In this workshop participants are asked to honour an Indigenous writer by giving back a sentence, a lyric, a passage, a word.

About this event

I learned to love reading because of my mom and dad. They both prioritized reading in their own ways. My dad, Pierre, took us to the Smithers Public library every Sunday. My Mom, Janell, would hold us while she taught us how to read. Books have always been a part of my world, and my work, because of this history. Books started to hold me, they helped me to dream, and they kept me safe when I needed to be safe. Like so many of us, I came to Indigenous Authors a bit later in the story; folks like Chrystos, Lee Maracle, Beth Brand, Joy Harjo, Leslie Marmon Silko, Tom King, Gregory Scofield. Their words easily filled my heart. Their words easily became my Elders, my friends, my fighting partners, my lovers, my teachers. We meet words as much as they meet us. If you feel like me, please join us in giving back to these words that lifted us up, and to Indigenous Authors who shared them with us. The performance starts with an old-school poster board-making workshop; you join in! You come with words from Indigenous Authors that have lifted you up. And together, we march with our collective placards to locations around the UBC campus and offer these words to the sky to read.

The #HonouringIndigenousWriters festival and Twitter campaign were created, in part, to acknowledge the contributions Indigenous authors make to all of us. The diversity and richness of our Indigenous cultures can be found in our stories, how we share them and how we receive them. We are gifted this love and care in Grandmother’s laps, at kitchen tables, on road-trips while fighting with your cuzzin for leg room, in classrooms, next to winter fires, and in our childhood homes. These words came in closer when we needed help dreaming, and when we needed a safe place to hide. Indigenous Authors have given so much through their words, and through their offerings they have remade countless future worlds.

In this workshop participants are asked to honour an Indigenous writer by giving back a sentence, a lyric, a passage, a word. We invite you to bring these word gifts that nurtured you on March 14th. We will begin in the CEDaR Lab where we will create signs displaying the words that upheld us. Afterward, we will walk them across UBC, with a megaphone, offering these words to the sky, the land, and to places on campus that might need healing. Please join us in this collective work of care and acknowledgment.

Speaker

Peter Morin is a grandson of Tahltan Ancestor Artists. Morin’s work highlights cross-ancestral collaboration and deeply considers the impact zones that occur between Indigenous ways of knowing and Western Settler Colonialism. Morin’s practice has spanned twenty years so far, with exhibitions in London, Berlin, Singapore, New Zealand, and Greenland, as well as across Canada and the United States. Morin currently holds a tenured appointment in the Faculty of Arts at the Ontario College of Art and Design University in Toronto. Throughout his exhibition and making history, Peter has focused upon his matrilineal inheritances in homage to the matriarchal structuring of the Tahltan Nation. Morin was longlisted for the Brink and Sobey Awards, in 2013 and 2014, respectively. In 2016, Morin received the Hnatyshyn Foundation Award for Outstanding Achievement by a Canadian Mid-Career Artist. Morin is a member of the artist collectives BUSHgallery and O’kinādās. He currently holds a tenured appointment in the Faculty of Arts at the Ontario College of Art and Design University in Toronto.

This event is part of the Honouring Indigenous Writers series, which seeks to increase awareness of Indigenous authors.  This year we have put together a schedule of author readings and workshops throughout the month of March, as well as asynchronous Wikipedia activities to increase awareness of Indigenous literature and improve the coverage of Indigenous writers on Wikipedia.