that act as a form of resistance to U.S. occupation in Puerto Rico.

Spark Artist Talk feat. Bridget Goerge (Nimkiinagwaagankwe)
Thursday, January 27th 2022, 12:15-1pm
Online via Zoom

Bridget George (Nimkiinagwaagankwe) is an Anishinaabe illustrator, children’s book author and graphic designer from Kettle and Stony Point First Nation. They are the author of the children’s book It’s a Mitig!, a dual-language book written to support families like theirs that are working to reclaim the Anishinaabeg language with their children. They recently were presented with the Periodical Marketers of Canada’s Indigenous Literature Award for It’s a Mitig!.

Spark Artist Instagram Takeover feat. Decolonize Springfield
November 14—20th, 2021
Online via grunt gallery’s Instagram account

@decolonizespringfield is a multi-nation collective of Indigenous women and two spirits from Turtle Island united by their passion for The Simpsons and memes that speak to their experiences.

Spark Artist Talk feat. Manuel Axel Strain
Thursday, October 21st 2021, 12:15-1pm
Online via Zoom

Manuel Axel Strain is a non-binary 2-Spirit artist with xʷməθkʷəyəm (Musqueam)/Simpcw/Syilx ancestry, based in the sacred homelands and waters of their Katzie and Kwantlen relatives. Although they attended Emily Carr University of Art + Design they prioritize Indigenous epistemologies through the embodied knowledge of their mother, father, siblings, cousins, aunties, uncles, nieces, nephews, grandparents and ancestors. Creating artwork in collaboration with and reference to their relatives, their shared experiences become a source of agency that resonates through their work with performance, land, painting, sculpture, photography, video, sound and installation. Their artworks often envelop subjects in relation with ancestral and community ties, Indigeneity, labour, resource extraction, gender, Indigenous medicine and life forces. Strain uses their art practice to confront and undermine the imposed realities of colonialism. Proposing a new space beyond its oppressive systems of power. They have contributed work to Capture Photography Festival through Richmond Art Gallery, the Vancouver Art Gallery, Surrey Art Gallery, and more distant places across Turtle Island.

Spark Artist Talk feat. Paige Pettibon
Thursday, May 20th, 2021, 12:15-1:00pm
Online via Zoom

Paige Pettibon (Black, Salish, White) is a Tacoma, Washington-based multidisciplinary artist. Her studio practice is to represent her diverse culture and to amplify the voices of people in her community.

Growing up, Pettibon’s parents fostered her exposure to art with support and encouragement. She attributes her success as an emerging artist to her community and family. Before COVID, she dedicated her time to  mentoring youth and families, and sharing her knowledge. Now, she tries to help at home by creating content and Zoom presentations for her community.

Currently, Pettibon is working on showing at the National Museum of the Native American for an online exhibit that showcases Afro-Indigenous artists across America. She has multiple collaborative projects that will be public in the coming months.

Spark: Fireside Artist Talk feat. Paul Gonzales
Thursday, April 15th, 2021, 12:15-1:00pm
Online via Zoom


Paulo Gonzales is a California desert born, Seattle-based photographer with a BFA in Photography from Seattle University. He has exhibited at Vachon Gallery, Photographic Center Northwest, and has had work presented in the Short Run Comix and Arts Festival. Much of Paulo’s work is in zines and self published books. His work explores his Mexican heritage, housing/structure, and memory. *he/him⠀

Spark: Fireside Artist Talk feat. Ocean Hyland / shḵwen̓/ ts;simtelot
Thursday, March 18th, 2021, 12:15-1:00pm
Online via Zoom

“shḵwen̓ kwi en sna, chen íp’is kwi kwshámin ts;simtelot. chen tína7 tl’a átsnach úxwumixw.
As an indigenous artist, I continuously strive to deepen my understanding of my art practices and what that means to my culture and community. I paint, draw, carve/engrave, and weave. I also study the Squamish language and ethnobotany.
I love working for my community and I enjoy collaborating with artists who are committed to enriching the communities they live in. I love creating art that feeds off of reciprocal relationships. I am constantly learning how to navigate what it means to be an indigenous artist upholding the values of my community as well as the values held in creating art in the contemporary world. I will continue to strive to carry these tools and knowledge the best I can to share as those before me always have.” *she/her⠀
Spark: Fireside Artist Talk feat. Ovila Mailhot
Thursday, October 22nd, 2020, 12:15-1:00pm
Online via Zoom

Ovila is a Coast Salish artist originally from Seabird Island, BC. Carrying roots from Nlaka’pamux & Stó:lō Nation, his work utilizes elements of Salish art that have been passed down through generations. Believing that carrying on the tradition of this work is necessary for his culture and for healing, Ovila adds to a cultural continuum working primarily in graphic design. *he/him ⠀

Spark: Fireside Artist Talk feat. Roxanne Charles
Thursday, February 20th, 2020, 12:15-1:00pm
Native Education College
285 East 5th Avenue

Roxanne Charles of Semiahmoo First Nation is a cultural historian employing means of visual representation, oral history, and ceremony. Methods which have been utilized by Semiahma People for thousands of years. Roxanne holds two undergraduate degrees from Kwantlen Polytechnic University and has recently completed her Master of Fine Arts at Simon Fraser University. Roxanne’s work directly responds to a troubling colonial present and documents a variety of issues that reflect her life experience such as spirituality, identity, urbanization, food security, resource extraction, trauma, and various forms of systemic violence.

Spark: Fireside Artist Talk feat. Tawahum
Thursday, January 30th, 2020, 12:15-1:00pm
Native Education College
285 East 5th Avenue

Łutselk’e Dene, Plains Cree, Two-Spirit, Nonbinary poet, Tawahum Bige resides on unceded Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh and Squamish territory. Published in Red Rising, Prairie Fire, EVENT, and Poetry is Dead Magazines, Tawahum’s poetry makes vulnerable the process of growing, resisting and being a hopeless sadboy on occupied Turtle Island. They’ve performed on stages including Talking Stick Festival, Verses Festival of Spoken Word, and have completed the first ever Indigenous Spoken Word residency at the Banff Centre in 2018, with their BA in Creative Writing. They invite you to join them on this journey that is both emotionally personal and deeply political.
*he/they pronouns

Spark: Fireside Artist Talk feat. Kelsey Sparrow
Thursday, November 21st, 2019, 12:15-1:00pm
Native Education College
285 East 5th Avenue

Kelsey Sparrow is a multidisciplinary artist – Musqueam on her Father’s side of the family and White Fish River on her Mother’s. A graduate from Langara with a Diploma in Fine Arts and currently a student at ECUAD, she is working across disciplines with a focus on ceramics. Land/territory, family history, and the positionality of Indigenous identity in pop culture and academia are themes that emerge in her work. Most recently she was featured in the exhibits ‘indigenous artists only’ at Crescent Beach Pop-up Gallery and ‘Staring in Coast Salish’ at Arbutus Gallery. *she/her pronouns

Spark: Fireside Artist Talk feat. Jordana Luggi
Thursday, October 17th, 2019, 12:15-1:00pm
Native Education College
285 East 5th Avenue

Jordana Luggi is a Dakelh & Wet’suwet’en photographer from the Stellat’en First Nation in BC’s northern interior. She graduated from Emily Carr University with a BFA in Photography in 2014 and currently works as the Education Curator at the Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art. While her earlier works utilized traditional materials in conjunction with contemporary methods of image-making, her practice now explores techniques in traditional photographic portraiture with a focus on Indigenous subjects and stories.
*she/her pronouns

Spark: Fireside Artist Talk No. 26 feat. Atheana Picha
Thursday, September 19, 12:15-1:00pm
Native Education College
285 East 5th Avenue

From her experiences growing up and learning about her culture, Atheana Picha works within the tradition of Coast Salish art to depict the natural environment using vivid colour palettes and gracefully balanced design elements.

Picha is a Coast Salish multimedia artist from the Kwantlen First Nation currently working with ceramics, carving, and painting. A two-time recipient of the YVR Art Foundation Emerging Artist Scholarship, she will be returning to Langara College in the fall to continue learning how to carve from Squamish artist Aaron Nelson-Moody, and to further her experience in printmaking processes. As the youngest artist to participate in the Vancouver Mural Festival in 2018, Picha continues to work in public and community art. She/her pronouns

Spark: Fireside Artist Talk No. 25 feat. Kali Spitzer
Thursday, April 18, 12:15-1:00pm
Native Education College
285 East 5th Avenue

Image: INDIGENOUS MOTHERHOOD (Erena and Padi), 2018

Kali Spitzer is Kaska Dena from Daylu (Lower Post, British Columbia) on her father’s side and Jewish from Transylvania, Romania on her mother’s side. She is from the Yukon and grew up on the West Coast of British Columbia in Canada on unceded Coast Salish Territory. She is a trans disciplinary artist who mainly works with film — 35mm, 120 and wet plate collodion process using an 8×10 camera. Her work includes portraits, figure studies, and photographs of her people, ceremonies, and culture. Her work has been exhibited and recognized internationally. Spitzer recently received a Reveal Indigenous Art Award from the Hnatyshyn Foundation and was featured in the National Geographic and Photo Life in 2018. *She/her pronouns

Spark: Fireside Artist Talk No. 24 feat. Alanna Edwards
Thursday, Mar 21, 12:15-1:00pm
Native Education College
285 East 5th Avenue

Alanna Edwards is a multi-disciplinary artist of Mi’gmaq and settler descent whose work,
through the use of humour, explores themes of belonging, authenticity, and the
everyday. Interested in more than just making “funny native art” Alanna interrogates
what makes us laugh, why, and how humour is used as a strategy for resistance. Working
also with video, she explores familial relationships and the myths and stories we pass
down through generations. She has a BA in Political Science and Gender, Sexuality,
and Women’s Studies from SFU, a diploma in Fine Arts from Langara College, and is
currently finishing her BFA at Kwantlen University. *She/her pronouns

Spark: Fireside Artist Talk No. 23 feat. Anne & Jeane Riley
Thursday, Feb 21, 12:15-1:00pm
Native Education College
285 East 5th Avenue

Jeane and Anne Riley are Dene/Cree twins and will be presenting their talk, Radical Softening: the practice of art and social work, speaking about their individual and collective practice(s) since graduating from the Native Education College where they both received a certificate in the Family and Community Counseling Program. The title of their talk is inspired by their most recent adventure together as participants in the Dene Nahjo Moose Hide Tanning Art residency this past September at the Banff Centre. As Dene twins they will share how the residency has impacted their ongoing practices in art, social work, and twindian dreams and conversations.

Anne Riley is an Indigiqueer multidisciplinary artist living as an uninvited Slavey Dene/Cree/German guest from Fort Nelson First Nation on the unceceded Territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlí̓lwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-waututh) Nations. Her work explores different ways of being and becoming, touch, and Indigeneity. She received her BFA from the University of Texas at Austin in 2012 and in 2016 she graduated from the Native Education College with a Certificate in Family and Community Counselling. She has exhibited both in the United States and Canada. Currently, she is working on a public art project commissioned by the City of Vancouver with her collaborator T’uy’tanat Cease Wyss. Wyss and Riley’s project- A Constellation of Remediation consists of Indigenous Remediation Gardens planted throughout the city decolonizing and healing the dirt back to soil. *she/her pronouns

Jeane Riley is from Fort Nelson First Nation and is of Dene/Cree/German ancestry. She currently works and lives as an uninvited guest on the unceded, traditional and ancestral homelands of the Coast Salish People, specifically the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlí̓lwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-waututh) Nations. Jeane attended the Native Education College and received a certificate in the Family and Community Counselling Program in 2013. Jeane then went on to complete her Masters in Social Work at The University of British Columbia and currently works at BC Women’s Hospital as a social worker. Jeane also works as a community based researcher and is currently working on a project regarding the child welfare system. *she/her pronouns

Spark: Fireside Artist Talk No. 22 feat. Krystle Coughlin
Thursday, Jan 17th, 12:15-1:00pm
Native Education College
285 East 5th Avenue

I am a Selkirk First Nation visual artist residing in New Westminster, BC. I hold a B.F.A in Visual Art (2015); and a B.A. in Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice from UBC (2013). I am currently an M.F.A. candidate at Simon Fraser University’s school of contemporary arts. My artistic practice blends different materials, methodologies, and symbols to create conceptual works. I am influenced by Indigenous feminism, post-structuralism, anti-colonialism, and activism. My work often addresses contemporary issues faced by urban Indigenous identity politics and personal experiences. I seek to challenge misconceptions of Indigeneity and Feminisms through visual mediums. My work employs Northwest First Nations design elements and practices with unconventional art materials. This year I was a finalist for both the RBC painting competition and the Philip Lind Prize for contemporary photography.

Spark: Fireside Artist Talk No. 21 feat. Chandra Melting Tallow
Thursday, November 15, 2018
Native Education College
285 East 5th Avenue

Chandra Melting Tallow is an interdisciplinary artist, film-maker, and musician of mixed ancestry from the Siksika Nation. In 2017 they produced a short film, composed a live soundtrack and an accompanying performance for Unsettling Colonial Gender Boundaries as part of Queer Arts Fest entitled, Rapture of Roses. They have directed, edited and filmed a number of music videos and experimental films including co-editing Coney Island Baby, a short film collaboration with Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill, Jeneen Frei Njootli and Tania Willard in addition to composing the soundtrack. Common themes throughout their practice involve confronting ghosts of intergenerational trauma and their relationship to the body and utilizing humour to subvert oppressive structures of power and surrealism. *They/Them pronouns

Spark: Fireside Artist Talk No. 20 feat. Vi Levitt
Thursday, October 18, 2018, 12:15 – 1:00 pm
Native Education College
285 East 5th Avenue

As a composer and producer Vi defines themselves as a ‘mixed race bastard musician in the intersections of tradition and contemporary’. As a burgeoning musician based out of Vancouver, their music features influences from the UK underground scene, their Jewish and Metis heritage, Classical Western and South Asian music, and a variety of artists around the globe. Having worked with Goth DJs, Folk singers and Jazz artists alike, Vi’s work focuses on creating a sound that merges the sounds that define their life and the futures they wish to live to see. As a relative newcomer to the Vancouver music scene, Vi has throughout their career been: a singer-songwriter, a choral composer, a classical musician, a member of the ‘New Wave of Indigenous Electronica’ and things in between. Rhyme and song, Vi’s work has been published in Matrix Magazine, and recently they took part in the New Constellations Digital Mentorship program. *They/them pronouns

Spark: Fireside Artist Talk No. 19 feat. Whess Harman
Thursday, April 19, 2018, 12:15 – 1:00 pm
Native Education College
285 East 5th Avenue

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Whess Harman was born in Prince Rupert, BC and is from the Carrier Witat, Lake Babine Nation. Harman predominantly works in print, illustration, beading, and text. They completed their BFA at Emily Carr University in 2014 and received the Early Career Development grant from the BC Arts Council in 2016. Their work has been shown in recent group exhibitions such as the Language as Puncture show at Gallery 101 in Ottawa, ON and the Pushing Boundaries show at the Cityscape Community Artspace in North Vancouver, BC. *they/them/their pronouns.

Spark: Fireside Artist Talk No. 18 feat. Levi Nelson
Thursday, March 15, 2018, 12:15 – 1:00 pm
Native Education College
285 East 5th Avenue

LNelson

 

Levi Nelson is from the Lil’wat Nation located in Mount Currie, British Columbia. He is currently in his third year at Emily Carr University of Art + Design majoring in visual arts, with a focus on painting. Levi favours the medium of oil paint and has most recently taken an interest in print making, via silkscreen and lithography. His work can be described as contemporary First Nations art; fusing traditional North West Coast shape and form-line with conventional colours and composition. This past year Levi has exhibited his work in the Emily Carr University annual Aboriginal Art Exhibition, the Museum of Anthropology, the Talking Stick Festival and in the Pushing Boundaries show at North Vancouver City Art Scape.

Spark: Fireside Artist Talk No. 17 feat. Raven John
Thursday, February 15, 2018, 12:15 – 1:00 pm
Native Education College
285 East 5th Avenue

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Raven John (Exwetlaq) is a First Nations, feminist, and queer artist from the Coast Salish and Stó:lō Nation in the Lower Mainland. Her work encompasses both her past and identity in many ways through mere existence, defiance, and the examination of colonialist, patriarchal and classist systems of value in art. She does this by activating space through sculpture, installation, and surreality. John is a recent graduate from both the Native Education College (Northwest Jewelry Arts Program) and Emily Carr University of Art and Design (BFA in Visual Arts and Social Practice And Community Engagement).

 

Spark: Fireside Artist Talk No. 16 feat. Lacie Burning
Thursday, January 18, 2018, 12:15 – 1:00 pm
Native Education College
285 East 5th Avenue

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Lacie Burning is a Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) and Onondaga (patrilineally) artist and curator raised on Six Nations of the Grand River located in Southern Ontario. They work in photography, video, installation, and sculpture and are currently in their third year of studies in the Visual Fine Arts program at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Having come from a culturally and politically grounded upbringing, their work focuses on politics of Indigeneity and identity from a Haudenosaunee perspective.

 

 

Spark: Fireside Artist Talk No. 15 feat. Madelaine McCallum
Thursday, November 16, 2017, 12:15 – 1:00 pm
Native Education College
285 East 5th Avenue

dancing

 

Madelaine McCallum graces the stage with her gentle yet powerful presence and takes her audience through an extraordinary journey of transformation and healing. Through dance and the spiritual teachings of her father, Madelaine has found a powerful way to share her culture. Her life story is all about discovering “the Fire Within.” When she left her home community her goal was to break the unhealthy cycles of addiction. Her story of survival leaves no one indifferent. She tells the story of how it took many years to break the cycle of violence and broken relationships to emerge changed, reborn, and aptly named Strong Earth Women.

Spark: Fireside Artist Talk No. 13 feat. Cole Pauls
Thursday, September 21, 2017
Native Education College
285 East 5th Avenue

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Cole Pauls is a Tahltan comic artist, illustrator and printmaker hailing from Haines Junction (Yukon Territory) with a BFA in Illustration from Emily Carr University. Residing in Vancouver, Pauls focuses on his two comic series, the first being Pizza Punks: a self contained comic strip about punks eating pizza, the other is called Dakwäkãda Warriors, which is about two Southern Tutchone Earth Protectors saving the earth from evil pioneers and cyborg sasquatches using language revitalization.

 

 

Spark: Fireside Artist Talk No. 12 feat. Anchi Lin
Thursday, April 20, 2017
Native Education College
285 East 5th Avenue

Anchi Lin is an artist of Taiwanese Atayal heritage who lives and works in Vancouver. Her work negotiates and interfaces with concepts such as language, identity, gender and cultural norms. Her heritage has served as a catalyst for her exploration of these concepts. Lin received a BFA in Visual Art from Simon Fraser University School for the Contemporary Arts. She was the recipient of the Vancouver Contemporary Art Gallery Emerging Artist Award and the Bob Rennie Undergraduate Award in Visual Art. She has exhibited at several galleries in both Vancouver, and Taipei.

Image: Anchi Lin, Tattoo on Faces, video performance (still), 2014. Courtesy of the artist.

 

Spark: Fireside Artist Talk No. 11 feat. Sarah Shamash
Thursday, March 16, 2017
Native Education College
285 East 5th Avenue

Sarah Shamash is a Vancouver based media artist and PhD candidate in the Interdisciplinary studies program at UBC. Influenced by cinema, her experimental projects typically explore identities and geographies as personal, political, feminine and dynamic, while critiquing and subverting fixed, colonial and hegemonic demarcations of the body, territory, and space. She is currently teaching a film studies course she designed on Latin American cinema at UBC and programming films for the Vancouver Latin American Film Festival. Her work as an artist, researcher, educator, and programmer can be understood as interconnected and whole; they all revolve around a passion for cinema.

 

Spark: Fireside Artist Talk No. 10 feat. Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers
Thursday, February 16, 2017, 12:15 – 1:00 pm
Native Education College
285 East 5th Avenue

Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers is a filmmaker, writer, and actor. She is Blackfoot from the Kainai First Nation (Blood Reserve) as well as Sámi from northern Norway and resides on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the  xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Tsleil-Waututh, and Skwxwú7mesh peoples. She is a recipient of the Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award and a Kodak Image Award for her work as an emerging filmmaker. Her short documentary, Bihttoš, was included in the TIFF Top Ten Canadian Shorts, won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Short Documentary at the Seattle International Film Festival, and was also nominated for a Canadian Screen Award and a Leo Award for Best Short Documentary. She is an alumni of the Berlinale Talent Lab and the Hot Docs Accelerator Lab.

 

Spark: Fireside Artist Talk No. 9 feat. Dusty Hagerüd
Thursday, January 26, 2017
Native Education College
285 East 5th Avenue

Dusty Hagerud Sept 13 2015

Dusty Hagerüd has been obsessed with animated objects, moving illustration and storytelling from birth. From Ktunaxa, English and Norwegian heritage, myth, legend and fairytale is fuel to his creative fire. Creative director and founder of a company who designs and fabricates puppets, Color Sound Lab, Hagerud has worked in puppetry for over 18 years in western Canada.  In theatre, film and television, his work with marionettes, hand and rod puppets, bunraku and shadow puppets has enabled him to apply modern approaches to a tradition that stems from one of the earliest forms of storytelling.

Dusty was a recipient of a 2009 Leo Award for Anachronism Pictures’ The Anachronism and 2015 Jessie Award for Monster Theatre’s production of The Little Prince. He is one of the co-founders of the Vancouver International Puppet Festival, which had it’s inaugural debut this past October to a resounding success.

 

Spark: Fireside Artist Talk No. 8 feat. JB the First Lady
Thursday, November 17, 2016

Native Education College
285 East 5th Avenue

jb

Jerilynn Webster, aka JB the First Lady, is a member of the Nuxalk & Onondaga Nations. She is a Vancouver-based female hip hop/spoken word artist, beat-boxer, cultural dancer and youth educator. “using [her] words to go upwards/not backwards.” These are lyrics that describe what JB tries to convey in her music. JB has performed at over 500 hip hop shows, anywhere from auditoriums to Annual General Meetings for community organizations. She is spreading the words of empowerment & the perspective of urban indigenous women in Canada. Hip Hop is her chosen avenue of expression. JB’s music is lyrically motivated with depth, meaning, and positivity like none other. She has released 4 albums to date, “Indigenous Love” (2008); “Get Ready, Get Steady” (2011) and “Indigenous Girl Lifestyle” (2014) and the 2015 IMA winning album “Indigenized by Entertribal” in collaboration with Chief Rock.

JB is the 2015 winner of the Indigenous Music Award for Best Album Cover. She is a 5-time nominated artist at the Aboriginal Peoples Choice Music Awards, the only female to ever be nominated for Best Hip Hop Album (twice), and has been nominated previously for Best Pop Album & Best Album Cover.

JB wants young indigenous women to feel proud, inspired, and to see someone on stage that looks like them; representing indigenous women in mainstream media.

 

Spark: Fireside Artist Talk No. 7 feat. Rodrigo Hernandez-Gomez
Thursday, October 20, 2016

Native Education College
285 East 5th Avenue

1597737_10153079247053983_4875088143660575472_oRodrigo Hernandez-Gomez was born in the valley of Anahuac (Mexico City) and raised near the Xitle, he is of Nahua/Mexican descent and currently lives in unceeded Coast Sailish Territory (Vancouver). He graduated in 2010 from the MFA program at York University and in 2013 was a co-organizer of the Decolonial Aesthetics Symposium in Toronto. His installations, new-media work, wearable art pieces and performative projects have been presented internationally, including contributions to the Hemispheric Encuentro in Sao Paolo, Brazil the National Museum of Art, La Paz, Bolivia and the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Toronto. Rodrigo is a founding member of AYOTZI 68; a cultural organization for supporting hemispheric indigenous sharing through anti-capitalist strategies and combining skills from the fields of contemporary art, radical education and food sovereignty movements. As a member of La Lleca Collectiva (Mexico City), E-fagia LA media arts (Toronto), AYOTZI 68 (Vancouver), and in his ongoing collaborations with other artists, Rodrigo speaks with actions in his commitment to a multi-linear artistic practice that is critical, intellectual and collective.

 

Spark: Fireside Artist Talk No. 6 feat. Bracken Hanuse Corlett
Thursday, September 29, 2016
Native Education College
285 East 5th Avenue

Bracken Hanuse Corlett is an interdisciplinary artist hailing from the Wuikinuxv and Klahoose Nations. He began working in theatre and performance 16 years ago, before transitioning to a practice that fuses digital-media, audio-visual performance, writing, painting, sculpture and drawing. His work combines traditional Indigenous iconography and history with new media and concepts that exist within cyclical space.

He is the co-founder of the Vancouver Indigenous Media Arts Festival. Over the last five years he has performed across the country as a member of the audio-visual collective Skookum Sound System and currently in the DJ/VJ duo See Monsters. He is a graduate of the En’owkin Centre of Indigenous Art and went to Emily Carr University of Art and Design for a B.F.A. in Visual Arts. He has also studied Northwest Coast art, carving and design from acclaimed Heiltsuk artists Bradley Hunt and his sons Shawn Hunt and Dean Hunt.

Some of his notable exhibitions, performances and screenings have been at grunt gallery, the Museum of Anthropology, Unit PITT Projects, Vancouver International Film Festival (Vancouver), Three Walls Gallery (Chicago), Ottawa International Animation Festival, SAW Gallery (Ottawa), Royal BC Museum, Open Space (Victoria), Winnipeg Art Gallery, Urban Shaman (Winnipeg), Sâkêwêwak Artists’ Collective, Mackenzie Art Gallery (Regina), Atlantic Film Festival, Tidal Force – Independent Media Arts Alliance (Halifax), Art Mur, Sommets du Cinéma D’animation (Montreal), ImagineNative, Toronto International Film Festival, Music Gallery (Toronto).

Spark: Fireside Artist Talk No. 5 feat. Amanda Strong
Thursday, April 21, 2016
Native Education College
285 East 5th Avenue

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Amanda Strong is a Michif filmmaker, media artist and stop motion director currently based out of the unceded Coast Salish territory also known as Vancouver. She is the owner and director of Spotted Fawn Productions, an animation and media-based studio creating short films, commercial projects and workshops. A labour of love, Amanda’s productions collaborate with a diverse and talented group of artists putting emphasis on support and training women and Indigenous artists.

Amanda’s work explores ideas of blood memory and Indigenous ideology. Her background in photography, illustration and media extend into her award-winning stop motion animations. Her films Indigo and Mia’ challenge conventional structures of storytelling in cinema and have screened internationally, most notably at Cannes, TIFF, VIFF, and Ottawa International Animation Festival. Amanda has received numerous grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council and the NFB. In 2013, Amanda was the recipient K.M. Hunter Artist Award for Film and Video, and most recently the recipient of the Vancouver Mayors Arts Awards for Emerging Film and Media Artist. Amanda is currently working on her latest short animation Four Faces of the Moon for CBC Short Docs. The story is told in four chapters, exploring the reclamation of language and Nationhood, while peeling back the layers of Canada’s colonial history, revealing Canada’s extermination agenda on the buffalo.

 

Spark: Fireside Artist Talk No. 4 feat. Cease Wyss & Hans Winkler
Thursday, April 7, 2016
Native Education College
285 East 5th Avenue

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Archeological evidence suggests that Hawaiians came to the island of Kaho‘olawe as early as 400 A.D., and settled in small fishing villages along the island’s coast. For hundreds of years, Kaho‘olawe served as a navigational center, the site of an adze quarry, an agricultural center, and a site for religious and cultural ceremonies.

But as modern times rolled in, Kaho‘olawe began to undergo a harsh evolution. It would be used as a penal colony to exile prisoners from the general populace, for sheep and cattle ranching, until World War II when the island was occupied by the US military from 1942 – 1990 as a training zone for bomb testing and air warfare technology.

Sustained protest by the Hawaiian population and eventual litigation forced an end to the bombing, and after a 10-year period of artillery removal, control was transferred back to the state of Hawaii in 2003. The island is currently uninhabitable and accessible only to Native Polynesians, strictly within the context of cultural or spiritual purposes, restoration, planting work, and re-vegetation.

Hans Winkler gained access to the restricted island in 2013 and in 2014 Cease Wyss joined him to explore the possibilities of artistic projects. In this talk they discuss their experiences and plans for their projects. Wyss will discuss her project “Kanaka Ranch to Kaho’olawe Island: Ephemeral Canoe Art” which explores similarities between Hawaiian and West Coast BC canoe cultures, while Winkler will present “Zero Zone” his mapping project of the island.

T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss (Skwxwu7mesh/Sto:Lo//Hawaiian/Swiss). My work spans over two and a half decades, working with artists and communities on projects that utilize technology and community engagement as a means of sharing stories. Web-based works like Picto-Prophecy (2012) – with En’owkin Centre’s Ullus Collective – and public art such as Talking Poles (2009) – Surrey Cultural Capital Art Award – & the Stanley Park Environmental Art Project (2009) all take site specific inspirations and the stories of our past that inform us in the present, while looking towards the future and what part we play in the timeline of our ancestry. Culture and spirituality feed my soul and fuel my creativity. Throughout my life I have been training my spirit to reconnect to my ancestors and bring the stories back to my family and community that we lost through colonization and the Residential Schools. Whether I bring communities together through interactivity like geocaching games or building food security programs the art I engage in plays a significant role.

Hans Winkler (b. 1955) is an artist and curator who lives and works in Berlin and New York. Since 1999, he has been Visiting Artist and Lecturer at the San Francisco Art Institute. Winkler’s art projects include “The Escape of the Iceman/Ötzi” (2008) in collaboration with the Department of Archaeology at EURAC, Bolzano and the Museum of Modern Art; “Held Saga” (2005) at Adademie der Kuenste, Berlin. Recently co-curated exhibitions include “California Conceptual Art” (2010) with Paul Kos and Tony Labat at ar/ge kunst in Bolzano, Italy; and “legal/illegal” (2004) with Helen Adkins and Kai Bauer at NGBK, Berlin.

> link to write-up on Media Democracy Project, written by Sydney Ball

 

Spark: Fireside Artist Talk No. 3 feat. Larissa Healey
Thursday, March 17, 2016
Native Education College
285 East 5th Avenue

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Larissa Healey (aka Gurl23) is an Ojibway mural artist and an inspirational leader for street youth drop-in cultural programs like the Museum of Anthropology’s Native Youth Program, one of Canada’s longest running First Nations programs.

Larissa’s artwork has been seen at The Vancouver Art Gallery, The Bill Reid Gallery, Power Plant Gallery, The National Gallery of Canada and The Museum of Anthropology, to name a few.  You might also recognize her work from underneath the Granville Street Bridge at the entrance to Granville Island, among many other places.

 

Spark: Fireside Artist Talk No. 2 feat. Mark Igloliorte
February 18, 2016
Native Education College
285 East 5th Avenue

Igloliorte15marki2010UntitledDiptychMark Igloliorte, our featured speaker for February, is an artist who was born in Corner Brook, Newfoundland and grew up in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador. His artistic work is primarily painting and drawing. He has exhibited in group and solo shows across Canada.

Recently, Igloliorte has participated in national and international exhibitions such as Beat Nation, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC; Le Nouveau Pleinairisme, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Québec, QC; drift, (Solo), curator Ryan Rice, The Toronto Free Gallery, Toronto, ON; and The Québec Triennial 2011: The Work Ahead of Us, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Montréal QC.

He has been the recipient of a number of awards and grants including the Lillian Vineberg Award in Painting and Drawing, The Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council Visual Arts Grant, and a Canada Council for the Arts Emerging Artist Grant. Igloliorte is represented by Gallerie Donald Browne.

As an Inuk, Igloliorte’s work draws from his Labradorian background and communities of Happy Valley-Goose Bay and Hopedale. He has been recognized as a Labrador Inuit Role Model by the Nunatsiavut Government. In the summer of 2008 and 2009 he worked with several groups of Inuit Youth delivering painting and drawing workshops funded in part by The National Aboriginal Youth Suicide Prevention Strategy (NAYSPS).

He holds both a Bachelor of Education (Intermediate/Secondary) from Memorial University of Newfoundland and a Bachelor of Fine Art, Major in Fine Art from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and a Master’s of Fine Art, Studio Art – Painting and Drawing from Concordia University School of Graduate Studies.

Igloliorte is an Assistant Professor at Emily Carr University of Art and Design.

 

Spark: Fireside Artist Talk No. 1 feat. Osvaldo Ramirez Castillo
January 21, 2106
Native Education College
285 East 5th Avenue

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Vancouver-based artist Osvaldo Ramirez Castillo explores issues around collective memory, historical trauma, and cultural identity in relation to the violence that occurred against civilians during the 12-year Civil War in El Salvador.

A series of mixed media drawings depict surreal and vibrant scenes filled with creatures in uniform; fragmented bodies tense with sinew and muscle; and carefully drawn figures with faces partially obscured or obliterated. Iconography sourced from North American vernacular culture, Pre-Columbian mythology, and Salvadoran popular folklore is amalgamated to explore the role of non-linear storytelling expressed in mythic form.

Artist Bio:

Born in El Salvador, Castillo immigrated to Canada in 1989 at the age of 11. He attended the Ontario College of Art and Design (Toronto 1998-2001) and received an MFA from Concordia University (2004-2007). A previous resident of Montreal, Castillo relocated to Vancouver in 2013.

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Book Bundle

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Get Four Faces of the Moon, ARCTICNOISE and Journey to Kaho’olawe for $45 (regular $65)!

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UNGALAQ (When Stakes Come Loose)

Guest curated by Kyra Kordoski Tania Willard

“Ungalaq” is an Inuvialuktun word for the west wind. When the west wind comes up, tides rise and as the earth softens, things that are staked to the ground pull lose. Suddenly untethered, dogs run free and smoke houses drift up the beach. It is a period of unpredictability and, ultimately, of re-formation.

Drawing from five bodies of work, this solo exhibition will be the most extensive mounting of Gruben’s work to date. Currently a Victoria based artist, Gruben has developed a strong aesthetic and practice of working with materials linked to her home in the Inuvialuit hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk in the North West Territories and to the Coast Salish territories of Vancouver Island. Her aesthetic practice can be seen as rippling outward from the land itself. She delves deeply into broad issues like climate change in a way that is both eloquent and pared down, pushing viewers to extend their own process of thought and interpretation, and allowing them to feel their way through each gesture of weaving, tufting, encasing, and assembling in her material process. As an Inuvialuit artist her exploration of Indigenous materials variously includes polar bear fur, seal skin and whale intestines in combination with anodized aluminum, pvc, wool and other materials associated with industry. These substances do not function in binary structure of opposing traditional and industrial materiality. Rather, Gruben’s material sense reverberates throughout her choices, conceptually linking her experiences of home to ways in which materials are reused, re-appropriated and reimagined.

This exhibition, Ungalaq, includes recently commissioned work, Stitching My Landscape made in Tuktoyaktuk (NWT). Stitching My Landscape is a part of LandMarks2017/Repères2017 (Landmarks2017.ca), created by PIA, presented by TD – A Canada 150 Signature Project.

PUBLICATION
Download the exhibition catalogue with texts by Kyra Kordoski and Tania Willard HERE.


ARTIST BIO
Maureen Gruben was born in Tuktoyaktuk, NWT. She studied at Kelowna Okanagan College of Fine Arts (Diploma in Fine Arts, 1990), the Enʼowkin Centre in Penticton (Diploma in Fine Arts and Creative Writing, 2000 and Certificate in Indigenous Political Development & Leadership, 2001), and University of Victoria (BFA, 2012). She has been recognized by Kelownaʼs En’owkin Centre with both their Eliza Jane Maracle Award (1998/99) and their Overall Achievement Award (1999/2000). In 2011 she was awarded the Elizabeth Valentine Prangnell Scholarship Award from the University of Victoria. Gruben has most recently exhibited in the group show Blink at University of Victoria (2012) and Custom Made at Kamloops Art Gallery (2015).

CURATOR BIOS
Born in Whitehorse, YK, Kyra Kordoski is now based in Victoria, BC. For the past year she has been working with Maureen Gruben as an artist assistant and writer, and has had the great privilege of spending time at Maureen’s home in Tuktoyuktuk as a guest on multiple visits. Prior to this she completed an MA in Cultural Studies at Leeds University with a dissertation on visual strategies of social resistance, and an MFA in Art Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London. While in London she organized and participated in Art Writing events at Whitechapel Gallery, X Marks the Bokship, and Goldsmiths University. Her writing has been published in various arts publications, including C Magazine, White Fungus, BOMB and Art Handler Magazine. She is currently also working to document artworks created as a part of LandMarks 2017/Repères 2017.

Tania Willard, Secwepemc Nation, works within the shifting ideas around contemporary and traditional, often working with bodies of knowledge and skills that are conceptually linked to her interest in intersections between Aboriginal and other cultures. Willard has been a curator in residence with grunt gallery and Kamloops Art Gallery. Willard’s curatorial work includes the national touring exhibition Beat Nation: Art Hip Hop and Aboriginal Culture, co-curated with Kathleen Ritter at the Vancouver Art Gallery. In 2016 Willard received the Award for Curatorial Excellence in Contemporary Art from the Hanatyshyn Foundation. Willard’s selected recent curatorial work includes; Unceded Territories: Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, Nanitch: Historical BC photography and BUSH gallery as well as the upcoming LandMarks 2017/Repères 2017.


ADDITIONAL PROGRAMMING:

Join us for an evening of Indigenous storytelling through the work of two powerful film and exhibition projects.

Thunder in Our Voices with Drew Ann Wake, Gordon Christie and Martina Norwegian
In conjunction with Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) Vancouver 2017
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Four Faces of the Moon with Amanda Strong
screening and book launch

Thunder in our Voices
Forty years ago, Justice Thomas Berger of the Supreme Court of British Columbia was asked to hold hearings into a proposed natural gas pipeline across the North Coast of the Yukon, along the Mackenzie Valley, to southern markets. He elected to hold hearings in thirty Dene and Inuvialuit communities along the Valley, where residents demanded that no pipeline be built until their land claims were settled.

This was the first time that many southern Canadians had the opportunity to hear voices from the North, and a vociferous national debate about the pipeline ensued, the first shot in what has become a national discussion about resource development and Indigenous rights.

Drew Ann Wake was a young reporter covering the hearings. Eight years ago she found her audio tapes and photographs from the time. She decided to return, with photographer Linda MacCannell, to the villages along the Mackenzie River so that young people could hear the voices of their grandparents and great-grandparents.

Over the last eight years they have worked with teenagers in twenty-five northern communities, from Trout Lake to Tuktoyaktuk, to produce short films based on images and stories from the Inquiry. The result is Thunder in our Voices, an exhibition of images and films that span five generations of Dene and Inuvialuit history. The exhibition will be on display at the Indian Residential Schools Dialogue Centre on the UBC campus during the NAISA conference.

During this screening at the grunt gallery, Drew Ann will be joined by Martina Norwegian of Fort Simpson and UBC professor Dr. Gordon Christie, originally from Inuvik, who will discuss how stories told by the Dene and Inuvialuit over 125 years continue to have an impact on the communities of the North. An audience discussion will follow.

Four Faces of the Moon
Four Faces of the Moon is a multi-media installation that provides a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the elaborate sets, puppets, and props created for the new stop motion animated film by the same name. The story is told in four chapters, which explore the reclamation of language and Nationhood, and peel back the layers of Canada’s colonial history.

A personal story told through the eyes of director and writer Amanda Strong, as she connects the oral and written history of her family as well as the history of the Michif (Métis), Cree and Anishinaabe people and their cultural ties to the buffalo. Canada’s extermination agenda of the buffalo isn’t recorded as fervently as it was in the United States, yet the same tactics were used north of the border to control the original inhabitants of the land. This story seeks to uncover some of that history and establish the importance of cultural practice, resistance and language revival from a personal perspective.

The exhibition catalogue includes texts by Kristen Dowell and Dylan Miner. Copies of the publication will be available for sale.

Read more about the Four Faces of the Moon exhibition here.

***

BIOS

Gordon Christie is an Associate Professor of Law,Peter A. Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia; and is Director of the Indigenous Legal Studies Program. Professor Christie is of Inupiat/Inuvialuit ancestry and specializes in Aboriginal law. His teaching is primarily in the fields of Aboriginal law and legal theory, and his research work is entirely concerned with these two realms (and their intersection). His most recent work focuses on how colonial systems of cultural meaning frame Canadian jurisprudence around Aboriginal rights.

Martina Norwegian is a Dene woman, born and raised in Liildili Kue (Fort Simpson) in the Deh Cho Region of the Northwest Territories, Canada. A leader in her community, she has advocated that consistency be the key for making a difference in local programs & services. As a First Nation member, her participation and advocacy for the “voices not heard” has always been a prime focus, whether in Education, History preservation and in the four quadrants of life. Martina served for many years on both the local and regional Boards of Education. She participated for 27 years in the  promotion & preservation of  history through the local Fort Simpson Historical Society. Their major accomplishment, through perseverance and dedication of local volunteers, has been the Fort Simpson Heritage Park: identifying local historical landmarks and building a museum which will house artefacts and information about the history of the Dehcho. Although the building is near completion, the real work has only just begun, as we strive to make the difference we want to see in ourselves and our communities.

In the 1970s, Drew Ann Wake worked for the CBC and the National Film Board, covering the hearings of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry as it travelled to thirty Dene and Inuvialuit communities across the North. She subsequently began a career in exhibition design, creating museums and science centres across Europe, in the United States and Canada. She produced thirty educational computer games that ask players to resolve environmental and social issues. Returning to Canada, Drew Ann began working on her current exhibition, Thunder in our Voices, which incorporates interactive video shot with the Dene and Inuvialuit leaders who testified before the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry.

Amanda Strong is an Indigenous filmmaker, media artist and stop motion director currently based out of the unceded Coast Salish territory also known as Vancouver. She is the owner and director of Spotted Fawn Productions, an animation and media-based studio creating short films, commercial projects and workshops. A labour of love, Amanda’s productions collaborate with a diverse and talented group of artists putting emphasis on support and training women and Indigenous artists.

– 30 –

Media Contact for the exhibition:

Tarah Hogue, grunt gallery | 604-875-9516 or, tarah@grunt.ca

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Four Faces of the Moon | Amanda Strong

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Past Exhibitions

Inside/Out: the art show my dad never had
February 2 – March 16, 2024
Artists: Sue Dong Eng, Mercedes Eng
Curated by Mercedes Eng and Keimi Nakashima-Ochoa

Daughter Daughter Daughter
November 23, 2023-January 21, 2024
Artist: Sora Park
Curated by Whess Harman

Enticed and Entagled en algo Antiguo
September 14-November 4, 2023
Artist: Francisco Berlanga
Curated by Whess Harman

Syncretic Birthrights
May 12-July 8, 2023
Artist: Odera Igbokwe
Curated by Whess Harman

Ladykiller the Maneater
March 16-April 29, 2023
Artist: Alison Bremner
Curated by Whess Harman

Three Way Mirror
December 2nd 2022—January 21st 2023
Artists: Daniel Barrow, Glenn Gear and Paige Gratland
Curators: Whess Harman & Vanessa Kwan

Mullyanne Nîmito
September 17th—October 29th, 2022
Artist: Cheyenne Rain LeGrande ᑭᒥᐊᐧᐣ
Curator: Whess Harman

Terremoto
July 9th—August 13th, 2022
Artist: Michelle Campos Castillo
Curator: Vanessa Kwan

An Insufficient Record: The photo-ethics of preserving Black Vancouver
May 20th—June 18th, 2022
Curator: Nya Lewis

SuperNova
March 26th—April 30th, 2022
Artist: Rah
Curators: Vanessa Kwan & Whess Harman

Smokes, Sings Loud
February 4th—March 12th, 2022
Artists: Lori Blondeau and Michelle Sound
Curators: Dan Pon, Whess Harman and Vanessa Kwan

Project Fire Flower
October 2—December 12th, 2021
Artist: Collin van Uchelen with Carmen Papalia
Curator: Whitney Mashburn

Black Gold
January 22 — April 17th, 2021
Artist: Tsēmā Igharas
Curator: Natasha Chaykowski

Cheap! Diligent! Faithful!
September 25 — December 12th, 2020
Artist: Marlene Yuen
Curators: Vanessa Kwan and Whess Harman

pi’tawkewaq | our people up river
March 5th to April 11, 202011`
Artist: Meagan Musseau
Curator: Laurie White

BAIT
January 10 to February 22, 2020
Artist: Couzyn van Heuvelen
Curator: Ryan Rice

a sentimental dissidence
November 1st to December 14, 2019
Artist: Gabi Dao
Curator: Vanessa Kwan

a study in restraint, nanlaban
September 6 to October 19, 2019
Artist: Anton Cu Unjieng
Curator: Glenn Alteen

nindinawemaganidog (all of my relations)
July 2 – August 3, 2019
Artist: Rebecca Belmore
Curator: Glenn Alteen

dot.dot.dot.
May 10 – June 22nd, 2019
Artists: Sejin Kim & Inyoung Yeo
Curator: Vanessa Kwan

An Exploration of Resilience and Resistance
March 15 – April 22nd, 2019
Artist: Kali Spitzer
Curator: Glenn Alteen

March 5, 1819
March 5 – March 5th, 2019
Artist: Rebecca Belmore
Curator: Glenn Alteen

Strident Aesthetic: Towards a New Liberation
January 10 – March 2nd, 2019
Artist: Carlos Colín
Curator: Glenn Alteen

2068: Touch Change
November 2 – December 16th, 2018
Artist: Syrus Marcus Ware
Curator: Vanessa Kwan

Woven Work From Near Here
September 7 – October 20, 2018
Artists: Debra Sparrow (θəliχʷəlʷət), Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill, Hank Bull, Jovencio de la Paz, Kerri Reid, Matt Browning, Melvin Williams, and Merritt Johnson.

March of the Monarch Public Performance
August 30, 2018
Artist: David Khang

The Blue Cabin Exhibition | Jeremy & Sus Borsos
June 15 – July 28, 2018

Motion Within Motion | Azadeh Emadi
May 2 – May 12, 2018

Requiem for Mirrors and Tigers | Naufus Ramirez-Figueroa
February 22 – April 21, 2018

Ghost Spring | Derya Akay, Dilara Akay
January 5 – February 17, 2018

2167, An Indigenous VR Project | Danis Goulet, Kent Monkman, Scott Benesiinaabandan and  Postcommodity
December 19 – 21, 2017

You won’t solve the problem with an air freshener | Dominique Pétrin
October 27 – December 9, 2017

Technical Problem | Aileen Bahmanipour
September 8 – October 14, 2017

UNGALAQ (When Stakes Come Loose) | Maureen Gruben
June 9 – July 29, 2017

Contingent Bodies | Brigitta Kocsis
March 3 – April 15, 2017

Three Cities: Prayer and Protest | Mere Phantoms (Maya Ersan and Jaimie Robson)
January 13 – February 18, 2017

#callresponse | Christi Belcourt and Isaac Murdoch, Maria Hupfield, IV Castellanos and Esther Neff, Ursula Johnson, Cheryl L’Hirondelle, Tania Willard, Marcia Crosby, Laakkuluk Williamson-Bathory, Tanya Tagaq
October 29 – December 10, 2016

Tomorrow, Tomorrow. | Mark Hall-Patch
September 8 – October 15, 2016

Four Faces of the Moon | Amanda Strong
July 22 – August 20, 2016

High Kicks into the Light Forever and Ever and Ever | Elizabeth Milton
May 27 – June 25, 2016

análekta | Merle Addison
April 7 – May 8, 2016

Sausage Factory | Weronika Stepien and Stephen Wichuk
Feb 25 – Apr 2, 2016

Remote Viewing | Noxious Sector
8 Jan – 13 Feb 2016

FutureLoss | Zoe Kreye
3 December – 19 December 2015

Génération Sacrifiée | Sayah Sarfaraz
22 October – 28 November 2015

Remediating Mama Pina’s Cookbook | Gabriela Aceves Sepúlveda
23 November – 28 November 2015

Catastrophe, Memory, Reconciliation | Osvaldo Ramirez Castillo
10 September – 10 October 2015

ARCTICNOISE | Geronimo Inutiq (madeskimo)
Guest curated by Yasmin Nurming-Por and Britt Gallpen.
Produced in conjunction with ISEA.
5 August – 22 August 2015

Diptychs | Mark Igloliorte
4 June – 18 July 2015

Eraser Street | Henri Robideau
9 April – 16 May 2015

MAINSTREETERS: Taking Advantage, 1972-1982 | Kenneth Fletcher, Deborah Fong, Carol Hackett, Marlene MacGregor, Annastacia McDonald, Charles Rea, Jeanette Reinhardt and Paul Wong
Off-site exhibition @ The Satellite
Curated by Michael Turner and Allison Collins
8 January – 15 March 2015

Chopper | Brandon Vickerd
26 February – 28 March 2015

Crossed | Ahmad Tabrizi
15 January – 21 February 2015

Kitchen | Julia Feyrer
1 November – 19 December 2014

gruntCraft | Youth Project by Demian Petryshyn
Summer – Winter 2014

Double Book Launch & Poetry Reading | Janet Rogers & Chris Bose
9 October 2014

The Book of Jests | Hyung Min Yoon
11 September – 11 October 2014

Épopée: L’état des lieux | Groupe d’action en cinéma (Epic Group Action Film)
Co-presented with Dazibao and Queer Arts Festival
21 July – 9 August 2014

Play, Fall, Rest, Dance | Valerie Salez
2 June – 5 July 2014

10 Years of State of Emergency | ATSA (Pierre Allard and Annie Roy)
11 April – 17 May 2014

Produce, Consume | Matt Troy
28 March – 5 April 2014

one man’s junk | Laura Moore
20 February – 22 March 2014

Nothing To Lose | Rabih Mroué
Co-presented with PuSh Festival
10 January – 8 February 2014

location/dis-location(s): contingent promises | Jayce Salloum
25 October – 30 November 2013

Mamook Ipsoot | Desiree Palmen and youth
18 October 2013

Don’t Go Hungry | Bracken Hanuse Corlett & Csetkwe Fortier
Curated by Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun
5 September – 12 October 2013

Trapez & Dynamo Lines | Josephin Böttger
Co-presented with New Forms Festival
12 September – 15 September 2013

The Big Foldy Painting of Death | Ian Forbes
21 June – 27 July 2013

Agente Costura | Lisa Simpson
5 July 2013 (1 night performance)

Background / ThisPlace | Michael de Courcy (w/ Glenn Lewis, Gerry Gilbert, Taki Bluesinger); Emilio Rojas, Guadalupe Martinez, and Igor Santizo.
10 May – 8 June 2013

Strange Songs of Trust and Treachery | Laura Lamb
5 April – 4 May 2013

Gutter Snipes I | Cal Lane
15 February – 23 March 2013

Holding Our Breath | Adrian Stimson
4 January – 9 February 2013

Remains | Mark Mizgala
13 December – 6 January 2013

The Sea Is A Stereo | Mounira Al Solh
11 October – 1 December 2012

Do The Wave | Jonathan Villeneuve
6 September – 6 October 2012

Amelogenesis Imperfecta (How Deep is the Skin of Teeth) | David Khang
6 September – 22 September 2012

BLIZZARD | Jamasie Pitseolak, Nicholas Galanin, Tanya Lukin-Linklater & Geronimo Inutiq
In the media lab Northern Haze: Living the Dream (2011) directed by Derek Aqqiaruq
5 July – 4 August 2012

Qiqayt, 1982 | Emilio Portal
29 May – 23 June 2012

Here There Nowhere, Flaccid Means Without End | Ali Ahadi
6 April  – 12 May 2012

Ghostkeeper | Ahasiw Maskegeon-Iskew, Archer Pechawis, Adrian Stimson, Cheryl L’hirondelle, Sheila Urbanoski & Elwood Jimmy
21 April – 28 April 2012

H20 Cycle | François Roux
16 March – 31 March 2012

Ominjimendaan/ to remember | Charlene Vickers
23 February – 31 March 2012

The Symbolic Meaning of Tree | Christoph Runné
6 January – 11 February 2012

Pin-Up | Colette Urban
28 October – 3 December 2011

Like A Great Black Fire | Rebecca Chaperon
8 September – 15 October 2011

Taking Care of Business | Immony Men
9 July – 6 August 6 2011

Skullduggery | Robert McNealy
28 May – 25 June 2011

The Pigeon’s Club | ATSA (Pierre Allard and Annie Roy)
20 May – 21 May 2011

Old Growth | Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas
21 April – 21 May 2011


grunt gallery’s volunteers are working to make all of our past exhibitions available in an online archival database called The Activation Map.  If you can’t find the information you are looking for, please feel free to email our Archives Manager, Dan Pon: dan@grunt.ca

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