T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Sto:lo, Hawaiian, Swiss) is an educator, interdisciplinary artist and Indigenous ethnobotanist engaged in community-based teaching and sharing. Throughout Wyss’s 30-year practice, Wyss’s work encompasses storytelling and collaborative initiatives through their knowledge and restoration of Indigenous plants and natural spaces. Wyss has been recognised for their traditional knowledge in remediating our relationship to land through digital media, site-specific engagements, and weaving. Wyss has participated and exhibited at galleries, museums, festivals and public space such as Vancouver Art Gallery, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Contemporary Art Gallery and the PuSh Festival to name a few. Their work can be found in various collections such as the National Library of Canada, Special Collections at the Walter Phillips Gallery, and the Vancouver Public Library.
Anne Riley is a multidisciplinary artist living as an uninvited Slavey Dene/German guest from Fort Nelson First Nation on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and Sel̓íl̓witulh Nations. Her work explores different ways of being and becoming, touch and Indigeneity. Riley received her BFA from the University of Texas at Austin in 2012 and has exhibited across the United States and Canada. From 2018 to 2020, she worked on a public art project commissioned by the City of Vancouver with her collaborator, T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss. Riley and Wyss’s project, A Constellation of Remediation, consisted of Indigenous remediation gardens planted throughout the city. Riley and Wyss were longlisted for the 2021 Sobey Art Award. Since this project, Riley participated in the Drift: Art and Dark Matter residency and exhibition, creating works that consider the possibilities of making and being beyond the confines of Western institutions and extractive processes.
Join χʷəy̓χʷiq̓tən Audrey Siegl, T’uy’t’tanat-Cease Wyss and Anne Riley for an evening together where they will share about their practices of collectivity and care and invite participants to watch the sunset. The event is now full; to join the waitlist, email belkin.assistant@ubc.ca with a gathering for mattering in the subject line.
a gathering for mattering is a continuation of Wyss’s and Riley’s sunset work together at the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery (June 2022) as well as Riley’s work in Drift: Art and Dark Matter, a traveling exhibition that was presented at the Belkin from September to December 2021. As part of the travelling exhibition, Riley’s work consists of two major projects: the heart of the matter (2020), a video work presented inside the gallery and dark matter garden (2021-ongoing), an evolving ephemeral garden. Questions about colonial extractive practices and restrictive institutional frameworks are at the core of dark matter garden. Like dark matter, the work has continuously shifted and morphed depending on the consciousness and heart of the organizations Riley is working with. This sunset event is one of its iterations.
Together with the artists, we will gather on Monday, 12 September from 6 pm to 8:30 pm at Spanish Banks Beach Park, northwest of Spanish Banks East Concession. We encourage participants to bring blankets, lawn chairs, water and whatever else they may need to be comfortable.
This event is wheelchair accessible thanks to mats provided by the British Columbia Mobility Opportunities Society. If you have any accessibility questions or needs, such as a sign interpreter, email belkin.assistant@ubc.ca.
Picture from a gathering for mattering with χʷəy̓χʷiq̓tən Audrey Siegl, T’uy’t’tanat-Cease Wyss and Anne Riley in September 2022. Photo by Anne Riley.
Picture from a gathering for mattering with χʷəy̓χʷiq̓tən Audrey Siegl, T’uy’t’tanat-Cease Wyss and Anne Riley in September 2022. Photo from Anne Riley.
Picture from a gathering for mattering with χʷəy̓χʷiq̓tən Audrey Siegl, T’uy’t’tanat-Cease Wyss and Anne Riley in September 2022. Photo from Anne Riley.
Picture from a gathering for mattering with χʷəy̓χʷiq̓tən Audrey Siegl, T’uy’t’tanat-Cease Wyss and Anne Riley in September 2022. Photo by Anne Riley.
T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Sto:lo, Hawaiian, Swiss) is an educator, interdisciplinary artist and Indigenous ethnobotanist engaged in community-based teaching and sharing. Throughout Wyss’s 30-year practice, Wyss’s work encompasses storytelling and collaborative initiatives through their knowledge and restoration of Indigenous plants and natural spaces. Wyss has been recognised for their traditional knowledge in remediating our relationship to land through digital media, site-specific engagements, and weaving. Wyss has participated and exhibited at galleries, museums, festivals and public space such as Vancouver Art Gallery, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Contemporary Art Gallery and the PuSh Festival to name a few. Their work can be found in various collections such as the National Library of Canada, Special Collections at the Walter Phillips Gallery, and the Vancouver Public Library.
Anne Riley is a multidisciplinary artist living as an uninvited Slavey Dene/German guest from Fort Nelson First Nation on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and Sel̓íl̓witulh Nations. Her work explores different ways of being and becoming, touch and Indigeneity. Riley received her BFA from the University of Texas at Austin in 2012 and has exhibited across the United States and Canada. From 2018 to 2020, she worked on a public art project commissioned by the City of Vancouver with her collaborator, T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss. Riley and Wyss’s project, A Constellation of Remediation, consisted of Indigenous remediation gardens planted throughout the city. Riley and Wyss were longlisted for the 2021 Sobey Art Award. Since this project, Riley participated in the Drift: Art and Dark Matter residency and exhibition, creating works that consider the possibilities of making and being beyond the confines of Western institutions and extractive processes.
Drift: Art and Dark Matter is a residency and exhibition project generated by Agnes Etherington Art Centre, the Arthur B. McDonald Canadian Astroparticle Physics Research Institute and SNOLAB. Four artists of national and international stature were invited to make new work while engaging with physicists, chemists and engineers contributing to the search for dark matter at SNOLAB’s facility in Sudbury, two kilometres below the surface of the Earth.
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