May 30 – June 23 | Co-Curators CANDACE CAMPO & SANDY BUCK, plus friends | Preparing for the Potlatch

What is Preparing for the Potlatch About?

Candace Campo xets’emits’a, a shíshálh artist and founder of Talasay Tours:

For myself, preparing for the potlatch really stems from growing up in this community on the Sunshine Coast. Growing up in an indigenous community with parents and grandparents and great grandparents that belong to a clan system. And when you have the fortune of being born into a community such as that, you’re born, with parents, and uncles and neighbors who live in a way that supports and understands that living a good life is about living for the greater good.

Preparing for the Potlatch is about coming together to explore art as community. The growth, expression and sharing of art is communal and a collective representation that also honours the person practicing art. If we support and celebrate the creation, the work of the artist, it is a gift we all receive, and the art as visual story is our story.And you don’t just showcase yourself, you hold up your neighbors, your fellow community members who you understand to all carry gifts.

Sandy Buck, a Métis artist and co-founder of Deer Crossing The Art Farm:

The energy that guides this show is Abundance! For myself, it is about how we receive and give away. As a Métis Settler to these lands, I did not grow up experiencing the Potlatch, but I had the fortune of understanding nature through my grandparents. I am a product of the teachings that nature is not something you look at from a far, it is a part of you; we vibrate in it. I have learned to use my hands to create from a spark of inspiration. What influences my work is the abundance of things readily available to us which our society uses and then disregards. I learned from my Nana that nothing is ever finished, it is only in a temporary state.

I have been so fortunate to co-curate this show alongside artist and storyteller, Candace Campo. We have been building from the memories of the elders whose images are preserved in photos, alongside the paintings and sculpted fibres; the elder hosts who sit in the four directions. This show was created from the mist of the imagination and stayed in the air until it was time to take form inside the GPAG. We are honoured to be working in collaboration with artists who witness this transformation and bring forward their artform to help tell the story of how we prepare for such an incredible and spiritual event. Take time to witness and enjoy the journey.

?ul-nu-mulh-chalap (we thank you)