See below for a review of workshops and events that feature Indigenous artists or instructors.
CLICK HERE to register for these events and workshops.
The City is Also an Island: Fiction, Non-Fiction, Poetry
Tuesday, Apr 9 | 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm | The Roxy
CLICK HERE for details on this event.
Carleigh Baker is a Métis/Icelandic writer. She won the 2017 City of Vancouver Book Award for Bad Endings, which was also a finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Award, the BC Book Prizes Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award, and the Emerging Indigenous Voices Award for fiction. She was awarded a 2012 subTerrain Magazine Lush Triumphant Award for her short fiction. Her work has appeared in PRISM International, Joyland, and This Magazine. Her book reviews and critical writing have appeared in The Globe and Mail, The Malahat Review, The Goose, and EVENT magazine, and she contributed to the anthologies In This Together: Fifteen True Stories of Real Reconciliation, Vancouver Noir (2018), Everyday People: The Color of Life (2018), Best Canadian Essays (2016), and The Journey Prize Anthology (2016). Baker lives in Vancouver.
Baker was named one of CBC’s 17 Writers To Watch in 2017. She will be a Berton House writer-in-residence from January to March 2019. She is working on a novel about unprepared do-gooders facing the Canadian wilderness in an attempt to save the environment, surviving only due to the generosity of the local Indigenous community.
Click here to read a 49th Shelf interview with Carleigh Baker.
Click here to listen to Carleigh Baker in conversation with Shelagh Rogers.
Carleigh is reading with award-winning author, comedian, and activist Charles Demers, and Gabriola poet and teacher Roger Farr.
One Book, One Community: Reading & Reconciliation
Daniel Heath Justice in conversation with Shelagh Rogers
Friday, Apr 12 | 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm | The Net Loft
Click here for details on this event.
Inspired by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the 94 Calls to Action, we’re encouraging Gabriola to read Why Indigenous Literature Matters, by Daniel Heath Justice.
Blending personal narrative and broader analysis with close readings of key creative and critical texts, the book contemplates four key questions at the heart of Indigenous kinship traditions: How do we learn to be human? How do we become good relatives? How do we become good ancestors? How do we learn to live together?
Join Daniel for our third annual Community Conversation, guided by Honorary Witness Shelagh Rogers. All ages are welcome.
Multiple copies of both books are available at the Library, and through Page’s Bookstore.
Daniel Heath Justice is a Colorado-born Canadian citizen of the Cherokee Nation/ ᏣᎳᎩᎯ ᎠᏰᎵ. He received his B.A. from the University of Northern Colorado and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Before coming to UBC, he spent ten years as a faculty member in the Department of English at the University of Toronto in Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe territory, where he was also an affiliate of the Aboriginal Studies Program.
Daniel currently holds the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Literature and Expressive Culture at UBC on unceded Musqueam territory. His most recent book is Why Indigenous Literatures Matter, a literary manifesto about the way Indigenous writing works in the world. He is the author of Our Fire Survives the Storm: A Cherokee Literary History and numerous essays and reviews in the field of Indigenous literary studies, and he is co-editor of a number of critical and creative anthologies and journals, including the award-winning The Oxford Handbook of Indigenous American Literature (with James H. Cox) and Sovereign Erotics: A Collection of Two-Spirit Literature (with Qwo-Li Driskill, Deborah Miranda, and Lisa Tatonetti). Other writings include the animal cultural history Badger in the celebrated Animal series from Reaktion Books (UK) and the Indigenous epic fantasy novel, The Way of Thorn and Thunder: The Kynship Chronicles.
Daniel’s current projects include Raccoon (also in Reaktion’s Animal Series), a collection of essays titled This Hummingbird Heart: Indigenous Writing, Wonder, and Desire, an edited collection on Indigenous land privatization and allotment co-edited with White Earth Ojibwe historian Jean M. O’Brien, and a long-gestating Indigenous steampunk novel.
Visit Daniel Justice’s website.
Read this Open Book interview with Daniel Justice.
Old School Hip Hop (for dance lovers 50 yrs+)
Saturday, Apr 13 | 9:00 am – 11:00 am | The Commons (Upstairs) | 50+ | $25
It’s time to let loose and have some fun. Tap into your inner “swag” (google it).
This workshop is a great opportunity to make a collective song with your peers and show what the real Old School sounds like. This workshop is about celebrating each others expression!
Warren Hooley is half Okanagan, half Caucasian and from the Syilx (Okanagan) territory in Penticton, BC. He graduated from the En’owkin Centre under the National Aboriginal Professional Artist Training Program in the spring of 2011. Through workshop facilitation and hip hop performances he delivers an empowering and uplifting message that he believes people of all races and ages can enjoy and relate to. He has been helping people reclaim freedom of expression and creative confidence in a supportive space for seven years. Check out his vocal improvisation work on Youtube.
Participants take home: joyous beats and hip hop skills | Participants need to bring: good spirits
New School Hip Hop (under 18 yrs)
Warren Hooley |
CLICK HERE to register for this workshop
Saturday, Apr 13 | 11:30 am – 1:30 pm | The Commons (Upstairs) | under 18 only | $25
The magic of hip hop music is undeniable. The power of the message, the infectious rhythm and soul. Come to this workshop and learn how to build a hip hop song in a fun and easeful way with looper technology!
Warren Hooley is half Okanagan, half Caucasian and from the Syilx (Okanagan) territory in Penticton, BC. He graduated from the En’owkin Centre under the National Aboriginal Professional Artist Training Program in the spring of 2011. Through workshop facilitation and hip hop performances he delivers an empowering and uplifting message that he believes people of all races and ages can enjoy and relate to. He has been helping people reclaim freedom of expression and creative confidence in a supportive space for seven years. Check out his vocal improvisation work on Youtube.
Wood Carving with a Master Carver
Joel Good and Patrick Olmsted
Sunday, Apr 7 & Sunday, April 14 | 9:00 am – 1:00 pm | Commons
This workshop is SOLD OUT. Please join our Waiting List.
A hands on exploration of design, techniques, tools, and sharpening, with a Snuneymuxw master carver. The workshop will be held over two afternoon sessions.
Joel Good carved the new totem poles at Departure Bay and at the Nanaimo Art Gallery. He has makes remarkable bentwood boxes, spindle whorls, masks, and paintings. Patrick Olmsted is an internationally recognized Gabriolite luthier, recently immersed in Coast Salish art under the intense scrutiny of Snuneymuxw Master Artist William Good.
Walking, Weaving & Storytelling
Dave Spiritwolf Bodaly
Friday, Apr 12 | 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm | Net Loft | Additional offering on Saturday, April 13.
CLICK HERE for details on this workshop.
Weaving together nature, cedar, stories, and sacred teachings, spend the afternoon with a master traditional weaver. You’ll spend the first 90 minutes out in nature on a gentle walk, and the rest of the workshop weaving a cedar keepsake.
Dave Spiritwolf Bodaly is an artist, archivist, storyteller and cultural interpreter from the Snuneymuxw First Nation.
Participants take home: cedar-woven keepsake. Participants need to bring: good shoes, dress for weather.
CLICK HERE to register for these events and workshops.
