At Vines Art Festival, Indigenous artists dig deep in Rooted Relations, August 17
Everyone is invited to the free gathering with storytelling, movement, music, and more
Sky Blackbird-Riley
Vines Art Festival presents Rooted Relations on August 17 at 6 pm at Grandview Park
MOVEMENT FOR HEALING, a unique style of hip-hop, and art installations: all this and more can be found at Rooted Relations at this year’s Vines Art Festival. The gathering of Indigenous artists invites people to share in their stories and deepen existing relationships while building new ones.
The event features a diverse lineup.
Manuel Axel Strain.
Non-binary two-spirit artist xʷməθkʷəyəm (Musqueam), Simpcw, and Syilx artist Manuel Axel Strain starts things off with an opening. Their artwork—which has been shown at Capture Photography Festival and Surrey Art Gallery, among other places—explores topics such as colonialism, ancestral and community ties, Indigeneity, resource extraction, gender, Indigenous medicine, and land.
Coast Salish Mama Bear. Photo by Kwitsel
Contemporary singer, guitarist, and traditional drummer Coast Salish Mama Bear will perform songs related to the environment and humanity.
Movement artist Shawnelle Sky Blackbird-Riley is a queer Anishinaabe kwe (woman) from Munsee-Delaware Nation who has Lenape and Potawatomi ancestry on her mom’s side and Ojibway on her father’s side. Movement has become her life force, and she draws upon grieving to create her works, having experienced many major losses early in her life that she processed through moving her body. Blackbird-Riley will perform Movement is memory, inspired by her grieving of her late brother Riley. “In 2003 he was murdered by Ricci Lee Abram,” she says in her artist statement. “I want healing for myself, Ricci, and especially for my family and the generations to come. This dance is a story of trauma stored in the body and finding comfort in the same body.”
Multidisciplinary maker Kwiis will share a piece called In the end, we belong to the land (The river flows through me). Through his work, which includes finely made objects, he speaks to ending oppression and domination and fostering a strong spiritual identity.
Kiva Mh. Photo by Billie Jean Gabriel
Kiva Morgan-Hall, aka Kiva Mh, is a Secwepemc/Nuu-Chah-Nulth musician, producer, actor, traditional dancer, and land protector who has a unique style of hip hop. He promises a “journey through my mind, thoughts and experiences expressed through my music and sounds."
Also taking part is TJ Felix, a Secwepemc two-spirit multimedia artist and musician who also identifies as a “colonial law breaker, and english language unlerner”.
Yung Nate, Lil Smudge, and No.1 Special are also on the roster.
Plus, there will be installations by multidisciplinary artists Nora Pape, the aforementioned Manuel Axel Strain, and Musqueam Indian Band member Shane Pointe.
More information is at Vines Art Festival.
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