These special tours enrich your exhibition experience through a unique community lens that focuses on Indigenous culture, activism and identity. Nuxalk Strong: Dancing Down the Eyelashes of the Sun is a powerful exhibition of healing and sovereignty. Through this exhibition the Nuxalk Nation demonstrates their resurgence and return to Stl’mstaliwa—the full human experience. Nuxalk Strong illustrates how the Nation is bringing back ancestral governance, laws and protocols, revitalizing language, stewarding lands and waters, and awakening spirituality and ceremony by re-opening Nuslhiixwta, family treasure boxes that contain names, crests, songs, dances and regalia.

These 45-minute exhibition tours will give visitors the opportunity to engage with the themes and ideas of the exhibition, including complex identities, language revitalization, activism and Nuxalk sovereignity.

Capacity of 25 people per tour; first come, first served.

Schedule
Select Thursdays | 7 pm

August 28: Nuskmata–Jacinda Mack, Nuxalk and Secwepemc land defender, community organizer and researcher

September 25: Gerry Lawson, MOA’s Oral History + Language Lab Manager

October 30: Nunanta–Iris Siwallace, Nuxalk ancestral governance researcher

Bios

Nuskmata–Jacinda Mack is a Nuxalk and Secwepemc land defender, community organizer and researcher dedicated to supporting Indigenous lifeways, governance, and sovereignty, and musician. Photo by Georgie Lawson.

Ma̓la̓gius–Gerry Lawson is from the Haíɫzaqv Nation and currently manages the Oral History and Language Lab at the UBC Museum of Anthropology. With over 20 years in the field of Information Management and Heritage Digitization, he works to develop practical, scalable resources for Indigenous cultural heritage preservation, and to decolonize information practices. Gerry also acts as the Technology Lead for the UBC Indigitization Program, is the Board Chair for the First Peoples Cultural Foundation, and sits on the Board of Directors of the Indigenous Heritage Circle.

Nunanta–Iris Siwallace is a Nuxalk ancestral governance researcher and an elected councillor for the Nuxalk Nation. She is a lifelong environmental advocate who has dedicated her life to protecting the lands and waters of her ancestral territory. Nunanta is also an alkw (potlatch speaker) and an accomplished cedar bark weaver who creates ceremonial regalia.