Open Collections

Re-covering and remembering

University of British Columbia

Indigenous histories and stories have been silenced by colonial records or erased altogether by popular colonial histories. Collaborative storytelling and filmmaking can assist decolonization efforts and shape new inter-cultural understandings that challenge colonial patriarchal settler histories and connections to place. The objective of this project is, firstly, to centre Indigenous perspectives of history and connections to place, and secondly, to produce a film with a powerful counter-narrative that disrupts popular colonial histories. Re-covering and Remembering investigates Indigenous spiritual, cultural, and political resurgence efforts on what is now commonly referred to as Vancouver Island. My methods of investigation focus on documenting oral histories and perspectives of a select group of personal mentors, including Elders, with whom I have existing professional relationships through related community research. This paper and exhibition present personal, cultural, and familial narratives as they relate to Indigenous spiritual, cultural, and political resurgence as well as my own auto-ethnographic experience. Indigenous methodologies and epistemologies of Indigenous oral histories and relationality were employed in the writing of this thesis and the making of our collaborative documentary. Our film was exhibited at the FINA Gallery at UBC Okanagan’s Creative and Critical Studies Building in Kelowna, BC. It was shared during a community gathering and honouring at the FLUX gallery during the opening of my solo exhibition in Victoria, BC. With this new work, I hope to shape new understandings while contributing to and advancing the revitalization of Indigenous knowledge and epistemologies.

Text

2020-10-28

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/76379

Visual Arts

University of British Columbia

UBCO

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/