Linda Tuhiwai Smith  

Graham Smith, Keynote

Maori artist Pip Hartley demonstrates traditional tattoo technique on fellow mentor Nahaan at the UBCO Summer Indigenous Intensive Indigenous Tattoo School, facilitated by Earthline Tattoo Collective (Jordan Bennett, Dion Kaszas, Amy Malbeuf)

July 3-28, 2017 Join us for this year’s summer intensive. Multiple courses, artist residencies, tattoo school, and free weekly Wednesday keynotes from an array of thinkers and creators. Follow #rmooc This year’s UBC Okanagan Summer Indigenous Art Intensive will feature a series of world-renowned speakers, a variety of related undergraduate and graduate…

Keynote Address: 12 noon, Wednesday July 12, University Theatre (ADM026) Rethinking Expo 67 VIDEO link On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Expo 67, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal is presenting À la recherché d’Expo 67 / In Search of Expo 67, an exhibition of major new works…

The School of Badger was a collaborative performance intervention by Rebecca Belmore, Lori Blondeau and Adrian Stimson.  Jessie Fosty and Tomas Jonsson had the opportunity to sit with Elder Badger (Belmore) and Little Badger (Blondeau) and discuss this provacative performance.  This interview can be heard here: A statement on The School…

I had the opportunity to speak to Tania Willard regarding her time at the O k’inādās residency, and her new work and research, which was presented at a Bush Gallery screening at the end of the residency. Tomas: I thought we could start by getting your reflections on the residency, as…

  DRAWING CLASS FOR POETS for David Garneau and for Julie Okot Bitek Figures gone to ground Figures in contrast Ground (plain?) (line?) Figure Form is contained Between lines Lines contain space Something forms Points comit to paper Points connect in line Line commits to proportions Proportions commit to something…

As we sat gathered in the white walled gallery, Charles Campbell entered the space, his head obscured a light blue and brown patterned geodesic assemblage. Removing this and placing it on a plinth, he obtained a phone, headphones and papers. and sat at a small table, an empty chair across…

Taught by Troy Emery Twigg, recently appointed the Artistic Director of Making Treaty 7, The first Indigenous theatre course at UBCO was a 6-week intensive that asked students to engage with Indigenous performance art praxis. The resulting four group collaborations were performed during an open event where artists, scholars, thinkers, organizers,…

This week we shared the space of a fourth O k’inādās panel discussion with presenters Cathy Mattes, Leah Decter, Keven DeForest, Tannis Nielsen, and moderator Ashok Mathur. To begin this overview we would like to start with a personal reflection. The iterative processes of learning and creating throughout this residency…

Mark Igloliorte  spoke of the importance of observation in painting. Photographs depict a fraction of second, life sliced down to moment, whereas in painting hours, days are poured into their construction. In the time that is required to make a painting, the shifting, moving body results in shifts in perspectives. …

Tania Willard’s Bush Gallery was born out of a desire to create a space that acknowledged diverse bodies and attentions. The logistics in child care is still quite difficult to engage in contemporary art, reflected in design of institutional spaces institutions, for normative, adult bodies.  How these small bodies and…

On Thursday I had the opportunity to have a discussion with David Khang. Our conversation began with reflection on Carmen Papalia‘s walking performance, and the panel discussion from the day before. Tomas: I liked Carmen’s point that the group walk wasn’t an empathy building exercise. It was a chance to…

Roughly thirty people responded to Carmen Papalia’s invitation to take part in an eyes closed blind field shuffle. Sharing a non-visual experience, the walk opened up sensory potentials to the space undefined by a planar visual level.  Qualities of touch, sound and trust heightened, we navigated a walk through the varied terrain…

Expanding on his presentation at last Wednesday’s panel, Jordan Scott noted the ways in which language dysfluency is recognized, and often produced, through physical duress. He examined how dysfluency is read and heard as a marker of guilt, of dishonesty, or of a lack of truth-telling. What happens when the…