As the first major gathering of the network of the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Decolonial and Transformational Indigenous Art Practices, this event brings together artists, scholars, students, museum and gallery directors, curators and community members from across Canada and internationally.
Please join us for afternoon sessions that will be free and open to the public, and concludes with a public reception held throughout the Visual Arts Building with visual art installations and interactive projects, food, drinks and music!
Schedule
Artwork by Waylon Asp.
Monday, April 28
Travel Day – Participants arrive in Victoria and check in at the hotel
Tuesday, April 29
Welcome, PechaKucha, Land Rematriation Activities
8:20 am Bus picks up and departs DoubleTree Hilton hotel for University of Victoria
Dress for land rematriation activities (light rain possible), and comfortable footwear for
walking on uneven, slippery outdoor areas
9:00 am Welcome to Territory with Songhees Elder Dr. Skip Dick and Lalita Kines | Ceremonial Hall,
First Peoples House, University of Victoria
10:00 am Coffee/tea break at Room A162, Visual Art Building, University of Victoria
Pecha Kucha style presentations
12:30 pm Lunch
1:30 pm Land rematriation session with Loreisa Lepine & Drew Elves – on campus
Invasive species removal and native planting outdoors on campus
3:50 pm Return bus to hotel. Pick up at Visual Arts Building, University of Victoria
7:00 pm Group Dinner – Steamship Bar and Grill – Bring gifts for exchange
Wednesday, April 30
Gallery & Studio Tours, On the Land/ Beside the Water
9:45 am Walk from hotel to the Legacy Art Gallery
10:00 am Exhibition Curator and Artist tour at Legacy Art Gallery of
GEORGE CLUTESI: ḥašaḥʔap / ʔaapḥii / ʕc̓ik / ḥaaʔaksuqƛ / ʔiiḥmisʔap
11:30 am Bus to Witty’s Lagoon
12:00 pm Picnic lunch + trail walk at Witty’s Lagoon (Metchosin)
2:30 pm Bus departs for Carey Newman’s Studio at 2634 Mt Newton X Road,
Saanichton
3:00 pm Studio tour with Carey Newman
4:00 pm Return bus to hotel
6:30 – 9:00 pm Dinner & Performances at Wawaditła (Mungo Martin House, Royal BC Museum)
Featuring Lkwungen Traditional Dancers; Git Hayetsk Dancers; Itelmen Traditional Dancers; Reneltta Arluk; Taqralik Partridge; Melissa Shaginoff
Thursday, May 1
Across Lands & Waters Symposium Day
8:20 am Bus departs hotel for University of Victoria
9:00 am Symposium Panels 1 & 2 – University Club, University of Victoria
Panel 1 | Care and Community through artistic intervention
Julie Grenier (Convener), Hanne Kirkegaard, Meghann O’Brien, Lindsay McIntyre, Jaymie Campbell
Panel 2 | Recent Curatorial Practices
Daina Warren (Convenor), Ryan Rice, Michelle McGeough, Jordan Wilson, Melissa Shaginoff
11:45am Lunch – University Club, University of Victoria
1:00 pm Across Lands & Waters Symposium (public panel talks ) – Phillip T Young Recital Hall,
University of Victoria
Sovereignty and the Arts | 1:10 - 2:20 pm
Mique'l Dangeli (Convener), Healoha Johnston, Nivi Christensen, Maria Utsi, Josh Tengan
Institutional Practices, Resistance and Transformation | 2:30 - 3:40 pm
Michelle Lavallee (Convenor), Hokulani Aikau (TBC), Damara Jacobs-Petersen, Dine Arnannguaq Fenger Lynge, Karl Chitham
On These Lands and Waters | 3:50 - 5:00 pm
Léuli Eshrāghi (Convenor), Tania Willard (TBC), Sonya Kelliher Combs, Krista Ulujuk Zawadski, Zena Cumpston, Taqralik Partridge
5:00 – 7:00 pm Closing Reception (open to the Public!)
Evening of art, music and celebration - Visual Art Building, University of Victoria
5:30 pm Opening remarks. Music with DJ Murge. Light refreshments and cash bar.
Installations & exhibitions
Continuum | Witness Blanket Virtual-Reality experience | qiaqsutuq
7:15 pm Bus pick up at the Visual Arts Building. Bus to Swan’s Pub.
8:00 pm Group Dinner – Swan’s Pub
Friday, May 2
Travel Day – Departures
Exhibition Specifics – May 1st
Continuum
This exhibition features past, present and future undergraduate and graduate students of the University of Victoria’s Visual Arts Department.
Artists: Breanna Sprecker, Jenna Short, Jordan Hill, Kylie Fineday, Mary-Jane Lalonde, Michaela Gilbert, Napik Kolola, Neva Nowazek, Waylon Asp
Co-Curated by Alexandra Nordstrom and Jasmine Sihra.
Witness Blanket Virtual-Reality Experience
The Virtual Reality Witness Blanket is more than a precise digital rendering of the original. Utilizing the capabilities of technology, it introduces interactive and sometime unexpected ways to explore the stories, objects and meanings held within the blanket, and integrates an audio-scape made of sounds gathered from Indigenous cultural practices. This project is made possible by a partnership between artist CareyNewman, Camosun Innovates, and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, and includes creative contributions from collaborators Kirk McNally, Marek Tyler, and Olivia Shortt.
qiaqsutuq
In Inuktutit, qiaqsutuq is the sound of the whistling wind and the sound of crying. In this collaborative multimedia installation created by five artists from across Inuit Nunaat (from their Inuit homelands in Alaska, Canada and Greenland) qiaqsutuq is critically imagined as a lament for nuna, tariuq, and sila, a chorus of its Arctic inhabitants from the land, sea and sky. As glaciers melt, permafrost melts, floods abound and smoke billows north from forest fires, weather becomes unpredictable, and thus dangerous, in the Arctic. Featuring the distinct perspectives on the impacts of climate change by Iguttaq (Bee Woman), Tuktu (Caribou), Nanuq (Polar Bear), Tulugak (Raven) and Natchik (Seal), these harbingers warn of the fast approaching consequences of our collective inaction on the precious life throughout Inuit Nunaat.
Artists: Jamesie Fournier (Nunavummiut / Yellowknife ); Erin Ggaadimits Ivalu Gingrich (Koyukon Denaa and Iñupiaq / Anchorage); Coco Lynge (Kalaaleq Greenlandic / Denmark); Malayah Maloney (Nunavummiut / Vancouver); Taqralik Partridge, (Nunavimmiut / Ottawa)
Curators: Heather Igloliorte (Nunatsiavummiut / Victoria); Alysa Procida (Settler / Toronto); Carla Taunton (Settler / Halifax)
Produced by the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Decolonial and Transformational Indigenous Art Practices and Taqsiqtuut Research-Creation Lab in collaboration with the Inuit Art Foundation, this artwork is the result of an artist incubator that took place in the summer of 2023 at NSCAD Univerisity’s CIMADE Lab in Kjipuktuk/ Halifax, and premiered at Nocturne Night Festival in October 2023.
Technical and coordination assistance provided by: Aghalingiak, Matthew Brulotte, Kylie Fineday, Annik Gaudet, Yi Fan Liu, Chris Mockford, Danielle Aimée Miles, Nathan Ryan, Hollis Roberts, Natalie Rollins, Carly Greene, Dominic Thibault, Satya Underhill, Nils Ailo Utsi