Feature photo by Marianne Nicolson

By Kristi Alexandra
@kristialexandra

At a time when questions of Indigenous land sovereignty are more prevalent than ever, Hexsa’am: To Be Here Always offers up a timeless story of Indigenous resilience.

The exhibition, on at UBC’s Belkin Gallery until April 7, centres on the 2018 BC Supreme Court case launched by the Dzawada̱’enux̱w First Nation to extend Aboriginal title to the ocean, claiming that the province does not have the authority to grant tenures to salmon farms in the Broughton Archipelago.

The case mirrors the 1914 establishment of the land base of the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw group of nations, put in place to protect the land, water and the people who’ve lived there for time immemorial.

Hexsa’am: To Be Here Always is a multi-media exhibition that uses video, audio, weaving, animation, drawing, and more to piece together a timeline of Indigenous resistance in the Kingcome Inlet. The pieces portray actions established to fight urgent threats to the land and water, along with resistance against colonial attempts to extinguish Indigenous culture.

“As two moments in a tangled timeline of resistance, these legal encounters bring forward the ways that cultural practices can bring new realities into being for a community experiencing ongoing social, cultural and ecological effects of colonization and globalizing economics,” according to the Belkin Gallery.

From the reclamation of cultural practices to modern poetry scrolled across traditional materials (seal skin, that is) to sound installations, Hexsa’am: To Be Here Always offers up a theme that is both ordinary and yet radical: the simple act of living while Indigenous.

“The embodied practice of ceremonial knowledge relates to artistic experience – not in the aesthetic sense, but in the performative: through gestures that consolidate and enhance knowledge for positive change,” says Marianne Nicolson, artist and member of the Dzawada’enuxw First Nation in Kingcome Inlet.

Hexsa’am: To Be Here Always includes work by artists Marianne Nicolson and Althea Thauberger with Siku Allooloo, Scott Benesiinaabandan, Darryl Dawson, Jaymyn La Vallee, Diane Roberts, Sara Siestreem, Juliana Speier, Nabidu Taylor, Kamala Todd, William Wasden Jr., Tania Willard and Lindsey Willie.

The Belkin Gallery (University of British Columbia,1825 Main Mall) is open from 10 am to 5 pm on weekdays, and noon to 5 pm on weekends.

Kristi Alexandra is an unabashed wino and wannabe musician. Her talents include drinking an entire bottle of cabernet sauvignon, singing in the bathtub, and falling asleep.