Charlene Vickers, Speaking with Hands and Territories. Installation view, SFU Gallery, 2018. Photo: Blaine Campbell.
Speaking with Charlene Vickers and Roxanne Charles on Territories
Saturday, October 27, 1PM
SFU Gallery
Join us for a conversation on the principles of shared responsibility and collective action with Charlene Vickers and Roxanne Charles. Charles will lead a discussion around the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion project and the ongoing resistance at the Burnaby Mountain tank farm, with reference to Vickers' site-specific installation at SFU Gallery, Speaking with Hands and Territories.
Vickers' installation, which invites visitors to form earth collected from the protest site on Burnaby Mountain into fist-sized spheres, asks how we can collectively make a future for Indigenous lands, waterways and peoples. Vickers will be present to engage the conversation around her work and this increasingly urgent question.
Last month, Canada's Federal Court of Appeal rejected the Trans Mountain Expansion project due to its failure to meaningfully consult with Indigenous nations, and to assess the impact of increased tanker traffic on marine life. Charles has been an active presence at Kwekwecnewtxw (the "Watch House") near the proposed pipeline site and is a Protect the Inlet organizer.
This talk will take place on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh peoples at SFU Gallery on the Burnaby campus. Light snacks will be provided. All are welcome.
Charlene Vickers is an artist of Anishinaabe descent based in Vancouver. Her practice explores memory, healing and embodied connections to ancestral land. Recent group exhibitions include those at Oakville Galleries, Art Museum at the University of Toronto, and MoCNA, Santa Fe. Vickers was a recipient of the 2018 VIVA Award and holds a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art and Design, a BA in Critical Studies of the Arts and MFA from SFU.
Roxanne Charles, of Semiahmoo First Nation, is a cultural historian employing visual representation, oral history and ceremony in her practice. She received two undergraduate degrees from Kwantlen Polytechnic University and is currently completing her MFA at SFU. Charles' work has been included in group exhibitions at the Surrey Art Gallery, the Bill Reid Gallery and Vancouver Art Gallery.