Opening Reception and Artist Talks

6:00pm - 8:00pm

Anvil Centre Level 3 Foyer

 

Feature speaking artists include:

Ronnie Dean Harris - Stō:lo/St’át'imc/N’laka'pamux artist based in New Westminster

Atheana Picha - Kwantlen/Tsartlip artist based in Richmond

Venessa Serroul - Xwísten/Upper St'át'imc artist based in Máthxwi 

 

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION - Sacred Rock and the New Westminster Museum and Archives have come together to present the exhibition ‘Downstream Where the Waters Mix’. Curated by Nlaka’pamux and Secwepemc artist/curator Nadine Spence, this exhibition is part of a larger, multi-year project called ‘Honouring Our Grandmothers Healing Journey’.  The project brings together generations of indigenous people with other nationalities along the Pacific Northwest to focus on the Fraser and Thompson River watersheds with its mountains, salmon, and ocean.  It honours our Grandmothers lived experiences, stories, and legacies left for those of us to discover and share through storytelling, teachings, ceremony, and art.

 

‘Downstream Where the Waters Mix’ brings together sixteen artists from indigenous communities along the Thompson and Fraser Rivers to share their experiences with colonialism through chests, regalia, and artworks. Inspired by a movement to reconnect Indigenous families and tribes along these rivers, the artists aim to honor the lives and experiences of grandmothers whose lives were disrupted and displaced.

 

A central feature of this project is the Community Elements Chest created by seven multicultural artists holding historic relationships with indigenous people. Throughout April and May 2024, this Chest has travelled by river from Little Shuswap to New Westminster.  Along its journey it has visited communities and received letters, photos, and tokens for the creator, ancestors, mother earth, grandmothers, and families. These offerings help people give thanks, celebrate, honour, grieve, resolve trauma, and find peace with what was destroyed, lost, stolen, forgotten, taken, gone missing, or murdered in their lives.

 

On May 24th, the Community Elements Chest will arrive by canoe at New Westminster.  It was on this day, 160 years ago that Governor Frederick Seymour brought First Nations representatives to New Westminster in celebration of the queen’s birthday and to give promises to uphold indigenous rights; promises that were later broken.