Tania Willard: Affirmations for Wildflowers: An Ethnobotony of Desire

List of works, exhibition text and bibliography

SEP 28 - NOV 13, 2020 List of Works

1. Textsín, 2020 laser-etched mirrored acrylic, wood, satin ribbon, single-bulb LED flashlight Courtesy the artist

2. Tania Willard Pell-tsqwéqwyem̓c, 2020 laser-etched mirrored acrylic, wood, satin ribbon, single-bulb LED flashlight Courtesy the artist

3. Tania Willard Qets̓uye7éllp, 2020 laser-etched mirrored acrylic, wood, satin ribbon, single-bulb LED flashlight Courtesy the artist

4. Tania Willard Sqleltns r Ckwetkwt̓ústen,2020 laser-etched mirrored acrylic, wood, satin ribbon, single-bulb LED flashlight Courtesy the artist

5. Tania Willard Qwiqwinéllp,2020 laser-etched mirrored acrylic, wood, satin ribbon, single-bulb LED flashlight Courtesy the artist

6. Tania Willard Sekwéw̓,2020 laser-etched mirrored acrylic, wood, satin ribbon, single-bulb LED flashlight Courtesy the artist

7. Tania Willard Kwelkwelqíqen,2020 laser-etched mirrored acrylic, wood, satin ribbon, single-bulb LED flashlight Courtesy the artist Exhibition Map

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Exhibition Text

Tania Willard’s artistic practice engages cultural knowledges to cultivate works that range from land-based Indigenous contemporary art to survival strategies for contemporary socio-political upheavals. Affirmations for Wildflowers: An Ethnobotany of Desire is a street-facing window exhibition that uses light projection, reflection, representations of flora, and personal and political affirmations to evoke relations of sustenance in uncertain but flourishing times.

In this series of works, the idea of affirming and validating transformational worth, justice and futurity are conceptually plaited together with fragmented ethnobotanical knowledge and colour therapy qualities. Braiding between the specificity of the gallery’s downtown eastside location and the artist’s home territory of Secwepemcúl̓ecw,Affirmations for Wildflowers: An Ethnobotany of Desire uses light and reflection to project both inward and outward emotional resonances. The works reflect a desire for transformational change and echo different qualities of wildflowers, current socio-political climates, longstanding Indigenous rights movements, and the power of seasonal changes on the land.

This year, 2020, the wildflowers that bloom in late spring and early summer were prolific in Secwepemcúl̓ecw, while simultaneously a global pandemic, and both Black Lives Matter and Indigenous protests, were destabilizing entrenched orders. While these political transformations continue, Willard’s project invests in the blooming of resistance within an equilibrium of health and relationality to lands. These works seek to reflect the political complexity of this time while also projecting an affirmation of seasonal cycles of blooming wildflowers as a mirror for a transforming world. Bibliography Citations and Site/ations

Secwepemcúl̓ecw, The Land is our Ancestor and our Future, time immemorial.

Rasheed Araeen, “Ecoaesthetics: A Manifesto for the Twenty-First Century,” Third Text, 23, no. 5 (2009), 679 – 684.

Christina Battle, “Disaster as a Framework for Social Change: Searching for new patterns across plant ecology and online networks,” Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository, 2019: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/6828 (accessed September 27, 2020)

Michael Blackstock, Faces in the Forest: Art Created on Living Trees ( and Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 2001)

John Borrows, “Outsider Education: Indigenous Law and Land-Based Learning” Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice, 33, no. 1 (2016), 1 – 27.

Stephen Harrod Buhner, The Secret Teachings of Plants: The Intelligence of the Heart in the Direct Perception of Nature (Rochester: Inner Traditions — Bear & Company, 2004)

Douglas Deur, Keeping it Living: Traditions of Plant Use and Cultivation on the Northwest Coast of North America (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2006)

Masanobu Fukuoka, The Natural Way of Farming: The Theory and Practice of Green Philosophy (Mapusa: Other India Press, 1985)

Masanobu Fukuoka, ed. Larry Korn, Sowing Seeds in the Desert: Natural Farming, Global Restoration, and Ultimate Food Security (White River Junction: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2013)

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2013)

Peter Knudtson and David Suzuki, Wisdom of the Elders: Native and Scientific Ways of Knowing about Nature (: Greystone Books, 1992)

Eduardo Kohn, How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology Beyond the Human (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2013) Walter Mignolo and Rolando Vázquez, “Decolonial aestheSis: colonial wounds/ colonial healings,” SocialText, July 15, 2013: https://socialtextjournal.org/ periscope_article/decolonial-aesthesis-colonial-woundsdecolonial-healings/ (accessed August 6, 2020)

Roberta Parish, Plants of the Southern Interior (Edmonton: Lone Pine Publishing, 1996)

Leanne B. Simpson, As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2017)

Nancey J. Turner, The Earth’s Blanket: Traditional Teachings for Sustainable Living (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2008)

Texts by and about the Artist

Chris Bose, Annette Hurtig, Jordan Strom and Beverley Clayton, Tania Willard: Claiming Space (: Kamloops Art Gallery, 2009)

BUSH gallery, eds., C Magazine: Site/ations (, C The Visual Arts Foundation, 2018)

Tarah Houge, From qweqwli7t to seqwyem: continuity, agency and allegory, Tania Willard: dissimulation (, Burnaby Art Gallery, 2017)

Karen Duffek, Tania Willard, Glen Alteen, Lucy R. Lippard and Michael Turner, Unceded Territories: Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun (Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing, 2016)

Tarah Hogue, “Cultivating Collectivity,” Canadian Art, March 28, 2019: https:// canadianart.ca/reviews/cultivating-collectivity/ (accessed September 27, 2020)

Ryan Rice and Gérard Boulad, Lore: Duane Linklater, Tania Willard, Jason Lujan (Sherbrooke: Foreman Art Gallery of Bishop’s University + Gallery 101, 2008)

Christine Shaw and Etienne Turpin, eds., The Work of Wind: Sea (Berlin and Mississauga: K. Verlag, 2018)

Tania Willard and Kathleen Ritter, Beat Nation: Art, Hip Hop and Aboriginal Culture (Vancouver: Vancouver Art Gallery, 2012) Tania Willard, Jamaie Pitseolak, Nicholas Galanin, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Geronimo Inutiq, Derek Aqqiaruq, Candic Hopkins, et al., Blizzard: Emerging Northern Artists (Vancouver: , 2012)

Tania Willard, ed., CUSTOM MADE: Tsitslem te stem te ck’ultens-kuc (Kamloops: Kamloops Art Gallery, 2015) Artist Biographies Exhibition Acknowledgements

Tania Willard, Secwépemc Nation and settler heritage, works with shifting ideas around what is considered contemporary and traditional, often invoking bodies of knowledge and skills that are conceptually linked to her interest in the intersections between Secwepémc knowledges and other cultures. As an artist, Willard’s work has been shown widely across , including solo exhibitions with Kamloops Art Gallery (2009) and Burnaby Art Gallery (2017). Willard’s ongoing collaborative project, BUSH gallery, is a conceptual land-based gallery grounded in Indigenous knowledges. Willard is an Assistant Professor at UBC Okanagan in Syilx territories, and her current research intersects with land-based art practices.

Gratitude is extended to the following people who have supported the material and conceptual development of this exhibition: Kara Ditte Hansen, Miles Lavkulich, Rachel Topham and Francis Paris.

The artist would like to thank Elder Mona Jules, Elder Flora Sampson, Dr. Janice Dick Billy, Dr. Kartherine Michel, Dr. Marianne Ignace and xwexweyt te kweselktns te secwepemcstín. I also want to thank my family, my children Skeylar and Leo and my partner Kevin Adam and my Dad, Mike Willard, who made returning and building a home in Secwepemcúl̓ecw possible.

Parts of this work were developed in the Contingencies of Care online artist residency organized by UBCO and OCADU. Public Programs

Workshop: Site/ations with Tania Willard Wednesday, October 14, 5:30pm PDT Presented on Zoom. Please email [email protected] for details

SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts 149 West Hastings Street Vancouver BC V6B 5K3

778.782.9102 sfugalleries.ca [email protected]