Response: Our Land Narrative at the Polygon considers land as Knowledge Keeper

The two-part presentation features installation-based works and video screenings

POST SPONSORED BY the polygon

Veronica Trujillo, still from The Journey, 2020.

Response: Our Land Narrative is the culmination of the Response program, a new multi-year collaboration between the Polygon Gallery and Capilano University’s First Nations Student Services and Indigenous Digital Filmmaking Program.

During the fall of 2020, participants engaged in a series of workshops led by Indigenous artists and Knowledge Keepers. Inspired by the image of spreading branches and root systems, participants were invited to contemplate and interpret where we are located and how these places fundamentally shape our ways of knowing and who we are.

Participants’ artworks will be on view over the course of two presentations.

The first, running until March 21, features installation-based works that feature a range of media including photography, video, sculpture, drawing, and audio. Olivia Marie Golosky, Esteban Pérez, Aaron Dominic Oronhiawente Rice, and Amy Romer are participating artists.

This presentation will be followed by screenings of video works from April 7 to 17 by Colton Cardinal, Nathan Chizen-Velasco, Lia Rosemary Skiljaadee Hart, Liam McAlduff, Natasha Nystrom, Ash Simpson, Veronica Trujillo, and Sarah Danruo Wang 王丹若.

The projects ignite stories and discussions about connection, resistance, and migration, often through experimental approaches.

Thinking through ways of being that recognize land as Knowledge Keeper, the works consider humanity in relation to lands and waters and highlight shifts that take place within and around us over time. 

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, which is generously supported by Metro Vancouver’s Regional Cultural Project Grants Program, will be further developed in a series of online public programs.

See the Polygon for more information.