Written by Luke Siemens

In Laura Moore’s work, one man’s junk, the lifespan of consumer electronics is extended beyond the cycle of planned obsolescence into a geologic time frame. A pallet of old computers, meticulously carved out of stone, stands firm against the flow of technological advancement. A 1991 Apple PowerBook sits next to a computer monitor from the late 80s, next to the printer you threw out last week. These objects should be on the scrapheap, forgotten, but Moore has pulled their forms out of the trash and placed them back in our contemporary consciousness. This change in material and form shifts the objects beyond the confines of their original chassis into the realm of the icon. They become avatars of our technological infrastructure, that aid in the contemplation of what such an infrastructure asks of us. one man’s junk forms a point of contrast to the rapid production and consumption of the digital experience.

To have owned one of the computers depicted by Moore, hundreds of thousands of units had to be produced; economies of scale making production possible. Our memory and experience of the object is therefore contingent on reproduction. Changing the way an object is (re)produced, effects our relationship to the object. By moving production from the assembly line to the studio, Moore removes demands of time, multiplicity and functionality, isolating the computer’s existence to an individual object and an individual’s labour. The viewer cannot look at the objects as “junk” even though it calls to mind the existence of electronic waste. They are computers in name and shape only. Instead we see the work. We marvel at Moore’s careful replication. The time we spend idle in front of a screen, is matched by the amount of time Moore has spent on the screen.

Replication also serves as a function; to engage with the histories attached to the objects. Through Moore’s work, we are able to glimpse the labour of the original designers. Once we thought little of the cathode ray construction of the monitor, beyond the desk space it would take up. Carved in stone, the boxy form and ventilation slats can be appreciated as an aesthetic choice.

“Replication also serves as a function; to engage with the histories attached to the objects. Through Moore’s work, we are able to glimpse the labour of the original designers. Once we thought little of the cathode ray construction of the monitor, beyond the desk space it would take up. Carved in stone, the boxy form and ventilation slats can be appreciated as an aesthetic choice.”

Replication of the mass produced object pulls the viewer’s own history into the work. Through familiarity, we connect with the form and project our own experiences onto the artwork. Memories of the novelty of the computer’s purchase, the programs run on it, the speed at which it ran are called to mind. Through this projection we start to contemplate how we thought of technology then and how that differs now. Through this process the technology, is allowed to leave the pile of obsolescence and re-enter our memory as an abstraction, an aesthetic object.

As an aesthetic object one man’s junk functions in a space similar to the surreal reproduction found in the grass and stick airplanes made by cargo cults of the Pacific. When a cargo cult copies mechanical objects in organic form, they are engaging in a ritualistic act of cultural jujitsu. Images are taken from outside the tradition of the cargo cult members and used to form a competing ideology to the dominate cultural narrative.

In Moore’s veneration of the object, there is an assertion of power over the image of the computer. For the last thirty years, the computer has represented wealth and intelligence to the collective consciousness. It is an image worth controlling. After the Snowden leaks of last year, it is apparent how much effort goes into controlling the digital experience. However by recreating the technology with her hand, in her medium, it is Moore’s vision of the digital experience that we are ultimately engaging with. In it there is a healthy scepticism of the digital experience. These are old computer, they cannot be connected to the network, they cannot be spied upon, but they are meant to be observed.

MPCAS CALL for SUBMISSIONS

We accept submissions on an ongoing basis.
To be considered for the Fall/ Winter 2020 program, submissions must be received by July 31st, 2020 at 4pm.
Submissions received after this date will be considered at a later time.

Background:
The MPCAS is a 7×4 metre outdoor community and media arts LED screen, located on unceded Coast Salish territories at Kingsway and Broadway in Mount Pleasant. Broadcasting from 9am to 10pm most days, it is programmed by grunt gallery, an artist-run centre that has been in the neighbourhood since 1984. For more information please visit mpcas.ca

*please note the screen does not have audio capabilities, therefore all submitted content is currently limited to image and captioning only.

PLACE:
The current programming theme of the MPCAS is PLACE, which looks at a changing Mount Pleasant and Vancouver through works by artists, curators, and residents who live here or are connected to the area, exploring its past, current, and future vitality.

Mount Pleasant was one of Vancouver’s earliest neighborhoods, built along a large salmon and trout creek that ran from the swampy higher grounds down to the ocean — the same path as what is now Main Street. The area became a focus of colonial settlement in the mid-19th century and local Indigenous communities were forced out to make way for businesses that grew into a bustling destination neighbourhood. By 1910, business moved west with Shaughnessy becoming the preferred neighbourhood, and Mount Pleasant fell into economic decline for almost 100 years. With working-class roots, abundant rental housing, and transient tenants, it was the poorest neighbourhood outside of the Downtown Eastside. A community of immigrants, urban poor, and artists created the conditions from which much of Vancouver’s early modern cultural life grew.

Beginning in the 1990s, Mount Pleasant’s gentrification started to take hold, initially through the live/work studio condos that gradually began to appear in the area. In 2010, with the development in the Olympic Village area, aggressive upzoning began, and many residents were evicted from their long-held homes as rents doubled and tripled within a few years. Mount Pleasant’s gritty characteristics suddenly became its new selling points. Developer marketing highlighted its arts community and heritage buildings—although ironically both became early targets in the gentrification process. Mount Pleasant quickly transformed from one of Vancouver’s cheapest neighbourhoods to one of its most expensive, ground zero for the increasing unaffordability of the city.

The MPCAS engages with this complex and, at times, tense history of displacement, creativity, expansion and grit.

Participate:
Our vision is to provide an urban screen with content received from and responsive to its viewers, in contrast to the advertising/consumer paradigm that is the rule with most highly visible screens in a public space.

As we build a program that reflects, engages with and enriches the complex cultural history of Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant neighbourhood, our call for submissions welcomes contributions from artists, collectives, curators and other community members, organizations and community festivals. Topics could include (but are not limited to) identity, language, housing, city streets, food, neighbourhoods, landmarks, loss, memories, narratives of the past, and potential futures.

The racialized, immigrant and working class communities that have been the backbone of Mount Pleasant have also been disproportionately impacted by the economic swings and recent gentrification of the area. Without a doubt, the history of this unique neighbourhood is entwined with colonial legacies and systemic inequities, and we invite submissions that explore the idea of place from the angle of disPLACEment, too.

Generally speaking, submitted works should be ten minutes or less in length and could include (but are not limited to) still images, time-based media, animations, performance works, archival video, interactive pieces, GIFs, experimental video, event proposals, and curatorial/screening proposals.

How To Submit Your Work:
Please include the following information in your proposal :

• Maximum one-page proposal describing your project, and how it relates to PLACE.
• Supporting Documentation: Video submissions should be sent as a link to a host site (Youtube, Vimeo, etc). You may also send preview files via WeTransfer, Dropbox, or similar services if you prefer, please keep files to a maximum of 500MB.
• Photography and image based submissions: 10-12 images. Image files should be no more than 1200 pixels wide.
• Creator CV and a short biography.
• Artist / Curator Statement (optional).

Please email proposals to submissions[at]grunt[dot]ca by July 31st at 4pm to be considered for Fall/Winter 2020 programming.

MPCAS Content and Technical Guidelines are available as a downloadable PDF

**Due to COVID-19, we will only be accepting digital submissions until further notice.

Become A Part of the MPCAS through our Digital Stories Workshops!
grunt gallery and EastVan Digital Stories join forces with Mount Pleasant and Vancouver residents who wish to create short videos around the theme of PLACE. Artists Lorna Boschman and Sebnem Ozpeta will host a series of free workshops that walk participants through the process of digital story making. Selected videos from the workshops will be shown on the MPCAS. For more information on EastVan Digital Stories please email lorna[at]digitalstories[dot]ca

Details on MPCAS programming and submissions can be found on our website mpcas.ca

Follow @gruntgallery and @MPCAS.Vancouver on Facebook for announcements and registration info for upcoming Fall and Winter workshops.

Image: Tomas Jirku, Unseen Urban Energy, still,  2019.

grunt gallery launched the Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen (MPCAS) in December, 2019. The MPCAS is a 4×7 metre outdoor urban screen showing art-only content by and for the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood of Vancouver.

CURRENT PROJECTS:

Mount Pleasant Community Arts Screen
grunt gallery’s Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen (MPCAS) is an outdoor 4×7 metre LED screen featuring art-only content by and for the Mount Pleasant community, located at Kingsway & Broadway in Vancouver on the east side of the Independent building. Visit mpcas.ca for full details!

The Blue Cabin Floating Artist Residency
In 2015, two celebrated Canadian artists, the late Al Neil and his partner, Carole Itter, were evicted from their studio home, a small cabin that had been sitting in a secluded cove on the Tsleil-Waututh territory foreshore near Cates Park since 1932. Over the course of 4 years, a consortium of arts organizations came together to save the cabin and transform it into The Blue Cabin Floating Artist Residency. The Blue Cabin floated into Vancouver’s False Creek in the summer of 2019. In fall 2019, the Blue Cabin Floating Artist Residency launched Skeins: Weaving on the Foreshore, the inaugural program of artist residencies, open houses, talks and workshops. Situated in the unceded lands and waters of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, the Blue Cabin is international in scope but deeply rooted in the histories and narratives of this place, offering a unique opportunity to learn, explore and engage with the foreshore.

Accessible, Exhibitions, Public Programming and Events project (AEPE)
grunt’s Accessible, Exhibitions, Public Programming and Events project (AEPE) supports a radical development prototype, exploring access and accessible planning, community care and public programming, Disability Justice and non-hierarchical approaches to knowledge sharing and decision making. The cross departmental initiative provides leadership and labour to the grunt team as we explore access, justice, and care as an artist-run centre. The AEPE project is led by grunt’s Exhibitions and Accessibility Manager, Kay Slater, and our Accessibility and Events Manager, Keimi Nakashima-Ochoa, alongside the work of grunt’s accessibility committee which is composed of grunt staff across departments and is informed by the vision and priorities of the AEPE project.

Cree & D by These Ones
Cree & D is a narrative podcast that uses the format of Dungeons and Dragons gameplay but reimagined as a Cree-based and focused campaign written by siblings Jessica and Ben Johns. This campaign follows the story of three cuzzins, Auntie Vera, Auntie Darlene and Auntie Mac as they search for Kokum Cardinal’s stolen staff and work to preserve the peace in the realm of Ministik. Cree & D is produced by These Ones (formerly known as Together Apart) and supported by grunt gallery on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. We record on Treaty 6 at FAVA studios. Art by Abbey Riddle. Music by Matthew Cardinal. Voices by Ben and Jessica with Emily Riddle and Matt Ward.

Digital Stories
grunt gallery and EastVan Digital Stories join forces with Mount Pleasant and Vancouver residents who wish to create short videos around the theme of PLACE. Artists Lorna Boschman and Sebnem Ozpeta host free workshops at grunt gallery that walk participants through the process of digital story making!

PAST PROJECTS:

Spark: Fireside Artist Talk Series
January 2016 – March 2022
A series of informal artist talks hosted by the Native Education College (NEC) in partnership with grunt gallery.  These informal talks featured Indigenous artists whose work spans media from the two-dimensional to live performance and beyond.  Their works fuse traditional cultural knowledge with contemporary art forms, pose urgent political questions, and push the boundaries of how we think about art, history and culture more broadly.

Recollective: Vancouver Independent Archives Week
A series of free public events, panels, conversations, performances, and screenings that highlight artist-run centre archives, artists working with archives, and the intersections between contemporary art practices and social movements in Vancouver and beyond. Partners: 221a, Artspeak, The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Rungh Magazine, VIVO Media Arts Centre, and Western Front.

Nu chexw kw’átchnexw kwétsi sḵel̓áw̓?// Can you See Beaver?
Nu chexw kw’átchnexw kwétsi sḵel̓áw̓?// Can you See Beaver? was a community-based research and public art project led by Gitksan Witsuwit’en artist and community organizer Jolene Andrew and produced by grunt gallery Project Curator Nellie Lamb, in collaboration with Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House. Visit canyouseebeaver.ca for full details!

These Ones 
These Ones (formerly Together Apart) was envisioned as a way of making and holding space for 2SQ/Indigiqueer folks to come together and to be in dialogue with one another so that we might centre the conversations we’d like to hear or that we feel have been absent in our communities. However, our intentions were also simple: to celebrate and enjoy one another’s creativity and dedication to our practices, and to recognize one another in such a way that speaks across the distances we experience in our living and movement through our worlds.

2019

Wordless – The Performance Art of Rebecca Belmore
A beautiful new print publication examining the performance work of Canadian artist Rebecca Belmore, that brings together documentation of Belmore’s 30-year career, as well as generating a series of new work based on her past performance. This project feeds into grunt’s long-term interest in performance art, archives and support of Rebecca Belmore’s work. This project also included an exhibition of new photographs by Belmore, nindinawemaganidog (all of my relations), and the re-deisgn of Belmore’s website. Wordless: The Performance Art of Rebecca Belmore is now available via our online bookstore.

Particles: Seoul to Vancouver
Particles continues grunt’s partnership with organizations and artists in Seoul, South Korea. This international program began in Seoul in 2018 with Instant Coffee’s project Pink Noise Pop Up and continues with an artist residency, an exhibition and a curatorial tour in Vancouver this May. Event information is below.

2018

Pink Noise Pop Up
March – April 2018
A series of events that expands the relationship between the arts communities in Vancouver and Seoul, Pink Noise Pop Up seeks to highlight the ways that art interacts with the often complex social and economic conditions of the city. Based in the work of Canadian arts collective Instant Coffee, this exhibition includes installations, artist editions, performances and other collaborations that will take place in South Korea.

The Making of An Archive
Summer 2017 – Spring 2018
Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyễn’s project, The Making of an Archive, seeks to collect images of everyday life photographed by Canadian immigrants, in a direct, collective and exploratory approach.

2017

Journey to Kaho’olawe
May 25 – 30, 2017
Journey to Kaho’olawe is an artist publication by Hans Winkler and T’uy’t-tanat Cease Wyss. The book is the result of a four year process centred on the Hawaiian Island of Kaho’olawe, a sacred site to the Hawaiians in recovery after being occupied as a practice range by the American military. Returned to the Hawaiians in the 1990s, the island is being remediated and returned to its natural state. In conjunction with the launch of the publication grunt gallery and the artists present a week long series of events celebrating Kaho’olawe and the Kanaka presence in BC.

Spring Fever: Vancouver Independent Archives 2017
March 18 – April 8, 2017
This spring season, Vancouver Independent Archives will offer a series of free public talks, screenings and community workshops that foreground local art and art history by drawing on the archives of Vancouver’s independent arts community. Building on the success of Vancouver Independent Archives Week 2015, Spring Fever invites new partner artists, scholars, and organizations to share their approach toward and practice within the archive.

Intertextual
What’s At Stake? Intertextual Indigenous Knowledges is an afternoon of talks, panels and a spoken word performance which examines knowledge, power, authority, and sovereignty in the construction of artistic practices. The event follows from Intertextual: Art in Dialogue, a roving reading group that was held at participating galleries over the last year.

2016

Shako Club
A series of workshops in the Tonari Gumi kitchen and studio space around concepts of wellness, care and food where culinary “sculptures” were constructed, incorporating aspects of stories, ideas and wellness philosophies. By artist Cindy Mochizuki and members from Tonari Gumi.

Past and Presence: NEC Mural Project
The Native Education College and grunt gallery are partnering with Vancouver-based First Nations artists Corey Bulpitt, Sharifah Marsden and Jerry Whitehead to create a mural celebrating NEC’s 30 years in Mount Pleasant.

Cutting Copper: Indigenous Resurgent Practice
A collaborative project between grunt gallery and the Belkin Art Gallery, aiming to bring together a cross-disciplinary group of artists, curators, writers, educators, scholars, students, and activists to explore the embodied theory of Indigenous resurgence and cultural representation – both from the perspectives of their own disciplines and one another’s.

2015

Terminus: Archives, Ephemera, and Electronic Art
This workshop was a part of the 2015 International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA).  Organized by the Ethnographic Terminalia Collective in collaboration with Tarah Hogue and Glenn Alteen.

FutureLoss
Space, on Main Street and in Vancouver, is currency, and artist Zoe Kreye’s practice reaches through the overarching narratives of real estate, gentrification and speculation to consider the poetics of an individual’s connection to place.

2014

MAINSTREETERS: Taking Advantage, 1972–1982
The history of a gang of Vancouver artists who lived and worked together in drama, excess, friendship and grief.

30th Anniversary
Thirty years is a long time.  A retrospective of all that is (and was) grunt gallery.

Play, Fall, Rest, Dance
The artist works with children with disabilities to emphasize the state of making and being, the pursuit of uninhibited creative exploration that is void of rules, structures and concepts of ‘right or wrong’ and ‘perfection vs. mistakes’. Children are enabled with artistic autonomy and the artist thoughtfully guides them to explore their creative processes.  By artist Valerie Salez.

gruntCraft
A youth engagement pilot program developed to bridge the creative work being done by youth in the popular online video game Minecraft and artistic inquiry at grunt gallery.

2013

ThisPlace Vancouver
Rethinking ideas about Vancouver’s identity and history, this project attempted to compile a collaborative archive in order to expand the collective awareness of the city’s narratives.

2009

Vancouver Art in the Sixties: Ruins in Process
A digital archive of artwork, ephemera, and film.

2008

Nikamon Ohci Askiy (songs because of the land)
In December 2008, artist Cheryl L’Hirondelle made daily journeys throughout Vancouver and “sung” the landscape she encountered.

Beat Nation
Hip Hop as Indigenous culture.

The Medicine Project
Aboriginal notions of medicine and how they influence the lives of First Nations people and artists today.

2006

First Vision
Two worlds – curated by Tania Willard.

2005 – 2009

Brunt Magazine
Showcasing the artists exhibited at grunt gallery, brunt magazine is a complement to the exhibitions and a closer look at the artists, their processes, and the ideas that inspire their work.

We are currently accepting submissions for the Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen, until February 7th, 2022! We welcome contributions from artists, collectives, curators and other community members, organizations and community festivals. Generally speaking, submitted works should be 10 minutes or less and could include (but are not limited to) still images, time-based media, animations, performance works, archival video, interactive pieces, GIFs, experimental video, and curatorial/screening proposals.

The curatorial vision for the Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen is centralized on the broader theme of PLACE. Initially, this focused on the literal geographical perimeters on the stolen, unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations, as a part of one of so-called Vancouver’s earliest neighbourhoods. This theme has also evolved to encompass a continuing community and network of makers holding deep knowledge of the area’s histories, holding visions of the future, and holding ground as the landscape rapidly shifts in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood. Topics have included identity, language, housing, city streets, food, neighbourhoods, landmarks, loss, memories, narratives of the past, and potential futures.

The MPCAS will continue to honour it’s initial framing of PLACE; as a community screen we are beholden to how we are on the land and how we wish to reflect the communities we envision this screen to be for. We also invite and encourage submissions which speak towards the ambiguity of place–of displacement, diaspora, digital and contested space, as well as artists whose work has been inextricably shaped by their time in the communities of this PLACE.

Click here for details and submission forms!

Tidal Volume is a digital artist residency featuring Indigenous artists from Vancouver and Melbourne, Australia. Tidal Volume is designed as a ‘call and response’ residency that creates an opportunity for Indigenous culture-bearers and artists to work with sound, song, language, spoken word and text to connect across distance. Produced in the context of the pandemic, Tidal Volume asks us to consider what presence means when we can’t be in physical spaces together. How might we communicate — and listen — differently?

The waterways and coastlines of Vancouver and Melbourne set the basis for exploration: both ocean and river represent rich history, complex currents, exchange and deep knowledge. It is also a contentious place, a defining factor in increasingly urgent discussions around nationhood, access, jurisdictional boundaries and climate change. As we seek to revisit, explore and nurture histories of the foreshore, we also seek to provide a space and a support network for artists to interrogate and expand our understanding of the land and waters around us.

Artists Salia Joseph (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Snuneymuxw) and Orene Askew (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh) participated in this 4-week exploratory sound-based exchange with Maya Hodge (Lardil & Yangkaal) and Jarra Steel (Boonwurrung & Wemba Wemba) from September 27th—October 24th, 2021. Learn more about the artists here.

Click here to watch a captioned recording of the final event and artwork presentation, which took place online on November 19th, 2021.

Tidal Volume is presented by grunt gallery and The Blue Cabin Floating Artist Residency (Vancouver, CA) in collaboration with Footscray Community Arts Centre (Melbourne, AU).

Funded by the generous support of the Australia Council for the Arts and the Canada Council for the Arts.

Image: Jarra Karalinar Steel, 2021.

#callresponse, co-organized by Tarah Hogue, Maria Hupfield and Tania Willard, began at grunt gallery in 2016. The exhibition has toured across Canada and the US for two years and recently came to a close at TRUCK Contemporary Art and Stride Gallery in Calgary. To mark the end of the tour, grunt’s curatorial interns, Whess Harman and Nellie Lamb, chatted with Tarah about #callresponse and the roles of collaboration and mentorship in her practice.

Ursula Johnson with Charlene Aleck and Cease Wyss performing at the #callresponse opening in 2016. Photo by Merle Addison.

NL: Can you start by briefly describing #callresponse?

TH: #callresponse takes as its starting point five projects that were commissioned by Indigenous women-identifying artists based across Canada and into the US. The invitations were extended to these artists in particular because they are all very much enmeshed in working with community in different ways and their practices are all quite diverse, ranging from performance to ceremony to new media. The context that we asked those initial five artists to respond to was around reconciliation but in a roundabout way. We thought about how the projects that these artists are already committed to working on have a really transformative capacity, and looked at that as a starting point in order to turn that settler-nation-state-to-Indigenous relation within reconciliation on its head. We then asked each of those artists to extend that invitation to a collaborator or respondent to create these dialogues between practices. We were thinking about this call and response structure, but the artists took that in so many different directions. Christi Belcourt and Isaac Murdoch decided to work together and position the land as their respondent, so there’s different degrees of collaboration or mentorship or response throughout the project.

WH: I was just reading over everything on the website again and the initial outset of how the project was described and, as an artist and someone at grunt now, it stood out so much how present these questions still are, not just as institutions but as artists. One of the questions I had about that is, how do you think institutions now are responding to this idea of reconciliation? Do you think that’s changed a lot or do you think #callresponse could just keep going until institutions responded in a meaningful way?

TH: [laughs]…until decolonization?

WH: [laughs] Yeah, until we achieve decolonization!

TH: That’s an interesting question because the experience of working with all of the institutions that we partnered with was very different and demonstrated where different organizations are in that relationship-building process. Like at Blackwood Gallery, we were in the context of an academic institution—they’re at the University of Toronto Mississauga—and part of what we did when we were there was to meet with university faculty and talk about their efforts to indigenize the academy, which is something that was a relatively new path for them at that time, or at least was new in terms of the university recognizing the work that Indigenous faculty were already doing in a systematic way. And then at a place like AKA Artist Run Centre in Saskatoon we were building upon work that they had already been doing within the community there, so it was really just about how we could give our resources over to the work that was already happening. I think that because the project doesn’t centre that settler-Indigenous relationship within reconciliation in the same way, that it could keep going on for a long time. Not that I don’t think that other projects that privilege that relationship aren’t important but it’s also like, who’s benefit is that for?

WH: It’s a heavy load on Indigenous artists. I feel, again speaking as an artist, being asked to do that, it’s like, I don’t have the answer and that’s what so many of these projects seem to frame like: “We’re going to have a reconciliation project and we’re going to have an answer!” But you are not! It’s going to be exhausting and I might be kicking and screaming by the time you’re finished.

TH: I asked Maria and Tania to work with me because they’re two people who I look up to immensely, and we further invited other artists who we looked up to immensely. A lot of the artist-respondent pairings had that aspect woven into it. Some artists chose to respond more directly to that context of reconciliation, like Christi and Isaac saying we’re not ready for reconciliation; we have to reconcile ourselves with the land before we can do something else.

WH: On the [web]page there’s a little thing where you’re quoting Leanne Simpson that was something that stood out to me about the whole process. With reconciliation are tied in these concepts of recognition and those concepts of recognition are so different when Indigenous people are working with other Indigenous people—it strengthens those bonds.

TH: That idea of living as if, as if we have realized the realities that we want on the ground. I love Leanne Simpson.

NL: I really like this web-like, looking-in-multiple-directions-at-the-same-time idea. When I originally read about the project I understood it as starting with you and hopping over to these artists and then they hop to these [other] artists, but listening to you talk about it now, it’s not so linear.

TH: No it’s not. That web of relationships, I’m coming to realize, is part of my curatorial practice both unconsciously and consciously. Translating that way of working to working at the Vancouver Art Gallery is a little bit complicated. How do you maintain that? How the institution responds to that methodology is interesting.

WH: It must be hard with larger institutions. I imagine there is this unspoken thing about making things palatable for an audience but a project like #callresponse is asking, well, what’s palatable for an institution?

TH: That’s something that I’ve puzzled over about the exhibition in general as it’s travelled to different places, because the story of the project is so rich and all of the different in-person interactions and experiences are at the heart of the exhibition, and then you have a series of works that stay the same, that travel to each place with a few changes, like when Ursula did a new song line that would go into the gallery instead of the initial one that she and Cheryl did together. A lot of the works in the show point outside of themselves. Maria’s felt bag is an object that’s activated in performance and the plywood cut-out buffalo robe points to the fact that that original object is not there any more. I’ve always been curious throughout the process of the exhibition about how people experience that pointing outside of the gallery through these objects that are inside of the space. Allison Collins, when the show opened here, said that the role of imagination in looking at the exhibition was something that stood out for her right away. Thinking about what the stories of the objects were outside of the space. She said something along the lines of imagination is not valued as much in exhibitions as it should be.

WH: Initially I also had the same idea that this is a very linear project in many ways, but did you find overall that you were enmeshing more into things, into networks?

TH: Yeah, I would say so. It’s interesting to re-install a show over and over again and see how it shifts in every location and every context and what kinds of conversations come out of those contexts. The most enmeshed aspect of the project was me, Maria and Tania working together. That kind of coordinating but also curatorial conversations around each project—it was really thinking about, in each context, what projects we could activate or what artists we could bring in that would speak well to that context. Really it was about being responsive to that set of conditions, but sort of diving deeper into the projects each time.

NL: Do you have an example of one install or experience of install that changed really drastically or in an important way?

TH: Ursula’s project is a good example of that. Her project, The Land Sings, was in existence before #callresponse started. She had already done three or four song lines, so the project was a way of building on that work and acknowledging that work. We did song lines here, in Mississauga, New York, and Halifax. It moved from the East Coast to the West Coast and then back again over the course of the tour. In each case Ursula is working with singers, hand drummers, and language speakers in that area, and thinking about the relationships between the gallery and the closest First Nation community. That project shifted each time. In New York the song line was mapped onto the skyline of the city as something that’s such a defining feature there and is overlaid on top of Indigenous space and closely follows historic travelling routes that Indigenous Lenape would have travelled along.

NL: That site-specificity seems like such an integral part of the project.

TH: I think so. The initial five commissions were asked to be “locally responsive”; we didn’t really use the term “site specific.” I guess it started by thinking about how all of these artists are committed to doing the work that they’re doing in their own communities. That community is differently defined by everyone. It’s not about an ancestral or reserve community. It can be a shifting context that the artists are all responding to. Also, when we approached galleries for the first time we always asserted that this is a partnership. So the galleries need to take the lead, developing programming that makes sense in their context. We’re not just going to parachute in and do this exhibition; it wouldn’t be in line with how the project began or how it developed. It’s all the context; the responsiveness to context has always been a really central aspect to the project.

WH: Did you find some resistance from some places that didn’t understand where the project was coming from?

TH: No, luckily our partnerships were formed well in that way. Certainly some institutions had much more active, or ongoing or in-depth conversations than others that just rolled with it in their own way. Or [with] some people, it was a really collaborative coming to understand what needed to happen. I think that most of our partners understood for the most part what we were trying to do. There were challenges along the way. I think once we had done the first few, you kind of figure out what questions to ask, what kind of conversations need to happen at the beginning in order to get to what needs to happen. There’s always going to be a set of possibilities that we are responding to and another set of considerations that can be discussed with the partners.

WH: It seems like a difficult thing to do something like an exhibition, which is very administrative just by nature of being attached to an institution, [and] to also have it sincerely engage with the people that are going to see it. A thing I think about a lot when I’m asked to do a workshop is, well, what’s actually beneficial to you? To stop you from just dropping in and being like, “These are my ideas!” and then peace-ing out and ending the dialogue.

TH: I think that a lot of relationships were formed through the project. The participating artists are variously involved in communities where the show went to, so we were able to build upon those relationships a little bit.

WH: I was never able to make any of the performances just by nature of always travelling myself. I just remember each time there was a performance there was a spike in the hash tag and just feeling this intense feeling of FOMO. But also, going through the comments and seeing everyone else who couldn’t make it, there’s this weird outside community that wasn’t able to attend.

TH: Speaking of spider webs and networks, right? The amount of people who have followed the project online and through its various iterations has been pretty spectacular. It’s been really heart-warming in that respect. All of the artists, especially the five initial artists, they’re all such powerhouses. Huge amazing forces to be reckoned with. That was apparent always throughout the exhibitions.

WH: What curatorial projects are you inspired by outside of your own?

TH: Because I’m now working at the Vancouver Art Gallery I’m looking more intensively at what other large-scale institutional work people are doing and always puzzling to myself how they pulled that off. The work that Jamie Isaac and Julie Nagam are doing at Winnipeg Art Gallery, it’s very clearly connected to the community there and has enlivened the space when they activate it through their work and also their ethic and methodology. The way that they work together is really something I admire. And one of the best shows that I’ve seen in the last couple of years is We Carry Forward by Lisa Myers. I saw it when I was in Ontario. It was a group exhibition that just really floored me. She’s a really smart curator. And Lorna Brown at the Belkin, I was thinking about Lorna and Lisa together because they both play upon the meaning and structure of language and then extrapolate that into the artworks that they include.

NL: I’m just thinking about #callresponse ending: it recently wrapped up at its last stop at Stride and TRUCK Gallery in Calgary. Is there a story or a feeling about the impact of the project—maybe something in your own practice—as it comes to a close? How are you reflecting on the project?

TH: Two things come to mind: the scales of intimacy and really public-facing discourse that have both been really fulfilling. I think that’s encapsulated at Stride and TRUCK Gallery in Calgary. We worked with youth from Tsuu T’ina First Nation, which is a program already established with those galleries. A dozen kids came from the rez and we had pizza lunch,we gave them a tour of the show, Maria let them mess with her performance objects, and then we did a pirate radio broadcast in the gallery at TRUCK, which would have a radius of about a block. And the kids, like, played Drake songs and told jokes and we ate chips. It took a few hours before, right at the very end, everyone’s warmed up to each other and we’re chilling and it’s natural. It’s a little different with kids, but there’s a number of moments throughout the project that are small scale and focused on that kind of moment. And then there’s a moment, like opening the exhibition in New York and doing a round table to a packed house, attended by arts workers from around the city. And you recognize that you’re part of a dialogue that people really need to be hearing there and need to be having, because it doesn’t happen enough and the ways that [it] happens aren’t always Indigenous-led. It is a small moment, but you just feel like you’re connected to something that’s wider and urgent. Those nodes of the project are what will resonate with me for a long time to come.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

Rodrigo 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

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

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

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

Mark 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

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.

Explore over twenty-five years of art at the grunt gallery.

Since the mid 1990s there has been an active effort to compile a functional archive of materials that reflect the depth of grunt’s programming and the important artists and exhibitions that grunt has supported and showcased. grunt’s physical archive consists of over 100 binders and boxes of photographic, paper and video material that documents our exhibitions, performances, and other activities dating back to grunt’s inception in 1984.

In 2011, as part of the Activating the Archives (ATA) project, we launched an online database developed by Mainsocial, which we continue to populate with digitized archival material. This effort was motivated by our goal to both protect and animate materials by digitally diversifying our holdings as a means of increasing public access and engagement to our archives.

grunt’s 2012 Strategic Plan includes a formalized Archives Plan that prioritizes the archives as a part of our programming stream and works develop deeper relationships with supporters, collaborators, researchers, and volunteers.  The Archives Plan also established an Archives Committee that includes board members, professional colleagues, and staff. Through various projects we have developed collegial relationships with other organizations including Western Front, VIVO and VTape (Toronto) around the development of archives in artist-run centres. These groups have different priorities, philosophies, and protocols around their archives and our discussion seeks to share awareness around best practices and technology, as well as foster collaborative efforts, such as Vancouver Independent Archives Week 2015.

The contemporary art archived by grunt has a very particular aesthetic of openness and invites discourse amoung multiple communities. Digitizing our archival material creates a lasting impact on curators, artists, audiences, and educators in Vancouver and beyond, by allowing research and dialogue that will further share their histories.

The physical grunt archives are available to the public and are a valuable resource for students, researchers, artists, educators, and community members. To make a research appointment, please email dan@grunt.ca

You can support grunt’s Archives by donating: