Fri, January 13, 2017 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM LIU INSTITUTE FOR GLOBAL ISSUES. Free. The Suitcase: Intergenerational Healing through Traces of the Past
Join us for a short talk about our new Lobby Gallery exhibition by Liu Scholars Lyana Patrick & Ashli Akins, followed by a reception. Refreshments (food & non-alcoholic beverages) will be served. All are welcome.
Exhibit Dates: December 8, 2016 – January 31, 2017
After Lyana’s Gramma Aloo (gramma “mom” in Carrier) passed away, her parents gave her a suitcase containing materials she had used to make moccasins, gloves, and other items. Lyana couldn’t bear to look in the suitcase when they gave it to her, but finally opened it for the first time last summer – several years later. The suitcase contained hundreds of paper cut-outs of hands and feet. Lots of caribou cut-outs (Gramma Aloo’s clan). Tubes of beads. These cutouts represented the day-to-day life of a Carrier (Dakelh) woman from 1948 to 1998 (the period represented by the items) – her favourite Earl Grey tea boxes, cereal boxes, advertisements, a government cheque, even her son’s exercise book from residential school.
This exhibit takes us on a journey through Gramma Aloo’s life, and in doing so, has acted as a piece of Lyana’s healing journey as she learns more about her grandma’s life story. The multi-media exhibit includes photographs, cardboard cutouts, explorations of the exhibit’s themes of intergenerational healing and reconciliation through the written word, and an invitation for the viewer to actively respond.
Biographies:
Lyana Patrick is a member of the Stellat’en First Nation of the Carrier Nation in British Columbia. Lyana is a PhD candidate in UBC’s School of Community & Regional Planning, where she explores her interests in governance, history, health, and storytelling.
Ashli Akins is a PhD student at UBC’s Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program, combining the disciplines of law, anthropology, First Nations & Endangered Languages, and environmental studies to explore the role of arts to reclaim voice for historically marginalized populations.
Lyana and Ashli met through their shared interest in intergenerational memory, and the power they see in art to palatably convey the themes of collective memory, intergenerational knowledge transmission, and intergenerational storytelling in ways that are not exclusive to academic audiences, but instead that reach the hearts of community members in ways that provoke dialogue and inspire questions.