Response: Our Land Narrative

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Olivia Golotsky, "homecoming," 2021

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RESPONSE: OUR LAND NARRATIVE

MARCH 10 — 21, INSTALLATION-BASED WORKS; APRIL 7 — 17, VIDEO SCREENINGS

Response: Our Land Narrative is the culmination of the Response program, a new multi-year collaboration between The Polygon Gallery and First Nations Student Services and the Indigenous Digital Filmmaking Program at Capilano University. Participants engaged in a series of workshops led by Indigenous artists and Knowledge Keepers during Fall 2020. Inspired by the image of spreading branches and root systems, participants were invited to think carefully about and interpret where we are located, and how these places fundamentally shape our ways of knowing and who we are.

The work produced by participants will be on view over the course of two presentations. The first presentation, on display from March 10-21, features installation-based works using a range of media including photography, video, sculpture, drawing and audio.

This will be followed with screenings of video works from April 7-17. The second presentation of Response opens April 7, and features video screenings by Colton Cardinal, Nathan Chizen-Velasco, Lia Rosemary Skiljaadee Hart, Liam McAlduff, Natasha Nystrom, Ash Simpson, Veronica Trujillo, Sarah Danruo Wang 王丹若. The projects activate stories and conversations about connection, resistance, and migration, often through experimental approaches.

Thinking through ways of being that recognise land as Knowledge Keeper, these works consider humanity in relation to lands and waters in various ways, and highlight shifts that take place over time both within and around us. Our Land Narrative asks: how do we affect nature, from our positions of being situated or unsettled, and what is its impact upon us, from our experiences with displacement and return?

The themes in Response will be developed further in a series of online public programs.