Using cedar that was harvested and prepared by Jessica herself, participants will make their own cedar basket creations.

Jessica is a self-taught weaver of Coast Salish and Portuguese descent of the Silvey family in Egmont, BC: “Weave – to form by combining various elements or details into a connected whole. Many of my childhood hours were spent with my paternal grandmother in the forest. It is my favourite place to be, surrounded by cedar trees and silence. I have learned traditional techniques from research, as well as trial and error. I harvest and prepare my own materials. When I am ready to weave, the most time consuming work has been completed. Weaving is my passion and therapy for my soul.”

All workshop materials will be mailed to participants in advance. All ages welcome, children under the age of 12 should be accompanied by an adult. No experience necessary. Very limited capacity; book early to avoid disappointment.

Cost:
General | $155
Senior / Student / Youth | $150
MOA Members / UBC Students, Staff, Faculty / Indigenous peoples | $145

This event is now SOLD OUT

All ages welcome, children under the age of 12 should be accompanied by an adult. No experience necessary. Very limited capacity; book early to avoid disappointment.

Enjoy this MOA original documentary on the harvesting of cedar bark featuring your instructor Jessica Silvey and her partner Robert Joe.

Shame and Prejudice takes you on a journey through the past 150 years of Canada. It is a journey that reclaims and reinserts Indigenous voices into the collective memory of our country, challenging and shattering colonial ideas of our history. The artist’s gender fluid, time-travelling alter-ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, is the narrator of this story, told through the lens of Indigenous resilience.

The VocalEye virtual lobby opens at 6:30 pm PDT for some pre-show mingling with host Amy Amantea. The pre-show introduction will begin at 6:45 pm with a descriptive overview. The tour begins at 7 pm led by MOA curator Jennifer Kramer (recording of October 22 Curator Tour). Running time is approximately 90 minutes followed by a Q + A with Issaku Inami, MOA Volunteer Associate Gallery Host and Marie Wustner, MOA Curator of Pubic Programming.

Amy Amantea has lived experience of disability and identifies as having a profound sight loss. She is currently the Community Outreach Coordinator for VocalEye, a podcaster, movie reviewer and community reporter for Accessible Media Inc and recently joined the Arts Club Theatre as their first Accessibility Coordinator. Learn more about VocalEye here.

This event is developed for those who are blind and partially sighted, but all are welcome to attend.

Online, via Zoom.
Free, registration via VocalEye required.

How to register: contact VocalEye at info@vocaleye.ca or 604-364-5949.
Please include where you are from, and if you are a member of the blind/low vision community or a sighted guest.

Presented with VocalEye

In Shame and Prejudice, Cree artist Kent Monkman creates an alternate story that inserts queer Indigenous peoples into the colonial history of Canada. Created in response to Canada’s 150 celebrations, the exhibition depicts the colonial legacy of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people, residential schools, and high Indigenous incarceration rates. Monkman dismantles the official history of Canada through Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, his two-spirit alter ego, who appears in many of his paintings, films, and performances.

This event is a pre-recorded tour, premiering live on Zoom. Hosts June Scudeler and Issaku Inami will be available for a live Q+A after the recorded tour.

Online, via Zoom.
Free, registration required.

June Scudeler (Métis) is an assistant professor in Indigenous Studies at Simon Fraser University. Her research examines the intersections between queer Indigenous studies, Indigenous literature, film, and art. She has published articles in Native American and Indigenous Studies, American Indian Culture and Research Journal,Canadian Literature, and Studies in Canadian Literature. Her chapters are included in Queer Indigenous Studies: Critical Interventions in Theory, Politics and Literature (University of Arizona Press), Performing Indigeneity (Playwrights Canada Press) and the Cambridge Companion to Queer Studies. June is the co-editor of Studies in American Indian Literatures.

Issaku Inami is a queer settler of colour and MOA’s Volunteer Associate Internal Coordinator/President Elect as well as a Gallery Host. Issaku also serves on the Boards of Pacific Spirit Park Society, Pride in Art Society (Queer Arts Festival), and is the group lead of Camosun Bog Restoration Group, and was a co-curator for MOA’s 2019 Pride event, From a Riot to Revolution.

Whether you’ve seen Shame and Prejudice multiple times already, or can’t visit in-person, this is your chance to experience the acclaimed exhibition, from the comfort of your couch. MOA Curator Jennifer Kramer will guide you through artist Kent Monkman’s moving and thought-provoking exhibition, which he developed as a response to the Canada 150 celebrations. The exhibition (re)tells Canadian history through the eyes of his provocative alter-ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle—a bold, time traveling, shapeshifter who takes us on her voyage through time. Follow Miss Chief’s journey as she guides us from sickness into healing, from starvation into bounty, and from genocide to justice.

Virtual visitors will be toured through the nine chapters of the exhibition, excerpted from Miss Chief’s fictional memoirs, beginning in 18th century “New France: The Reign of the Beaver” to the “Urban Rez” of Winnipeg’s North End. The exhibition is a “restorying” that changes the familiar nationalist myth of British-French settlers discovering a “new world” ripe for possession and resource extraction to a counter-narrative focused upon Indigenous strength, healing, and resurgence.

This event is a pre-recorded tour with MOA Curator, Jennifer Kramer, premiering live on Zoom. A live Q + A period with Jennifer Kramer will follow the tour.

Online, via Zoom.
Free, registration required.

Dr. Jennifer Kramer teaches at UBC in the areas of Visual culture and ‘art’ of the First Nations of the Northwest Coast, Art Market Economies, Identity Production, Representation, Repatriation, Cultural Property, Aboriginal Cultural Tourism, Indigenous Modernity, and Collaborative and Critical Museology. She was MOA’s curatorial liaison for Shame and Prejudice, a travelling exhibition developed with the Art Gallery at the University of Toronto.

Monkman will discuss his exhibition, Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience, with Jennifer Kramer, MOA Curator (Pacific Northwest), and Roberta Jamieson, President and CEO of Indspire.

Kent Monkman’s Shame and Prejudice takes you on a journey through the past 150 years of Canada. It is a journey that reclaims and reinserts Indigenous voices into the collective memory of our country, challenging and shattering colonial ideas of our history. The exhibition is on view now at MOA—until January 3, 2021.

Kent Monkman is a Canadian artist and Indspire Award Laureate of Cree ancestry who works with a variety of media, including painting, film/video, performance, and installation. His work is known for its provocative reinterpretations of Romantic North American landscapes, and it explores themes of colonization, sexuality, loss and resilience—the complexities of historic and contemporary Indigenous experience.

Presented with Indspire

Whose stories are we reading and hearing in the books and media that we consume? Learn about how multiple stories, and in particular, Indigenous stories, can shape the way we view histories and change the way we think about cultures. Inspired by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED Talk, Jill will explore how storytellers find their authentic cultural voices and the critical misunderstandings that can occur when we only hear a single story.

Participants will be guided through images of works in MOA’s Indigenous art collection and the words of their makers, including Susan Point, John Marston, Tracey Williams, Marianne Nicolson, Bill Reid and many more. Together we will challenge our assumptions and stereotypes of Indigenous histories and communities through exploring these works and artists.

Artists whose works and knowledge we draw from and will discuss in this webinar include: Susan Point, Musqueam; John Marston, Coast Salish; Tracey Williams, Squamish; Marianne Nicolson, Kwakwaka’wakw; Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, Haida; Ian Reid, Heiltsuk; Mikael Willie, Kwakwaka’wakw; Bill Reid, Haida; Willy White, Tsimshian; Peter Morin, Tahltan; Tania Willard, Secwepemc.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED Talk will be screened as part of the webinar at 11 am, or you can choose watch it on your own beforehand (watch it here), then join the webinar for Jill’s presentation and discussion at 11:25 am.

Program schedule

Screening of Adichie’s TED Talk | 11–11:25 am
Presentation by Jill Baird | 11:25 am–12 pm
Follow-up discussion and question period | 12–12:30 pm

Register on Zoom (link below), or watch the webinar live on YouTube.
The webinar will also be recorded and shared online at a later date.

Photo: IMICH SIIYEM, 1997, by Susan Point. MOA Collection 2625/1. Photo by Derek Tan.

Jillian Christmas is MOA’s featured poet for National Poetry Month. Through a focus on anti-oppression initiatives in spoken word, Jillian has developed programs in partnership with the Toronto Poetry Project, UBC and the Vancouver Opera and has worked with youth and adults across Canada.

“When I teach workshops, I work on connecting and reminding youth and adults alike that their voices have value, power and are absolutely necessary. I hope that my classes bring people closer to themselves and each other.” ~Jillian Christmas

Please Note: This workshop was originally announced as an in-person event at MOA on April 19, from 12:30 – 3 pm, but has now been moved online in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This event is now free with pre-registration and will be held from 11 am – 1 pm.

Artist Bio

Born and raised in Markham, Ontario, Jillian Christmas serves as Artistic Director of Versəs Festival of Words. An enthusiastic organizer and activist in the Canadian arts community, Jillian’s focus is to increase anti-oppression initiatives in spoken word. Jillian’s work has been featured in numerous publications including the Huffington Post, and published in a number of collections, including Matrix New Queer Writing (issue 98), The Post Feminist Post, Plenitude Magazine, Room Magazine and celebrated anthology, The Great Black North. She has participated in, developed and executed programs in partnership with Toronto Poetry Project, Wordplay, Brendan McLeod’s Travelling Slam, University of British Columbia, Vancouver Opera, and the CULTCH Mentorship, and facilitated spoken word workshops for youth and adults across the country.

Experience a powerful and passionate response by local poets of African descent to the African objects in the Museum’s care, as part of an initiative to decolonize MOA’s African collection—led by MOA’s Curator of Africa and South America, Nuno Porto and the UBC Africa Awareness Initiative.

The opening event on April 2 will feature live readings of poetry and spoken word by Jillian Christmas and other poets. Following this live showcase night, the recording from the event will be transformed into a sound installation to be played every Thursday evening in MOA’s Multiversity Galleries throughout the month of April.

Schedule

April 2 | Live poetry with Jillian Christmas and guests, 6 – 7:30 pm (reception to follow)
April 9 | Poetry Sound Installation, 5 – 9 pm
April 16 | Poetry Sound Installation, 5 – 9 pm
April 23 | Poetry Sound Installation, 5 – 9 pm
April 30 | Poetry Sound Installation, 5 – 9 pm

Jillian Christmas will also be offering a poetry workshop on Sunday, April 19. Learn more here.

Jillian Christmas

Born and raised in Markham, Ontario, Jillian Christmas serves as Artistic Director of Versəs Festival of Words. An enthusiastic organizer and activist in the Canadian arts community, Jillian’s focus is to increase anti-oppression initiatives in spoken word. Jillian’s work has been featured in numerous publications including The Huffington Post, and published in a number of collections, including Matrix New Queer Writing (issue 98), The Post Feminist Post, Plenitude Magazine, Room Magazine and celebrated anthology, The Great Black North. She has participated in, developed and executed programs in partnership with Toronto Poetry Project, Wordplay, Brendan McLeod’s Travelling Slam, University of British Columbia, Vancouver Opera, and the CULTCH Mentorship, and facilitated spoken word workshops for youth and adults across the country. Learn more here.

Hear about these stunning and thought-provoking works—and the 11 BC-based artists of Playing with Fire: Ceramics of the Extraordinary, that created them—directly from the exhibition curator.

The exhibition catalogue will also be available for sale for $16.95 in the MOA Shop.

Limited capacity.