enTitle: Our home and Native land / Our home on Native land

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Penticton Art Gallery, '"enTitle: Our home and Native land / Our home on Native land," 2019

Exhibition Closing Celebration and Community Conversation

1:00-8:00pm | Admission by Donation

You are invited to join us down here at the Penticton Art Gallery on Saturday September 14th, 2019 for a unique day long celebration of art and culture. This event celebrates the closing of the following exhibitions: enTitle: Our home and Native land / Our home on Native Land and Jasna Guy + Lincoln Best’s Pretty: Useful. Each of these exhibits has challenged our views and relationship to the land, those who inhabit it and the flora and fauna upon which a healthy ecosystem needs to not only survive but flourish.

Please come down with an open mind and a generous heart and engage with the artists whose work has graced the gallery over the course of the summer. Artists in attendance: Eva Antonijevic, Lincoln Best, Kit Fast, Jasna Guy, Ronnie Dean Harris, Anita Large, Sheldon Louis, Willow Rector, Dr. Suzanne Steele, Peter von Tiesenhausen, David Wilson, and Corinna Wollf.

Admission is by donation and we hope that you can join us for a community potluck and meal to close off the day.

Schedule of events * May be subject to change

1 pm | Traditional Welcome

1:15 - 2 pm | Introduction to the Land upon which we reside and the important work of those working to conserve indigenous species and habitats.

2:15: - 3:15 pm | Artist Round Table: Each of the artist will introduce their work in the exhibition and talk about how their personal history has informed their work. Afterwards, the public will be invited to engage the participating artists in a lively dialogue about the exhibition and the ideas and themes each one has explored.

3:30 – 4:15 pm | Story Harvest: Participants are invited to break out into smaller groups and engage in a listening exercise centered on the following question: What is an experience that has deepened your understanding and relationship to this land upon where you live? As you listen to their story consider the following questions: How did this exercise create context and meaning in your own relationship to the land? How did their story inspire a deeper experience of their work?

4:30 pm | Reading by Dr. Suzanne Steele her new opera, Riel: Heart of the North

5:15 pm | Reading or performance by Ronnie Dean Harris TBC

6:00 pm | Pow Wow Dance performance by Anita Large

6:30 pm | Community Feast

8:00 pm | Close

Special thanks to our funding partners: The Province of British Columbia, through the B.C. Multiculturalism Grant Program, the BC Arts Council, the BC Community Gaming Grant program, and the City of Penticton for your support of art, culture, and diversity in our community.

This exhibition’s inspiration came from the Tsilhqot'in First Nation's claim to aboriginal title over land to the south and west of Williams Lake in the B.C. Interior, as well as the 2014 Supreme Court of Canada's unanimous ruling stating that the Tsilhqot'in did have a claim to the region they had historically occupied. This was the first time the Supreme Court of Canada acknowledged that Aboriginal title exists, providing the Tsilhqot'in First Nation the right to choose how these lands will be used.

In Fish Lake on June 13, 2019, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the New Prosperity Mine is in an area where aboriginal title does not exist. The Tsilhqot'in leadership decried the ruling. They are concerned the mine development will destroy sacred land and water, specifically Fish Lake, which calls for dewatering.

Chief Russell Myers stressed there was more reconciliation to be done. "It is these moments, as Tŝilhqot'in and Indigenous peoples, that we understand that our place of authority within Canada is not yet being realized. The colonial apparatus of the Crown needs to change and begin developing legislation to move beyond conflict on our homeland."

With this as my point of departure I came up with the name of the exhibition, “enTitle: Our home and Native land / Our home on Native land”, and I reached out to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists from across Canada whose work I not only admired but also explored our complex relationship with the land and the idea of “Title”. In considering the name of the exhibition I liked the idea of title and entitle. As colonialists we have a long history of entitlement when it comes to land use and ownership and I felt it was also worthy to borrow and subvert a line from our national anthem “Our home and Native Land / Our Home on Native land”.

I owe a great debt of gratitude to all the artists who contributed works to this important conversation: Cori Derickson, Kit Fast, Ronnie Dean Harris, Tsema Igharas, Casey Koyczan, Sheldon Louis, Meagan Musseau, Willow Rector, Nicotye Samayualie, Diana Thorneycroft, Peter von Tiesenhausen, David Wilson and Corinna Wollf.