Listening to the River

2019. Mixed media. Thesis exhibition. UBC Okanagan

The art installation Listening to the River speaks of hope and the potential for the positive transformation of non-Indigenous society, through a process of reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples in Canada.

Listening to the River alludes to the need to shed destructive ways of being, re-centering nature, and cultivating better ways of being.

What we need to do together, Crown governments and Indigenous Peoples, and this work is long overdue, is dig up the dead roots and plant something new and then properly water and fertilize it. Entrenching the recognition of rights in federal and provincial laws, policies and practices — if done properly, in a way that recognizes the legitimate politics of Indigenous Peoples — is the soil for the new healthy roots of strong and rebuilt postcolonial Indigenous Nations and in which our collective and shared future will grow. A new tree.