Yesterday was the first of the UBC Okanagan Summer Indigenous Intensive roundtables. I took many notes during the presentations and discussion, and even managed a question.
In the coming days I hope to make something more of these notes, a figure if not a form. In the meantime, click here for Karolina Bialkowska and Tomas Jonsson's thoughtful reflections on what transpired.
Featured in this video is a 2012 Reworks presentation by Ayumi Goto, who, with Stephen Foster and Peter Morin, is a member of the O k'inādās Collective.
As in Ayumi and Peter's performance (see yesterday's post), Ayumi focuses our attention on our hands, how in dealing with her rage she imagines the metaphorical mix of corn starch and water not as a substance that we allow to grow firm in our hands, but one that drips between our fingers, so that in elongating it will soften and, presumably, become more manageable.
We gathered as we are here for a gathering. A ring of black plastic chairs with spaces for modernism and our backs to breathe -- our sacra.
(If you have ever set up or put away chairs like these, these [sacral] spaces might be the first thing you reach for.)
Ashok and Stephen welcomed us, reminded us that we are on Syilx territory and that in 12 days Elder Richard Armstrong will lead a welcome and a discussion. After that, they provided an "explication of the structure of the residencies," told us that our gathering is 11 years old and that when it started it was an "institute" -- until Administration said it wasn't.
We are gathered for an intensive -- the Summer Indigenous Intensive.
There is an Aboriginal Centre and the Administration's concern over tattoo needles and the fire that resides in smudges has tattoos happening off-site and smudges in the "sculpture area."
(Tattooing and smudging as social sculpture.)
Ayumi, Peter and Stephen told us of weekly (Wednesday) discussion panels.
Ashok and Stephen told us of weekly (Monday) resident artist meetings.
Ayumi, Peter and Stephen told us of "other periodic meetings, talking circles, gatherings…"
Peter learned about talking circles from Bob George.
O k'inādās is the Tahltan word for walking. (Later, Peter reminded us that alone this word means nothing. That only when modified does it…)
Philip is a studio trained artist and UBCO technician who told us about what he and his colleagues Joanne and Kaila can provide us with.
Katherine and Philip told us about studios and our access to them.
Ashok and Katherine told us about the schedule and "other calendar events."
Ayumi and Peter gave us a "provocation". They mentioned the salmon which, when dressed, looks a lot like the hands they asked us to hold out so that they could blow into them -- see what gathers, what doesn't.
A writer of fiction, criticism and song based on the unceded, ancestral and occupied lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Səl̓ílwətaʔ (Tsleil-Watuth), Stó:lō and Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) Nations of the Coast Salish peoples.
Recent publications include 9x11 and other poems like Bird, Nine, x and Eleven (Vancouver: New Star Books, 2018)
ISBN: 9781554201501
