Exhibition Abstract

Resonant Bodies considers how our relationship with land, water and story can emerge through repeated acts of care. Slowing down, staying with, allowing oneself to be guided by who is already present. Through gestures of Touching, looking and listening, three cedar, sound and video installation works linger within the threshold between self and place, asking what might become possible when connection begins through action and care.

Naomi shares: “While working with these cedar beings, I became more and more attentive to the offcuts and natural forms that emerged from carving, noticing that they seemed to speak for themselves when I worked alongside them rather than carving something representational. This became part of a larger process of figuring myself out and returning to the stories and relationships that shaped me while growing up away from my nation. Through these gestures, I have found an intimate threshold that I want to linger within–a space where I can consider proximity, displacement and belonging while being generative and careful.”

These works are an attempt to remain open to that learning and to the ancestral stories resting within cedar grain, moving through green-hued lakes and carried across each limb of sand. In this way, Resonant Bodies calls to keep listening, keep learning and keep returning to the relationships that make this connection and care possible.

Artist Biography

Naomi Watkins (they/them) is a 2S Secwépemc interdisciplinary artist from Tkʼemlúps te Secwépemc. Through peripatetic and land-based methods, they reflect on how personal and ancestral displacement and reconnection shapes our relationship to place, aiming to create spaces of belonging.
They hold an MFA (2025) and BFA (2023) from Emily Carr University of Art and Design, supported by a SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship. Their work has been exhibited at the Museum of Vancouver and Polygon Gallery.

Learn more about Watkins by visiting their Instagram page @naomiwatkinsva, or their website www.naomiwatkins.com.

Tactile Objects (welcome station)

The works on the wall and the plinth can be touched.

In the welcome station, there is a 3D map that gives a sense of the layout of the gallery. The 3D map (also referred to as our dollhouse map) only depicts the gallery and has paper, and sand installed to help with wayfinding through the gallery. The map can also be used as a reference in the creative audio tour tracks online and on the yoto player in gallery.

There are colouring sheets in the media lab.

Exhibition Titles in Charcoal

This exhibition continues grunt gallery’s transition away from using vinyl for titles. Our current indoor exhibition signage and show titles are hand-painted using a mixture of rice paste or nori and charcoal.

This method, developed by the Centre for Sustainable Curating, minimizes our reliance on vinyl and allows for a clean, waste-free removal process between exhibitions. We are thrilled to implement this innovative technique.

Jessica Fletcher, our archives assistant, introduced us to this process in the spring after seeing it presented at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, where she also serves as the Exhibitions and Collections Assistant.

We have been delighted by how this technique has resonated with local artists and galleries, with it starting to show up in other exhibitions on Coast Salish territory.

Thank you to Eileen Choi and Rebecca Wang for their patience and care in installing our lettering for this show.

For additional resources regarding sustainable installation and curation, please visit https://sustainablecurating.ca/.

Exhibition Works

Visual descriptions are also incorporated into the Creative Audio Tour for the show. The tour is available as of Tuesday, October 29th online, in our exhibition binder, and on our Yoto audio players.

pestáwt, 2026

(on the other side [of a waterway])

Pronunciation: pest-ought

A half log of western red cedar rests lengthwise on top of a large plinth, just over six feet long and two feet wide, the size of a work table. The plinth is 30 inches tall, about the height of a child’s highchair or stair banister.

A shallow raised lip around the top of the plinth contains a layer of sand surrounding the log. Scattered through the sand are small, worn pieces of driftwood, larger stones, and ground shells that sparkle in the light.

Several knotholes in the cedar log have been drilled through to its hollow interior. Inside the plinth, a video is projected under the log. Through the knotholes, the luminous green moving image is visible, flowing along the length of the log.

The video presents an overhead view of water. Green algae sways beneath the surface with the current. Small, repeating waves catch the sunlight, creating shimmering highlights across the water.

The video runs for 3 minutes and 36 seconds, then repeats.

There is no sound.

músem, 2026

(feel with the palms of the hand)

Pronunciation: moo-sem

A cross-section of a western red cedar trunk, approximately 19 inches or arms length in diameter and 4 inches deep, is mounted on the wall, 49 inches above the floor, about the height of a water cooler. The wood ranges from light golden brown to darker brown.

The piece is roughly circular but irregular around the edges. The front surface is rough, and a slight vibration can be felt to the touch. Growth rings and numerous saw and scratch mark the surface.

A long, narrow rectangular split extends inward from the edge at approximately one o’clock, with a smaller, shorter notch at three o’clock and a larger, irregular jagged notch along the lower edge. The outer edge of the piece has horizontal cracks and is partly covered with irregular winding lines resembling etched marks.

The audio file runs for 3 minutes, then repeats.

setsínem , 2026

(she sings)

Pronunciation: seh-chee-nem

A cross-section of a western red cedar roughly shaped like an inverted triangle is mounted on the wall, 49 inches above the floor, about the height of a water cooler. The wood measures approximately 18 inches or arms length in height and width, and 8 inches in depth. It is dark brown, noticeably darker than músem.

Near the centre are two small holes, three inches apart on a horizontal line, drilled into the wood. Each hole is about wide enough to fit a pinky finger. A video plays inside the piece, with luminous light shining through the holes. The video shows images of forests, flowers, animals, and fragments of Secwépemc words.

The piece has an irregular outline, with a pointed corner extending upward at approximately ten o’clock and a large notch at five o’clock. A long, thin line extends inward from the notch toward the small viewing hole on the right. Growth rings mark the front surface. The outer edge is rough and uneven, with numerous small holes that resemble insect holes.

The video runs for 4 minutes and 16 seconds, then repeats.

Audio transcript:

00:00 – 00:48: a slow fade in from silence, to a quiet rustle of leaves and light water of a creek.

00:49 – 01:18: quiet wind and drips of water flowing off onto the ground, splashing.

01:19 – 01:38: creek water flowing heavily through large rocks.

01:39 – 02:45:  quiet wind and drips of water flowing off onto the ground, splashing.

02:46 – 03:23: rhythmic chirping of a cricket.

03:24 – 04:16: no sound.

Curatorial Essay by Daina Warren

Resonant Bodies: Water, Displacement, and the Gesture of Return

Naomi Watkins is an Indigenous interdisciplinary artist based in Vancouver, BC, currently working across carving, audio, and video. Watkins explores the intersections of displacement, reconnection, and the inherent animacy of more-than-human beings. Watkins is from the Secwépemc nation, from BC’s southern interior. By centering the agency of the more-than-human world, their work challenges anthropocentric perspectives on belonging. Ultimately, Watkins aims to spark critical dialogue regarding identity, revealing that our sense of place is a collaborative experience shaped by both human history and the living landscapes we inhabit.

To encounter the contemporary Indigenous experience through the lens of a two-spirit Secwépemc artist raised away from unceded homelands is to confront the geography of proximal displacement. In this exhibition, spatial dislocation is not merely charted along the asphalt highway connecting the urban sprawl of Vancouver to the inland rivers of Kamloops; it resides in the subtle, enduring friction between presence and absence, ancestral memory and diaspora.

Secwépemc—historically Anglicized by settlers as “Shuswap”—translates fundamentally to The People. Secwépemcúl’ecw (Secwépemc territory) has long been shaped by semi-nomadic relationality: seasonal migrations between winter semi-underground pit-houses and summer reed-mat lodges, trade networks guided by oral tradition, and prominent territory markers such as the storied Coyote Rocks. When colonial disruption severs direct access to these ancestral rhythms, displacement risks becoming an absolute state of loss.

Resonant Bodies actively refutes that finality. The exhibition functions as a sensory locus of reconnection, where raw materials, kinetic movement, and acoustic frequencies converge. The gallery ceases to be an inert white cube; instead, it becomes a surrogate landscape through which the artist performs an intentional, reciprocal return to land, water, and nationhood.

At the physical core of the installation lies a split and hollowed five-foot cedar log. Its surface is perforated with holes where branches used to be. Peering into these carved chambers reveals a back-projected video loop displaying aerial vistas of waterways and expansive ecosystems. The bird’s-eye perspective ruptures linear human scale, drawing the viewer downward into a vantage of grounded humility.

Along the perimeter walls, cedar offcuts create a dual phenomenological architecture, dual-carved viewports demand close visual proximity, showing footage of natural spaces. Interwoven across the screen are phrases in Secwepemctsìn alongside English, underscored by occasional field recordings of crickets. The tactile and acoustic attributes are employed through the flanking panels embedded with surface transducers that resonate at 114 Hz and 115 Hz. These precise, low frequencies bypass mere cognitive listening to generate a slow, physical pulse that vibrates through the gallery air.

The artist’s methodology relies heavily on the peripatetic: utilizing movement across terrain as a catalyst for creative reclamation. Rather than viewing the ongoing travel between city and reserve as an exhausting symptom of displacement, the motion of transit is mobilized as a deliberate rite of passage.

Central to this transformation is the integration of Secwepemctsìn. As an ancestral tongue rooted in animism, Secwepemctsìn does not merely name the world—it articulates reciprocal relationships with more-than-human kin. To speak and read the language within the installation reorganizes sensory perception. Water emerges not as an extractable resource, but as a fluid vessel of living, ancestral memory; red cedar acts not as carved timber, but as an animate collaborator sharing its somatic resonance with the visitor.

By aligning low-frequency vibrations with the inherent resonance of raw cedar, Resonant Bodies establishes an acoustic commons. The installation reminds us that displacement is neither permanent nor entirely geographical. Healing occurs in the repeated, deliberate gesture: in the willingness to listen with the body, to speak the ancestral word, and to ground oneself within the pulse of enduring homelands.

Audiences are invited to place their bare palms against the cedar grain. Listening transforms into a haptic, embodied encounter. Leaning close to peer through hollowed wood, standing still in concentrated observation, and pressing flesh against vibrating timber directly mirror the artist’s own bodily gestures of care on the land.

This exhibition serves as a physical and sensory locus for reconnection. Through a delicate interplay of raw cedar, moving image, tactile resonance, and sound, the installation acts as a surrogate for the artist’s personal journey back to land, water, and nation. The work does not simply present an aesthetic object; it constructs an urgent invitation to be present, offering a space defined by contemplation, relation, and grounded interaction. Crucially, the integration of Secwepemctsìn text highlights language revitalization as a vital lens for reordering perception. Learning the ancestral tongue pushes directly against ongoing colonial structures, revealing a worldview rooted in relationality and animism. Here, water is held as a vessel of living memory, cedar as an active participant, and frequency as a shared pulse between body and land.

Creative Access Audio Tour – Transcript

Creative Access Audio Tour – Part One

Welcome to grunt gallery’s creative access audio tour of Resonant Bodies, the exhibition project by artist, Naomi Watkins, curated by Daina Warren. My name is Kay Slater. I am a white, hard-of-hearing, queer settler on these stolen and unceded Coast Salish lands. As the accessibility and exhibitions manager and preparator here at grunt, I assisted in installing this work. While I wrote and narrated this tour today, any pronunciation errors or cultural misrepresentations are on me. We welcome your feedback as we develop more creative access tools for our gallery and exhibitions.

This tour has four chapters in 8 tracks. At the start of each section, you will hear this sound of a page turning:

[Page turning]

First is this intro. In Chapter One, I will detail entering the space and orienting yourself in the gallery. In Chapter Two, I’ll describe our welcome station and the objects available for you to use and touch. Chapter Three covers our facilities, washrooms, and C-Care stations. If you’re ready to tour the show, skip to Chapter Four, where I will read the wall didactic and walk you through the show. If you are skipping ahead, be aware that the welcome station has a tactile maps to help you navigate this tour. When I move to a new artwork, you will hear this sound of crickets:

[Cricket]

Each artwork description within Chapter Four is divided into its own audio part so you can skip or return to an artwork description as you move through the show at your own pace.

Let’s get started with Chapter One.

[Page turning]

Chapter 1: Physically Entering the Space

When approaching grunt gallery at 350 East Second Avenue from the accessible drop-off on Great Northern Way, follow the sidewalk to the building’s main entrance. Turn left at the entrance, and you’ll find us at the first exterior door, unit 116. A low-grade ramp leads to our front double doors, with automatic door buttons at waist and ankle level on a post to the right. Be cautious of the small lip at the threshold, a potential tripping hazard. Excluding Thursdays, masks are now optional and only recommended indoors at grunt; if you forgot yours, we have extras near the entrance and will not enforce their use outside of Thursdays for low-sensory and silent visiting hours.

Welcome to grunt gallery! We are situated on the occupied, stolen, and ancestral territory of the Hul’qumi’num and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh speaking peoples, specifically the land of the X’wmuthqueyem, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and Selilwitulh peoples and families. We are grateful to be here.

The current show has one installation on the ground and 2 works installed on the wall. There is comfortable room to walk the perimeter of the gallery, but please note there is a bench pushed up against the west wall or right wall when you come in and are facing the gallery. If you require assistance moving around the gallery and are not greeted by staff upon entry, please call for help. Staff are in the office and will assist you as soon as possible. 

On low-sensory and silent Thursdays, a staff member will be available but will not greet you, allowing you to move at your own pace. If you are non-visual, call out for help anytime. If you are sighted, please silently approach a staff member. We have hard-of-hearing staff on site, so a visual wave may be required to get their attention.

The public gallery space is a white cube with 20-foot walls on three sides and a 12-foot south wall that opens for 8 feet before reaching the ceiling, providing light to the loft office space beyond. The office is not visible from the gallery, except for a large convex mirror that allows staff to see visitors. A tone rings when people enter the space.

[Page turning]

Chapter 2: grunt gallery’s welcome station

As you enter the gallery, immediately to the right on the west wall is a sanitization and welcome station. The station is blue-grey and white with black labels in English, high-contrast icons, and some braille labels. There are three open shelves, including the top surface and two pull-out shelves below, and two closed drawers with d-hook handles.

On top of the welcome station is our gallery spider plant, Comos, who is watered on Wednesdays. The top surface holds a leather-bound guestbook with a black pen, a bottle of hand sanitizer, and a box of masks with tongs. A digital tablet allows you to browse the exhibition page on our grunt.ca website or access our Big Cartel eCommerce store.

On the first pull-out shelf, on the left, is the exhibition binder with large print information about the space, the show, the artist, a transcript of this tour, and the exhibition map. For shows where we have tactile objects, they are also stored here, but Resonant Bodies is a fully tactile show, so visitors can engage with the works directly.

On the second pull-out shelf, to the left, are laminated maps of the space. Also within these shelves is a 3D tactile map. A tactile dollhouse map of the gallery, can be used to get a sense of the gallery layout and used to follow along with creative access tour while in gallery. Works are indicated by unique shapes glued to the ground or wall of the dollhouse map with the works marked in large print stickers and braille markers to match this tour.

To the right of the maps are two Yoto audio players with large, friendly buttons. These players contain this tour and audio of any text within the binder. There is also a scannable, laminated QR code that links to this audio tour. On Thursdays, the Yoto players are moved to their carrying cases for use with headphones.

Below these are the two closed drawers. The first contains carrying cases with straps for headphones and the Yoto audio devices, allowing hands-free use as well as stimming objects created by local artist, and grunt’s board president, veto. 

The lowest drawer contains earmuffs for large and small bodies, specifically for those with noise sensitivities.

That concludes the description and tour of the welcome station. In the next chapter, I will tell you about our washrooms and care stations. If you’d prefer to continue with the exhibition tour, skip to Chapter Four.

[Page turning]

Chapter 3: The Facility and Amenities

If you need to use the washroom, it’s at the far end of our space. Exit the gallery through the doorway and continue following the west wall (to your right when you entered). Pass by the media lab, and when you reach the back wall, take a left and walk through the small kitchenette to our single-room, gender-neutral washroom.

An automated door button to the right holds the washroom door open for 14 seconds. Inside, to the left of the door, is the lock button which creates a visual indicator that the washroom is in use. To exit, you can open the door manually or hover your hand over a button above the sink, below the mirror.

Near the exit button is a vertical cubby stack of supplies. Please help yourself to items like hair ties, disposable floss, sanitary napkins, and condoms. This is part of our C-Care program, Community Care for Artist-Run Events.

Speaking of C-Care, we have a tea station in our media lab at the back or east side of the room. If you need some energy, you can help yourself to a drink or a puréed fruit snack. This offering may occasionally be put away for the current show, but you can always ask our team for a drink or snack.

Also here is a colouring station for people of all ages. Take a pause and a break here before returning to the gallery and continuing the tour. We now arrive at Chapter Four, where I will begin the exhibition tour next to the welcome station, as if I had just entered the gallery and stepped right to sanitize my hands and grab a map.

[Page turning]

Chapter 4: The Exhibition Tour

If you’re using the tactile maps, we are at location A on the dollhouse near the front of the gallery. The front of the gallery is marked on the bottom of the dollhouse and is a wall of cutouts to represent the many windows.

On the wall behind and above the welcome station is wall didactic text hand painted in charcoal that reads:

Resonant Bodies

Naomi Watkins

Curated by Daina Warren

September 26 – November 21 2026

The charcoal and nori method was developed by the Centre for sustainable curation and we have committed to using this method going forward with our exhibitions. The text can be gently touched and is installed above the welcome station and just below and to the right of the magnifying glasses that are installed for everyone’s use.

The text near the magnifying glasses invites people to either read about the show using our exhibition binder, listen to our yoto audio players, scan a QR code or tap using their phone to get the text and audio materials in digital format from our website.

You may notice that the welcome station does not hold tactile objects this time. That is because every work in Resonant Bodies is available to be explored by touch. The works themselves are our tactile objects.

The walls are painted a light grey-blue, like a Vancouver sky on a rainy afternoon. The paint has a slight shine to it, and the walls can be touched. The baseboards are a light charcoal grey, the colour of wet stone. The window blinds have been lowered, and the lights have been dropped below the painted tops of the walls. This gives the space a very intimate feeling. The spotlights are aimed directly at the works, lighting them in a theatrical way while the rest of the gallery sits in softer shadow.

As you move through the space, you may hear a faint buzzing and, now and then, sounds of nature coming from the works on the east wall. Naomi describes the sounds in the space as tranquil.

The show comprises three works. One sculptural work rests on a large plinth in the centre of the gallery, and two cross-sections of western red cedar are mounted on the east wall. All sculptural work that touches or rests on the ground is cane-detectable, including the plinth. A strip of tape covers the electronics that run along the floor from the plinth to the east wall.

If you would like to sit, there is a leather bench facing the works. There are also two lightweight box seats that can be pushed or picked up and moved wherever you need them. If you need assistance moving through the space or viewing any work, please feel free to call out for help while on-site or contact a staff member for assistance before you arrive in gallery.

The laminated and tactile maps, available at the welcome station, list the works in the following order:

pestáwt (on the other side [of a waterway]), 2026

músem (feel with the palms of the hand), 2026

setsínem (she sings), 2026

This is the order we will follow, running clockwise from the entrance. As a reminder, when I physically move, you will hear the following sound:

[Cricket]

pestáwt (location B)

If you’re using the dollhouse tactile map, we are moving from the welcome station (A) to location B, the centre of the gallery.

Turning left from the welcome station, with the west wall to my right, I step forward and find the leather bench. It sits facing the three works: the one in the centre of the gallery and the two along the east wall. We will begin with the centre work.

pestáwt, pronounced pest-ought, means “on the other side [of a waterway].” A half log of western red cedar rests lengthwise on top of a large plinth. The plinth is just over six feet long and two feet wide, about the size of a work table. It stands 30 inches tall, about the height of a child’s highchair or a stair banister, and it is fully cane-detectable.

A shallow raised lip runs around the top of the plinth and holds a layer of sand around the log. Scattered through the sand are small, worn pieces of driftwood, larger stones, and ground shells that sparkle in the light. The whole work can be explored through touch. You are welcome to run your fingers through the sand and over the bark of the log. 

Several knotholes in the cedar have been drilled through to the log’s hollow interior. I notice a subtle warmth emanating from the drilled knotholes when I bend down to look in. Inside the plinth, a video is projected up under the log, and sighted visitors who peek into the knotholes see a luminous green moving image flowing along its length. The video is an overhead view of water. Green algae sway beneath the surface with the current, and small, repeating waves catch the sunlight, scattering shimmering highlights across the water.

The video runs for 3 minutes and 36 seconds, then repeats. There is no sound.

[Cricket]

músem (location C)

If you’re using the dollhouse tactile map, we are moving from the middle of the gallery at location (B) to location C, the first work on the east wall, closest to the entrance.

I return to the entrance and follow the wall of windows right. When I reach the corner, I turn and follow the east wall until my fingers touch a vibrating piece of wood, or until I find the fabric tape along the wall.

músem, pronounced moo-sem, means “feel with the palms of the hand.” A cross-section of a western red cedar trunk is mounted on the wall. It is about 19 inches across, roughly the width of my shoulders, and 4 inches deep. Its centre sits just below my chin at 49 inches from the floor. The wood ranges from light golden brown to darker brown.

The piece is roughly circular but irregular around the edges. Growth rings, saw marks, and scratches cover the rough front surface. A long, narrow rectangular split reaches inward from the top edge. A smaller, shorter notch, and a larger, jagged notch runs along the right, lower edge. Horizontal cracks run around the outside, which is partly covered in winding lines that look and feel like etched marks.

Naomi tells me that there is a gentle, tranquil sound that comes from the wood. When the work is touched, a slight vibration can be felt. When Naomi touches músem, they place their hand flat against the front, with palm and fingers spread as wide as possible to feel the vibrations move through the wood. I also like to bring my hand around to the side of the work and feel the vibrations along its edges.

The tactile and acoustic sounds are produced by surface transducers embedded in the wood that resonate at 114  and 115 Hz. The audio file that is being translated runs for three minutes and then repeats. In some parts it is gentle, and in others more pronounced. If you don’t feel anything when you first place your hand on the wood, stay with it for a moment. The audio will return.

[Cricket]

setsínem (location D)

If you’re using the dollhouse tactile map, we are moving from the welcome station (C) to location D, the second work on the east wall, in the corner near the south or back wall of the gallery.

I continue following the east wall. As I step along, I come across a strip of tape on the floor covering the electronics that run from the log over to the wall. It brings me almost directly in front of the final work.

setsínem, pronounced seh-chee-nem, roughly translates to “she sings” in English. Another cross-section of western red cedar is mounted at the same height, 49 inches above the floor. This one is roughly the shape of an inverted triangle. It is about 18 inches tall and wide, around my shoulder’s width, and 8 inches or my hand span deep. The wood is dark brown, noticeably darker than músem.

The outline is irregular. A pointed corner and a large notch juts out of the side to the right. From the lower notch, a long, thin line runs inward toward two holes drilled into the front face. Growth rings mark the front surface, and the outer edge is rough and uneven, with many small holes that resemble the path of insects. Some of the texture on the outer edge is soft and has begun to loosen after being touched and handled over time, so please explore this piece gently.

Moving my fingers across the front of the wood brings me to the two small holes near the centre. They sit side by side, three inches apart, each about wide enough to fit a pinky finger. A video plays inside the piece, and light glows out through the holes. Peering in, sighted visitors can glimpse images of forests, flowers, animals, and fragments of Secwépemc words. The video is heavily obscured. To see it, you have to squint and shift your head to catch different pieces. Some moments reveal more motion and more light, but no one can ever see the whole video. Much of it stays hidden inside the wood.

The video runs for 4 minutes and 16 seconds, then repeats. 

Its soundtrack moves through the following sounds:

It fades in slowly from silence to a quiet rustle of leaves and the light water of a creek.

Then there is quiet wind, with drips of water splashing onto the ground.

Then creek water flows heavily through large rocks.

The wind and dripping water return.

Then there is the rhythmic chirping of a cricket.

The last 50 seconds or so are silent.

With that, we conclude the described tour of Resonant Bodies . Later, during the exhibition’s run, we will have a publication available for the show and an alternative described version available in plain text.

Thank you so much for joining us on this creative access audio tour! I also want to thank Rebecca Wong for her help with the descriptions in this tour.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this experience and how we can improve it. 

 We acknowledge that we cannot be everything to everyone, and respect that our creative access explorations may not serve your needs. You can reach us at access@grunt.ca or chat with any of the staff on site with any feedback you have the capacity to provide.

Thank you again.