Artwork

Children of Gwa'yi, Heritage

Artists/Creators: Marianne Nicolson (Artist)
Althea Thauberger (Artist)
Date: 2018
ID #: BG5800

Physical Description

Medium: inkjet print
Support: paper
Dimensions: 53.4 cm 43.9 cm (Object)
Object Description: Community experience is critical to Marianne Nicolson's practice, whose ancestral territory and community is Gwa’yi. For Nicolson and the Dzawada’enuxw people, community stabilizes the double-sidedness of self-identity, where heritage intersects with their individual expansion. Artistic production is equal to building a canoe, or an elder’s gathering: they are opportunities to connect with their ways of life, thinking and values. In this photograph, a collaboration with artist Althea Thauberger, children are gathered on Gwa'yi's church steps waving and smiling at the camera. Referencing photographs of Indian Residential School students, Children of Gwa’yi emphasizes community and the ways that children are like fireweed (in Nicolson's words), a symbol of growth and resilience after devastation.

History

Collection: Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery Permanent Collection
Credit Line: Purchased with support from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Morris and Helen Belkin Foundation, 2019
Related Exhibitions: Hexsa'am: To Be Here Always
Start Somewhere Else: Works from the Collection

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