Ó:xwest kw'e ShxSpeplól Tanya Zilinski | welí lá ye Mestiyexw (Giving Spirit to the People)

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Tanya Zilinski, "Stó:Lō Tselhxwelmexw Ch'tóqw'í sqwelqel (Stó:lō Family Fishing Story)," 2021

loom beaded tapestry, 41 x 29 in. Courtesy of the gallery

Opening Reception: Friday September 23 at 6:30pm

The Reach is proud to present the first exhibition at a public, professional gallery of traditional loom-beaded tapestries by Tanya Zilinski (Little Crow). Zilinski is a member of the Manitoba Métis Federation, with family and ancestral ties to Dakota, Cree, Anishinaabe and Huron Wendat Nations throughout the Plains and Great Lakes regions on their mother’s side, and is of Polish/Ukrainian ancestry on their father’s side. They were born in and have lived their entire life in Ts’qóls, what is known to settlers as Hope, BC, in the unceded territory of the Chawathil First Nation, who are Stó:lō people or “People of the River.” For the last four years Zelinski has also been a student of Halq’eméylem, and they regularly incorporate that language into their artwork titles.

Having been taught to bead as a teenager by the late Mary Sandoval, an Elder from Chawathil, Zilinski immediately fell in love with the medium of traditional loom beadwork, feeling a deep connection to the process which they describe as being as much spiritual as it is physical or material. Their work is inspired by the way that traditional Stó:lō weavings tell story. Each tapestry is based on a teaching or oral history, and is blended with the artist’s own style of narrative storytelling through beadwork, as an expression of their Anishinaabe heritage. Zilinski incorporates cultural significance to each finished work, which are based on visions they receive from Ancestors. For the artist, “every piece has a Spirit. Culture, language and art are all represented in my work.”