This is a copy of Nancy Bleck's MFA thesis which is about the Witness Uts'am project that I will be presenting on in Newcastle.

1. Becoming witness
Ecology, embodied ethics and artistic practice
Thesis for Master’s of Fine Art 2005
by
Nancy Bleck, Slànay Sp’ákw’us
Hogeschool voor de Kunsten, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Open Learning University, London, England
1

2. Contents
Prelude
In loving memory of friend, mountaineer, conservationist, wilderness educator, One I Situating espistemology and artistic practice
photographer, and the funniest man I ever met.
Xwexwsélken, John Clarke Two I Interview with Chief Bill Williams
Three I Art Context
Who showed me a home called wilderness.
Four I Summary
Bibliography
End Notes

3. ways of producing different forms of knowledge, and of visualizing the
alternatives. I swerved into unexpected collaboration upon chance meeting
with famous mountaineer John Clarke in 1995 in the Elaho Valley, and
then one year later, with hereditary Chief Bill Williams, on a sandbar in
Sims Creek. I did not originally seek out the communities in which I am
now implicated; seamless flows between the arts, first nation’s culture,
ecology, and science, have arrived as an unexpected surprise to me. I
am deeply grateful, indebted and honoured for the genuine friendships
and new knowledge’s that have resulted from a shared commitment to
the land.
Prelude
This in turn brought me to an artistic practice involving documentation as
I was stirred by a desire to ‘do something’ about what was happening
art, community and public engagement, cross-cultural and interdisciplinary
to the land in a rainforest I had in recent years come to know as nexw-
collaboration, and to women studies, whose epistemologies provide a
ayantsut (Sims Creek / place of transformation) and Nsllwx-nitem tl’asutich
critique of Western science and development, wherein the root of the
(Elaho Valley), located in southwestern British Columbia, three hours north
problem resides. To become responsible at a local level among multiple
of downtown Vancouver. It’s environs smelled and tasted nothing like the
communities, and therefore ‘together’ answerable to the eco-crisis, is
suburban sprawl of Mississauga, Ontario, where I once called home, with
where I locate my art practice and citizenship.
it’s shrinking agricultural pastures, increasing highways, and massive
new housing developments, but even more frighteningly closer to what
an ‘environmental holocaust’ may actually imply. Thousands of hectors
of clear felling of an ancient ecology, wiped out over a corporate five-year
plan, displacing grizzly bears, moose, spotted owls, and numerous other
species which depend on the rich valley bottom forests for survival. These
include millions of Douglas-fir, Hemlock and Cedar trees, that can be
witnessed carted down the G-main logging road for shipment to foreign
waters, and all at a high ticket cost for the irreparable loss of life, and
damage left for local communities to reconcile and grapple over.
As a starting point, asking myself ‘what is to be done’ about the erasure
of old growth rainforests, my inquiry led me to seek out non-dominating

4. the world; art that ‘has the power to position itself politically, determinedly
and critically in the world, but also to be celebratory’.1 It is my objective
as a cultural activist. Antithetical to this belief, I play devil’s advocate, and
contradict these ideals by also defending an artistic potential which does
not subscribe to the expectations of art to ‘change society’ per se, and the
limited role and instrumentalization of art to serve a specific function or
Introduction political cause. Instead I will argue for art which is transformative, both for
nature and the human.
What is the reposition of the artist as a ‘witness’?
New and novel transformations among traditionally distinct disciplinary fields
My research reflects the form of an embodied and engaged artistic journey; are favouring more interdisciplinary approaches to knowledge production.
mapping a specific political terrain of the temperate rainforest in West Coast Rosi Braidotti writes, ‘concepts are nomadic because they have acquired
Canada, located in the northern part of the Squamish Nation traditional the capacity to transfer from one scientific discourse to another.’2 One of
lands. As a co-founder and artist inside the project of Uts’am / Witness, my wishes as an artist is to find a place of graceful discourse between
having spent ten summers of fieldwork in the rainforest: that is engaging the ecology, citizenship and participation. Donna Haraway uses the term
public to physically ‘witness’ it, while producing documentation as artwork, ‘worldly practice’, as a way to ‘start talking about any dimension of what
my subject position therefore becomes intrinsically embedded within this it means to be worldly – the commercial, the physiological, the genetic,
research. I will call up memory, story, photography, conversation, as well the political, [the organic]’3 It is about paying attention to power relations
as philosophy and cultural theory, as referents and guides traversing and flow of capital, which tempers the arts, the environment, gender,
and informing this exceptional landscape under siege. ‘Ecological ethics’ race, politics and almost everything one can think of. A closer look into
and ‘politics of location’ play a discursive role within my artistic research how gendered power relations operate in Western rationale, spins some
navigation. interesting discoveries where the environment is concerned, as discussed
in chapter one with Haraway’s figuration of the ‘modest witness’.
I am motivated to highlight that the artist has particular and responsive
ways of perceiving the world, that are indeed different from say a social I will turn to a key player within Uts’am - Witness. One early morning by
scientist, mountaineer, environmentalist, feminist, politician, academic, or the beachside, I engage in a video dialogue with Chief Bill Williams, which
cultural theorist. However, I consider carefully how the artist may become makes up chapter two, offering insights into the Squamish traditional
an active player in the political status of contemporary society in midst practice of calling ‘witnesses’ when there is important ‘work to be done’.
of experiencing a long-lasting eco-crisis. In this sense, I encourage and My own stories are expressed through looking back at my photography,
endorse art that carries the capacity to empower us to constructively act in as I offer an exchange of ideas, reflecting with a personal narrative on the

5. praxis of my work in chapter three. I cannot explain this process outside of my
embedded experience. My voice will shift from the academic, to the personal, as a
way to position and submerge my fleshy subjectivity into the conversation between
culture and nature. Gilles Delueze, Felix Guattari, Boris Groys, Sarat Maharaj,
Amir Ali Alibhai, Donna Haraway, and Rosi Braidotti, provide the philosophical
bones and cultural theory for offering more insight into the inquiry.
Two recent conferences in 2005 have provided insight into this conversation and
research of becoming witness. The first one in January in Berlin, Germany titled
KLARTEXT, ‘Artist as political subject’ and the second in April, ‘Arts and Ecology’
in London, England. I attended the first conference, while researching the second,
One I Situating Epistemology & Practice
with regard to how these translate to the notion of the ‘witness’ rethinking artistic
practice in times of eco-crisis. There is so much that could be discussed from
these conferences, but for space consideration, I keep my observations to a bare
and crude minimum. For future research and inquiry, I am keen to participate in the
international debate on the artist’s role to the eco-crisis, and have signed up to the
RSA (Royal Society of Arts) for future involvement.
Witnessing is seeing; attesting; standing publicly accountable for
This investigation serves as a mapping exercise. It is a methodological reflexion and psychically vulnerable to, ones visions and representations.
that searches out my own arts practice over the course of the Uts’am - Witness –Donna Haraway, modest_witness@second_millennium…,
project, which I will discuss is not about objectivity, representation and presentation
in the traditional ‘high art’ sense, but a socially active / animated implicated practice
– a course of intensive interconnected activities and unpredictabilities. My personal involvement as a witness within the Uts’am - Witness project,
and my own story, which is also my testimony of being called to witness
in the Coast Salish tradition, requires some understanding of specific
~~~>>>><<<<<~~~ situated knowledge’s informing my art practice and actions in collaboration
with the Squamish Nation community. There is a need here to highlight
the personal within the political and vice versa, and to disclose my subject
position determined by my experiences and identity as a woman of white,
Euro-Canadian, middle-class / working-class, nomadic artist working

6. alongside cross-cultural alliances, producing documentation as art, while
deconstructing the grand narratives that philosophical knowledge claims
of Western power dominations have produced. I do so to expose my bias
informing my knowledge, which does not claim objective truths per se, but
highlights a few useful findings for transformation and change. In order
to make myself accountable, I call up what Donna Haraway describes
as ‘situated methodologies’ / ‘situated knowledges’, positioning oneself, Modest Witness
calling for a critical genealogy of subjectivity. This embodied ethical Anti-racist feminist scholar of science, Donna Haraway, in her important
standpoint forms the frame of my artistic practice and post-modern political book, Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium.FemaleMan©_Meets_
condition. OncoMouse™, explores the figuration of the modest witness, that in
theory is close in practice to the 2000+ year tradition of calling witnesses
Throughout my art inquiry, I have acknowledged a decisive need to to events of significant meaning in Coast Salish culture. I borrow from
investigate new perspectives on Western dominate rationality, and neo- Haraway the modest witness figuration as one of the main points of entry
liberal globalization, not as a rehearsal for a regime of (un)fashionable into the complex discussion of what it means to be a witness in times of
political correctness, but to expose and open up inherent misunderstandings standardized brutality of nature.
about what is meant by the political, the ecological, of power relations,
and opening up of the imagination in regards to these, which often gets From the perspective of the Squamish Nation, calling witnesses in an oral
in the way of effecting real change within the real world. The whole point tradition is a form of law and governance and is a legitimate and legal
is to attempt to re-imagine the world differently, beyond a ‘colonized ‘document’ in the eyes of the Supreme Court of Canada, which functions
imagination’, through the re-construction of socially creative assemblages, as the cornerstone of history keeping and making of contemporary
placing emphasis on respect for the differences of our multi-specied world. indigenous cultural practices. I will not speak on behalf of this strong and
My desire and hope is an ethical one, which is to ‘care’ ‘fully’ attempt a few rich community. However, I will speak from my own subject position within
non-linear pathways, globulocalar steps, towards the goal of sustainable the project of Uts’am / Witness; what it informs and what it contributes and
futures. continues to aspire to as ‘value added’ nature–culture integrated system’s
that celebrate diversity and difference, while forging genuine connection.
Haraway has identified what Squamish people have rigorously practiced
~~~>>>><<<<<~~~
through the very survival of their culture, in the aftermath of genocide of
the previous century that ‘the important practice of credible witnessing
is still at stake’4.

7. Haraway spins the modernist notion of the modest witness, ‘queering’ the
modest in the witness, so as to diffract, displace and problematize this
silent self-invisibility, but notes that ‘reflexivity is not enough to produce
self-visibility’8.
Valid witness depends not only on modesty, but also on nurturing and
acknowledging alliances with a lively array of others, who are like and
What counts as credible witnessing in times of eco-crisis? unlike, human and not, inside and outside what have been the defended
boundaries of hegemonic selves and powerful places. 9
There are two points I would like to acknowledge in discussing Haraway’s
To address the violence inherent in a Western prevailing style of
term ‘modest witness’ (borrowed from Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer),
development, calls for a closer look at how dualisms function in the
with reference to the environment, and that is the problem of invisibility
imagination, which Val Plumwood describes in her book, Feminism and the
and transparency, and what counts as ‘credible witnessing’ as a source
Mastery of Nature, as ‘the instrumentalization of nature, where culture is
of vision5. The second is the tension between these privileged forms of
always the privileged rank in the hierarchy’.10 In Women, the Environment
witnessing, with that of identifying a critique of ‘objectivity’. Shifting the role
and Sustainable Development, four feminist writers explain that, “the
of witnessing away from knowledge-claims, and toward a collective, public
embodiment of the subject is the political standpoint which allows for a
and mixed act of witnessing, where all the players, (especially those whose
critique of dualism as a form of violence, that is to say, an oppositional
visibility have marked them biased and therefore ‘unreliable sources of
form of thought which has the effect of psychic warfare” 11
important things’6), precisely means cultural intervention into mainstream
modernity’s social power.
This calls for a critique of the style of conservation that enforces homogeneity
This self-invisibility is the specifically modern, European, masculine, of language in the media, absolutism’s, dualisms and dichotomies of
scientific form of virtue of modesty…This kind of modesty is one of
‘us and them’ rationale, and the feeling of exclusion that comes with it.
the founding virtues of what we call modernity. This is the virtue that
guarantees that the modest witness is the legitimate and authorized Polarization of the different positions is necessary in the maintenance of
ventriloquist for the object world, adding nothing from his mere keeping those players ineffective.12 As John Clarke used to point out, ‘the
opinions, from his biasing embodiment. And so he is endowed with the
days are over when environmentalists can do no harm.’ And so we think
remarkable power to establish facts.7
not to become clever, but because thinking transforms life. In a project to
do away with the foundation of ‘being’, binary and opposition, Deleuze
insists there exists nothing more than the flow of becoming, ‘all beings are
just relatively stable moments in a flow of becoming-life’. (Colebrook; 2002)

8. *excerpted from the website below Art that engages critical thinking alongside community participation may
do so at a cost to its autonomy, but may also provide a leap forward in what
WE HAVE TO LEARN TO MAKE OUR THOUGHT TRAVERSE THE many groups and communities in the *ecosophy 13 field are grappling with.
INTERRELATIONS AND MUTUAL INFLUENCES BETWEEN ECO- Rethinking a relationship with the human and nature is not accessible, or
SYSTEMS, THE MATERIAL WORLD, SOCIAL AND INDIVIDUAL even possible, without the hard work of melting down stereotypes, forming
RELATIONS.” Guattari, The Three Ecologies, p35 alliance by way of dialogue, and intensive interaction as a methodology for
sustainable, intelligent practice of radical human care.14
“In The Three Ecologies Felix Guattari extended his definition of ecology
to encompass social relations and human subjectivity as well as
In a yearning to search out for those ‘unlikely others’, ‘human and not’,
environmental concerns, developing the concept *ecosophy as a catalyst
‘inside and outside’ of the environmental discussion, I find myself in line
for change with the potential for collective and social reinvention. This
broadened concept provides a useful starting point for a conference with the philosophy of Delueze and Guattari, curious about ecosophy,
that brought together numerous perspectives on the ways in which becoming-multiple, contradictions, complexities, and the rhizome, just
contemporary artists are confronting ecological issues and on the to scratch the surface. To search for the positive ‘others’ who were not
relationship of the individual to their cultural, social, economic and natural
part of the dialogue; those who were different from the media constructed
environments”. Emily Pethick
stereotype of a ‘warrior in the woods’, and whose voices were urgently
needed, became my primary focus in 1995. What this actually means is
http://www.thersa.org/arts/conferences/conference1/visitorResponse.asp
getting down to a grass-roots level of non-violent environmental practice
and cultural activism, and a look at how ‘globalization is produced
locally’15.
~~~>>>><<<<<~~~
Becoming is about repetition, but also about memories of the non-
dominant kind.…it is about the capacity to sustain and generate inter-
connectedness. - Rosi Braidotti, Metamorphoses, p.8
Recognizing the importance of strategic alliance, while never losing site
of her primary objective, the difference women can make, Braidotti allows
for an unleashing of the imagination to tackle the very core of the problem
of modernity - gender. In my work with the environment and the multiple
communities within Witness, I apply nomadic philosophy and hybrid
strategies of resistance, for entering into a dialogic relationship; and of
becoming-multiple, and becoming witness within my artwork.

9. What attracted me so much to Braidotti’s way of nomadic thought is its
willingness to reinvent itself, and to embrace self-criticism, which warns
against the ‘complete and unconditional alliance with any philosophy’. (1995:
25) In her own words, ‘nomadism is the actualization of multiple differencesʼ
(2002: and, ʻnomadic becoming is neither reproduction nor just imitation, but
rather emphatic proximity, intensive interconnectedness’17. In this way I am
searching through the question of how and where lie the possibilities for
ecosophic transformation in the context of Witness, and I cannot imagine
this without assertion for the positivity of difference that women offer.
Two I Interlocutors: Dialogue with community
Thus, becoming witness is about embracing the messy act of what
democracy could look like in a current history struggling toward ‘post-
coloniality’. The ‘becoming’ in my ‘witness’ may derive from French
philosophers, and Italian-Austrailan-Dutch inspired nomadic theorist, while
the ‘modest’ in the ‘witness’ from California anti-racist feminist of science,
it is the ‘witness’ in my ‘witness’ that I will appeal to and acknowledge in [Place of transformation] nexw- ‘ayantsut
a dialogue with the rainforest, and in an interview with one of the sixteen
i) Earth / trees / water / non-human world / wild
hereditary chief’s of the Squamish Nation, telàlsemkin/ siyam. This mixing spirit places / conversation with the biological
soup of the temperate rainforest
together of a 2000 year traditional practice of witnessing, combined with
[Protocol] Chicayx
a critical analysis of artist as social agent, forms the embodiment of my
ii) Squamish people and protocols, Chee-ach , oral
subjectivity as an artist. history and law / interview with Chief Bill
Williams
~~~>>>><<<<<~~~ Community Arts Practice
iii) Roundhouse arts residency, involvement with local
artists and cultural workers, community art,
artist as political subject*
Conservation, Mountaineering and Science Community
iv) Ecologists, biologists, geographers, mountaineers
and environmentalists on a ‘walk in the woods’
For space restrictions, I will address ii) from the list of my Interlocutors:
Dialogue with Community

10. Conversation with Telàlsemkin/ siyam, Hereditary Chief
Bill Williams
Uts’am - Witness Synopsis
Witness is a cross-cultural collaboration in partnership with the
Roundhouse Community Arts Centre and the Squamish Nation.
Founded by John Clarke, Nancy Bleck and Chief Bill Williams, it
became the first arts residency to the opening of the Roundhouse in
downtown Vancouver, BC. This community-based project was hugely
attended in its first year (nominated for the ‘Ethics in Action’, Award
in 1998, and national winner for ‘Best Cultural Event’ from Tourism
Canada in 2002). It culminated in BC’s largest-ever exhibition involving
175 artists, professional and not, on issues of environmental practice,
first nations culture, and political engagement. It has remained a
stable residency project ever since its inception in 1997. Each year
FIG. 1 Reportage photo from the ‘verification ceremony’ of calling back witnesses, Sims
several hundred people participate in Witness through a mix of Creek, April 2001
cross-cultural dialogue, ceremony, non-violent practice, wilderness
The Squamish peoples have gone from a population of approximately 80, 000
camping, art exhibitions, workshops, forums and/ or media events. people, down to 150 upon contact with settler societies, nearing the edge of
Over 40 different volunteers run the project each summer through the extinction. Today there are 3 300 Squamish members, and 15 fluent speakers
Roundhouse. Celebrating diversity and difference, Witness connects of the traditional language, which is actively being taught in elementary and
secondary schools, and practiced during the witness ceremonies. While they have
urban city dwellers to their rainforest backyards three hours north, to
never ‘ceded or surrendered rights to our traditional territory or the power to make
learn more about Squamish traditional lands, and ecological issues
decisions within our territory’ (Squamish Nation Assertion of Title), they retain only
that affect us all. The project shrinks and expands, depending on the 0.03% of their original ‘house of land’ at the moment.
year and events taking place, political circumstance, and / or needs
We are shadows in our own land. Anyone can come here and not know
and desires of the multiple communities involved.
who we are. At a minimum, we have to share who we are and our
culture. - Chief Bill Williams
Being called to witness in the Coast Salish tradition is a sacred honour.

11. Entangled as I am between an artistic researcher in love with ‘rhizome
rainforests’ and Squamish Nation culture that frames Uts’am-Witness, it
is my Euro-Canadian rooted subjectivity that prevents me from voicing
a simplistic score here. I am a daughter of immigrants who was born to
this land via the gateways of colonization. I have no authority to speak
‘culturally’ on behalf of an indigenous subjectivity, even as Slanay
Sp’ak’wus, my adopted Squamish ‘ninahalahin’ name. Nor do I even
wish to, unlike the anthropological practice of speaking on behalf of
‘Others’, often in distorted scholastic scores, or over idealized tones.
That is the farthest of my intentions, as I firmly believe that voice is
best coming from its own authenticity and aliveness; its own cultural
survival, beauty and wealth of traditions. Let the conversation begin.
Nancy Bleck: August 7th, 2005. I am speaking with Telàlsemkin/ siyam,
one of sixteen hereditary chiefs of the Squamish Nation, (and elected
chairman of council). Maybe you can state your name and explain your
hereditary chieftainship?
C.B: My hereditary Chieftainship is Telàlsemkin/ siyam, as given to me
by my family and recognized by the community. My driver’s license name
is Bill Williams, and my baptismal name is Billy, George, Mario, Joesph
Williams, (chuckles) I don’t say that very often, (more chuckles)… …
yeah, that’s who I am.
N: I will be asking a few questions in regards to the research work that
I have been doing in the Netherlands, with my artistic practice, and also
with the Utsʼam – Witness project. To begin, I would like to ask you what
your motivation is for getting people out to witness the land.
FIG. 2, Telàlsemkin/ siyam, dyptch, C-prints, 2004

12. My objective is setting them on a journey. that we do have in our lifesblood as people, because all races have that,
itʼs just a matter of generations of loss. If your mother and father, or your
I’ve met people this summer who came to Witness for the very first time, grandmother and grandfather were not a part of Mother Nature, or part of
and again this summer I’ve met people who I met 8 yrs ago, and this is the surroundings around you in terms of a natural state, and you always
their 8th year of a 9 year journey that they’ve continued coming back. So grew up in cities, then thatʼs all theyʼll talk about, thatʼs their history, thatʼs
what it’s all about is planting that seed to get out there. Change is slow, their stories. But if you show them as to things beyond that, in terms of
people do not like change…people do not like to change their routine. In connecting to the land, then a little spark will jump out in front of them
order for people to accept something new, and even with Squamish people, and something will say, ‘I have to go there’, or its been something I heard
going out to the land is very new to a lot of them. They grew up in an urban about and I want to be part of, and thatʼs what I was talking about earlier,
setting - they grew up beside the second largest drug market in Canada, that seed that we want to germinate to entice people, because getting out
in North America, in terms of heroin coming into the land. So being a to the land – once they connect, is fabulous, theyʼll want to go back and
back again, but if they donʼt give themselves that chance to connect, then
person who would walk out into the Mother Nature setting is terrifying
itʼs harder for us to connect with their children because they canʼt pass on
for them because they have never experienced anything so close. They
the stories.
think that a bear is going out jump out behind a tree and consume them,
when in reality itʼs actually going to be the tree that is going to consume
them, by the beauty of the tree and the wholeness of the tree. And for
the tree just being there and putting out the beautiful feelings of all the
trees that are out in Mother Nature and it’s not the animal that is going to
kill them. And so the change is actually going backwards, the change is
going back to Mother Earth; the change is getting out of the urban setting,
getting out of the feeling of convenience, getting out of the ability to want
immediate gratification. But to actually physically work for something, FIG. 3, Untitled, C-print, canvas heat transfer, 1998
take two / four hours to walk along a trail and finally see something, and
then realize that as they are walking back from their journey that they are
in fact slowing down and being able to see what is all around them, the
grandeur and splendor that Mother Nature offers.
And so for us as Squamish people, because we are so urbanized, just like
the rest of Canadian society, it’s hard for them to get out of their feeling of
comfort, their comfort zone and getting into a new area of something that
they’ve never experienced and that’s the wilderness, the real wilderness

13. N: Now in getting to the simple, but complex question of the notion of where you might be coming from, but again, because each individual
of witnessing. One of the things that I am researching involves what is is so unique and different, how you or another person would phrase their
means to be a witness, or to become a witness. It is a word that gets used words, especially using the English language, it dramatically effects what
in contemporary society often –but what it means to become a witness is being said and how people hear it, and so our calling of witnesses with
in Coast Salish culture is different from my experience, and requires a
people in the Sims, it changes the reality of witnessing – it’s modified, its
different level of responsibility. And in the Coast Salish tradition when
shortened, the reality is not even the same in its true feeling of a Coast
witnesses are called, is when there is important ʻworkʼ to be done. I wonder
how that ʻworkʼ has changed or been modified over generations. And how Salish event, we use some terminology that is similar, for instance when
do you see ʻwhat is important work to be done todayʼ - how do you see the we call witnesses now – thankfully its called ‘work’. And the reason why
importance of how witnesses play a role? it’s called work, is in normal events in Coast Salish it generally takes a
year, or four years to prepare, and again the preparation of having the
C.B: To be called a witness in a Coast Salish form, has been modified event, whether it’s a memorial, a wedding, a naming, whatever, is the four
to take into account today’s culture. People want to get to the ‘ah, ha’ year journey of getting there, its not the actual memorial, its not actual the
but they don’t want to spend four days to get to that ‘ah, ha’, they want wedding, it’s going out and getting the food, and going out and getting
to have that realization in 30min. To call a Witness event in the Coast the wood, its sitting down and weaving the blankets, it sitting down and
Salish way has been modified lots, and they way it’s been modified is weaving the hanker chiefs, its sitting down and practicing the songs; itʼs
the method of calling witnesses, and how we wrap up the witness event, the journey, and to call witnesses is the end result. So the modification I
has changed dramatically. In the old way of calling witnesses, we call guess is that everything is shortened, thereʼs lots of immediate goals of
the witness the same in that we call many people, but in the old days, we wanting a 5 min gratification, a 3min ʻah, haʼ, than really looking at the
would call the mature men of each community that is attending the event, journey itself.
and no women were called. Today, such as the memorial yesterday, a lot of
women were called, so that changed the male and female role in that event.
And the other way it’s changed is getting to that 3min ‘ah, ha’, as opposed
to the five hour journey, we only allow a certain amount of witnesses to
be called. In some instances, to glorify the watch, we would only call four
people to speak at the end of the witness event, even though we might
have called 400 witnesses, so what we are doing is putting tape over the
mouths of those 400 people who were called, and only allowing 4 people
to speak, thinking that these four people can actually speak on behalf of FIG. 4, Detail from ‘Witness’ Photo-canvas mural, heat transfer, 3’ x 37’, 1997
the 400 people who were there, but in reality I might have an idea what
your thinking is, but I can’t speak for you, and I know the general concept

14. N: One of the things I was reflecting on from Donna Harawayʼs book, N: Prior to collaborating with the Squamish Nation, I never thought of
Modest Witness, is that the credible act of witnessing is still at stake. I the ʻact of witnessingʼ as a form of governance. What is witness in a
am interested is what counts as credible witnessing? In the practice of ceremonial practice, in the Coast Salish tradition?
witnessing, how does one become ʻcredibleʼ? To be the eyes and ears of an
event, or the eyes and ears of what is happening, how would a Coast Salish
C.B: To be called to witness is the actual cornerstone of our Longhouse
person be trained over a lifetime to be that credible witness?
tradition of what we call Chicayx [chee – ach], chicayx is our foundation
of our law, of how things get done. And in order to verify our law, we
C.B: It is fairly simple – its wanting to be recognized, just like any other
need people not just within our family, our community, but people from
community. In the Coast Salish ways they’ve always tried to include
outside our community to come in and to verify that the event that is taking
everybody when you go to an event. In today’s society, if there is 400
place is something that they will bring back to their community to their
people, then they’ll call 400 witnesses, and in the old days they would only
family, eventually, that says yes this event did happen, and yes they did
call a very specific few, and especially of you have ancestral name, you
call witnesses, they did have a Speaker, yes they did have a doorman , yes
are very happy to be called and recognized on the floor by a Speaker in
they did have someone looking after the fires, and yes they did feed us,
front of 200 or 400 people, for the very first time, and you know because
so that everything that they did was is in the same way fashion and form
your name is called is something very special because it is an obligation
as in our community, and that there was no conflicts - nobody standing up
that you are now given, and it isn’t an obligation that’s given to you, it’s a
and saying that they have a problem with this event, and because of the
recognition by other people that you have the ability, the wits around you
people that were there 200, 500, 1000, and that there was no issue taken,
to know that being to called as a witness you have that responsibility and
then it is all a good qualified event that is part of the chicayax, part of the
because you are being called, other people know that ‘yes, that person
culture, that is handed down orally through our aunts and uncles, through
has that responsibility and can act accordingly and can do the job that
our grandmothers, grandfathers, that gratifies our chicayax, our history, of
we are asking of that person to be the eyes and the ears and remember
how things should be done.
this forever and a day’. It is that recognition of people who are outside
of yourself who would call your ancestral name to verify that you are N: It is the closest thing to what I understand what democracy could actually
responsible and you can remember and echo things in a way that will not look like. (chuckles) You talked before about naming and the recognition
vary from the real work that is taking place in that particular instance. It of witnesses being called in an ancestral name, and we witnessed Drew
is that recognition and is that time in having people know that you can Leathemʼs naming ceremony a few weeks at the closing event for Witness
handle that responsibility. this summer. I have a few questions around the naming process, particularly
the difference between a ʻninahalayanʼ name and an ancestral name. What
has changed in giving a name to a person that isn’t of First Nations
heritage? John Clarke, myself, Finn Donnely, Princess of Lichenstein,
and Drew, those are the people that I know that have adopted Squamish

15. names, there could be others that I donʼt know. What has changed in the because I know the history of Squamish, and back in 1880, members of the
culture to recognize people outside of the culture to give them a little name siyam’s (chiefs) of the day, they adopted people into the Squamish culture and
(ninahaylahin)? allowed them to marry inside the culture and allowed them to be members
inside the community. (end of tape)
C.B: Ummm, absolutely nothing (laughs). The only thing that has changed
is that those people that you mentioned are now aware of Squamish. They In the way of giving names - there are two ways of giving names, one way is
never knew anything about Squamish, and all these peoples have attributes giving an ancestral name, and that one is fairly simple, in that it’s the name
that mirrors Squamish thinking in some respects, and mirror things that a of one of your ancestors, so the connection is immediate. The other way is to
Squamish person should carry, and these people that you mention have give a name such as the name you have, and if we give out a name that is not
sediments of things in their heart and their mind that they do on a day to an ancestral name, then what we have to do is sit down and talk about it. And
day basis that mirror the Squamish culture and because of that members talk about an individual’s strength, and to come up with words that would
of our community have said, ‘well let’s do something about that’. It shows encompass those strengths in a way that can be seen. The name that you have
that you can be recognized by our Squamish siyam’s (chief’s) and have the Slànay Spʼákwʼus, [female eagle] or eagle woman, is a name that directly
ability to be adopted and carry a Squamish title. What you’ve witnessed reflects the work that you do, through the eagleʼs eye, we were looking at that
in the names of the people you know who are outside of the Squamish meaning. We all know that an eagle can see very far and very detailed what
is within your generation. There are generations before that I know that is all around, but an eagle can also from far distance zero in and see very
people who carry names of distinction, like Senator Austin, and he worked specifically that little field mouse in the whole field and be able to go down and
with the late Percy Paul, in that age group, to do things that benefited pluck it out, or just watch it, and that is a reflection of what we think that you
Squamish, and that time in the 1950’s and 60’s, they gave out names in have, in being able to take a look at a bush in a forest and be able to single out
just the same way that Sekyu siyam and myself and other members in our one aspect of the forest that you feel is important, and through that ability…
community are doing, in recognizing peoples attributes, and showing how because not a lot of people can do that, they’ll always see two million bushes
their true spirit of the heart is, and because of that we have to continue there, or two million trees, and not be able to see the old red cedar there, or
looking not only inside our community, but outside our community to see the yellow cedar, or see the blueberry bush, it’s just a whole bunch of
benefit our community in ways that our members canʼt. And look at people green to them. So that’s the thinking behind giving the names that are not
who do show a personal level of commitment that we know that in 50 ancestral names, names that would fulfill the attributes of the individual that
years from now, if they are still living, those attributes still will be strong, they’ve already developed, that they’ve already been using in their life and
they are not going change and that the generations of youth will benefit nothing will change from that, so what we have to do is be able to recognize
over that time period, so it is just an extension of the Squamish culture and that attributes that they posses, and in the case with Xwexwsélken (mountain
an extension of today’s thinking, but still mirroring some of the thinking goat), John Clarke, it was immediate, bang it was there, he lived that for 25
+years before I even met him, and upon recognition of what his history was it
of our membership. Squamish is unique in accepting people, I think, only

16. was very easy to identify the name for the late John Clarke. Other people back to the community, these things should be done in a way that reflects
it takes a bit more to bring out, or to recognize the attributes that person is what they’re doing in the truest sense of the work that they do, is to bring
utilizing, especially if they are younger, because they still haven’t really out the culture, while bringing out the culture capturing them in that time
developed their own thinking and their own patterns of life to an extent capsule of that film. And that work that you have been doing recently
where a name can be brought out very easy, so it takes a bit longer to captures that. Not the film of those nice burning bushes or the film of the
recognize those attributes that something in fact is going to be life-long. clear-cuts, but more of the people, of the ways of capturing who we are
N: Part of the work that I am now doing which is a reflexion on work that I and where we come from
have done before. I am looking at some of my photographs again and how
it informs my process, looking at a visual image as a form of intelligence
and how it starts to talk back. It often takes a long time in order to know
what is being investigated, or the inquiry, or the curiosity and sometimes
it takes awhile to actually hear what the images have to say. Can you
comment on an image that I have done that for you started to talk back?
C.B: There are a number of images that have helped…the capturing of
moments in time has always been hard to do with indigenous cultures,
because what is happening is there is a capturing of time or image through FIG. 5, Untitled, Duratrans, Light Box, 12” x 30”, 1995
eyes that are not of the same culture, and what is seen is some of the
images that you have taken are getting close or right bang on, in terms of N: I read a book in Holland during the Masters course called ʻUnderstanding
wanting to capture an image of time of our cultural events that need to be Media Theoryʼ and it goes right from describing the first media of
captured through our eyes. Because the medium that you use, the camera spoken language, to our hyper-mediated world today, and how with each
is so relatively new even though that they’ve had cameras in 1880’s or transformation of media ,how it is built upon the previous media, whether
90’s or whenever they had them, the first images, it’s still something that that was the spoken, the written, the printed, etc, and itʼs a very delicate
thing because it informs differently, a different kind of intelligence
our culture hadn’t taken on in the same perspective of ‘recording the day’.
happening through the media, whatever is being mediated, and maybe you
If you look back to the images that we have, of the early images of the
could say something about how that change has happened so quickly from
Squamish peoples, we have dozens of nice images of St. Paul’s church,
an oral traditional culture, which is still being practice today, alongside
but we don’t have pictures of our events, we don’t have pictures of our
living in a hyper-mediated world, and still working with those forms of
children, other than the residential schools when they are all lined up
technology also.
really nice in their uniforms, we don’t have them playing at the beachside
with the canoes (..) we don’t have them intermingling in a natural setting,
up until recently we didn’t have our Speakers in the middle of the ‘work’
being recorded, those are the things that in my mind should be brought

17. C.B: Well what is happening today is that our teachings, our chicayx is a zone of urgency, and now itʼs different, its gone deeper, and Iʼd like to
still the same, they havenʼt changed, what has changed is todayʼs culture hear your thoughts on what that place of transformation [nexw- ‘ayantsut],
on how that information is recorded, and how immediate that information what that actually involves, what that means.
can be transferred from that event to the rest of the world, and Chief Xalek
/ Sekyu siyam always says that, ʻTransformation and change is needed, C.B: What that means is a two step process, maybe even three. What that
itʼs requiredʼ. The evolving culture of today had to take into account our means is that first of all, you recognize who you are first, and in recognizing
culture, and in order for us to make those changes we have to go back who you are you recognize your values, and your foundation, and once
to the foundation of our chicayx, to make sure that it still in tact, that you recognize who you are what your values are, then you can go out
the foundation layer is there, but the modification of that culture is the and explore to see where your values fit, who do your values fit with.
transformation of who we are today, and we only can do that successfully And to get an understanding of other people and whether or not your are
in order for tomorrow’s children to recognize who were are today, is to be really way off the wall, or whether your values are so attuned with the
able to make that change. If we don’t make that change then we are trying culture of today, then your values are of common interest to a lot of people,
to freeze ourselves in time, and in an ever-evolving world that we live in or are your values off to the left or off to the right of what mainstream
today and if we try to do that, we will marginalize ourselves, because we society thinks? It really doesn’t matter, but what matters is the change of
would never be able to keep up with how information is being exchanged being able to accept the things that come into your life that you’ve never
today. Ten years ago we would never thought of carrying our pictures on experienced before. And these changes will ultimately always benefit you
a CD, and be able to transform those pictures digitally around the world and they will always make your foundation stronger, because you have a
instantly. If we always tried to keep things in our comfort level, then bigger thicker base to build yourself on, and if you have a bigger, thicker
change would never happen, and again we get back to that discussion in base then the more you’ll be able to accept, because you are already
order for us to change successfully, we have to adapt, and recognize how comfortable with your foundation, and how you’ve gotten to where you
the foundation of our culture can remain the same yet still be able to take are. The more you are able to reach out and feel what that part of the
up these new tools to evolve our culture, to explain who we are and where envelope you are pushing will feel, because you know that even if you
we come from yet once again, but through a different medium. break and open that part of the envelope and you didn’t want to, you can
still draw yourself back to the foundation of who you are, and where you
N: On the understanding of what is a transformative process, when we come from. And that change, that transformation, if you don’t break that
are up in the Elaho, the name of that area is called, nexw- ‘ayantsut envelope what you do is you build yourself a higher level of foundation, so
[place of transformation], and it interests me a great deal – change and you can push yourself even more in different areas. So that transformation
transformation, its one of the things I am most interested in. I see art as a
and that change is within everybody, but not everybody is willing to take
transformative process. I used to see it in different ways. I think through
those chances, willing to say that ʻyes, itʼs a beautiful day out today, but
the course of working on Witness in the last ten years, has very much
there are a lot of children crying in the world, and I want to help that. I
transformed me personally. I started to come at it in the beginning more as

18. donʼt feel comfortable with me just sitting here where I am - I want to do N: Do you think because the old-growth forest is so ʻnewʼ to settler-
something about it. Or yes, the forest is beautiful and we are growing new societies, that it makes it that much easier to exploit?
trees around us, but there is something about an old-growth forest that will
always remain unique and different and maybe we should not log it, or not C.B: well, what makes it easy for exploitation is the get rich quick
put roads into those areas but just leave it alone and let Mother Earth take mentality, of a majority of our culture today, where they can see that rather
care of that area’, and every once in awhile bless ourselves to be able to go than waiting one-hundred and twenty years for a tree to grow, they would
into that area and really feel what an old-growth setting is all about, and rather go cut a tree that presently exists that might be one-thousand years
go in and feel the oneness with Mother Earth. Knowing that where you old to fifteen-hundred years old, and they don’t have to do nothing about it,
are going now, if its put aside, or not being developed, is something that is they just have to cut it and not wait like they have to with a majority of the
so unique it ultimately becomes like our ancestors, or becomes what our wood today. So it’s more of a get rich quick mentality and not committing
elders are all about, who are in fact the jewels of our community, because themselves to sitting there and manicuring the forest over a hundred and
they are so unique and so different and carry so much wealth in terms of twenty years to let it to grow in a way that it should grow and putting in
information of what happened to them during their lifetime, and how their the time to really appreciate the wood.
life changed, and yet still remained the same, because we as Squamish
people live in this area and this is our home, and other people who come N: With your experience and time put into Witness as a project, through
the Roundhouse Community arts centre, how have you changed through
here they feel for the first time the newness of an old-growth forest, they
that process yourself personally?
feel the freshness of a glacial spring, that they have never even considered
before in their lives, and they all of a sudden realize that they are walking
C.B: I’ve had to change to put myself out in the limelight, I’ve never
in to something that to us as Squamish people is old-school, to them their
seen myself as a person who is there leading people and pointing in a
bursting their envelope, their bursting their feeling of comfort, their in an
direction of where we should be going and what we should be doing. I’ve
area that they’ve never experienced before, but our elders just shrug their
always seen myself as a leader who leads without doing those kinds of
shoulders and say ‘it always been there’. And the same with what we’re
activities, who would sit down and do all the background work and make
trying to tell our youth, to our children, it’s always been there, it’s only
sure something gets pulled off and in a successful way, and not necessarily
up to them as individuals to experience, and to get comfortable with their
standing there and being the person who is pulling things together to be
foundation of who they are and where they come from, and once they are
the focal point of the event, and that’s changed, because in order to have
comfortable, then they will go out into the land, and go do the baths [early
work being done, to hire a Speaker, and call witnesses, you need a family,
morning glacial river baths], and they will find out more of who they are
you need a group or an individual to create the reason for the event, create
and where they come from in a positive way that will not only benefit them
the reason to call witnesses. Because our culture has not been put out in
as members of our community, but it will benefit our community because
the limelight the way that we put our culture out in the witness project
it will make our community stronger.

19. itself, it has forced me to be that focal point, to be that person of calling C.B: That process is still on track, it has slowed down a lot only because of
witnesses and hiring the Speakers, and making me more vocal than I ever what’s called ‘due diligence’ meaning that they have stated that they have
wanted to be. a certain value, in Interfor’s mind, that what the TFL 38’s net worth is, and
we have to go in a sound out whether or not that value has any credibility
N: Do you see your role changing in the future with that? to those numbers. I thought it would be a quick process of two months, and
it looks like it will be more of a process of 8 months to a year, before things
C.B: I see it changing in very positive way, and it’s changing today with resolve. But buying timber forest license is one half of the equation. Even
the introduction of the ambassadors in the last two years, the ambassadors though Interfor has a right to log in TFL 38, which is the majority of our
are a group of young people [majority of young women] in our community traditional territory, they have to follow the provincial guidelines, and the
who are going out in the land, who are putting themselves forward in front provincial guidelines say that their annual allowable cut is still 240, 000
of the mainstream society and putting themselves out and saying who they cubic meters a year, which hasn’t changed, which also includes the cutting
are and where they come from, and its beautiful because they are taking of all the old-growth in our traditional territory, and until we change that
over my role as being the person to call the witnesses, to hire the Speakers, number, our Wild Spirit places are in jeopardy, and those negotiations are
they taking over that role because they themselves are being the Speakers, going on simultaneously with the buying of the TFL 38 license is going
they themselves are the family who is calling the gathering together to on, so we won’t know until January ’06 whether or not we can take the
call witnesses, so hopefully in the next three to five years, they themselves Wild Spirit places out of the annual allowable cut. If we can’t it would be
will take over completely all the roles and responsibilities that I have been a great benefit to Squamish to buy the TFL 38 and not log, and just take the
carrying in the last nine years of pushing the Squamish culture forward penalty of not logging, and look at other people to help us pay that penalty,
and that they, all 14 or 16 will then be carrying that role and responsibility because ultimately the provincial government wants money for the old-
in their day to day activities. Then I can step back and maybe focus on growth forest, so if we give them money and not log, then my thinking is
other segments of our traditional land holdings that need to be highlighted that provincial government wouldn’t really care, as long as they get their
or further light shed upon those issues. money. So we have to look at other groups and organizations to help us,
with that, but if we can negotiate the Wild Spirit places out of the annual
N: yes, we were in email conversation about some of the things that Interfor allowable cut, then that’s the best world we would be in, because then we
(multinational forest company) was negotiating with the Squamish Nation, wouldn’t have to worry about the cutting of the old-growth forests ever
and that is the buying back of the TFL 38 [tree farm license 38 – meaning again. What we could do then is focus not on the fight of trying to keep
38 thousand hectares of land] in which these old-growth forests reside in,
the old-growth forests, but focus on the fight of introducing the old-growth
how is that process going?
forest to our children.
~~~>>>><<<<<~~~

20. How does this impact on my art practice?
Until recently I have understood my artistic practice as straightforward as a
‘contemporary photo-based arts practice’, which in the context of Witness,
displaces my community cultural work as simply another extension of my
commitment to the eco-crisis, falling into the old hierarchal trap which
always privilege’s culture over nature. Not surprising, considering my
training at the Emily Carr Institute in Vancouver, BC, where I was inspired
first-hand by the Jeff Wall’s, Ian Wallace’s, Stan Douglas’s, Ken Lum’s, and
Three
Jin Me-Yoon’s. Since Documental XI, however, my practice can be better
I Art Context understood as ‘art documentation’ where the ‘artwork’ itself is located
elsewhere, that is, intangible outside of ‘experiencing it’. The essay by
Boris Groys, in Documenta XI, ‘Art in the age of Biopolitics: From Artwork
to Art Documentation’, questions the very distinction between art and life,
and argues that ‘today’s art is to become life itself’.
The changing role of contemporary art to find reconnection back to life-
Art has deep and difficult eyes and for many, the gaze is too insistent. issues, (which contradicts my love for the those luscious, over-sized,
Better to pretend that art is dumb, or at least has nothing to say that makes
modernist, all-encompassing photo-based ‘high-art’ works), has actually
any sense to us. - Jeanette Winterson, Art Objects
been the privileged rank in the binary for most of my work in the development
of Witness. Desire to place myself in the context of the gallery-museum
We have turned ‘art’ into ‘pictures’ in effort to mask its potency.
conformity of the high-art world, took a back seat, (but remains a desire
- Beth Carruthers, p.23
none-the-less), which complicates and confuses my ethics in practice.
The artist becomes a compassionate activist, collaborator, listener,
celebrator and educator. In the context of community, art is no longer In light of recent shifts in the art world, using the example of Documenta
dead; it is reborn. - Amir Ali Alibhai, p. 42 XI, curator Sarat Maharaj bravely sidesteps ‘art in terms of the gallery-
museum system’. Maharaj posits the Duchampian paradoxical question,
“Can one make a work of art that is not ‘Art’?” I have personally struggled
with the question of such ‘art today’, well before reading his text, ‘Xeno-
Epistemics: makeshift kit for sounding visual art as knowledge production

21. and the retinal regimes’. My bewilderment is reflected in so much as I Community Centre, who has written about Witness on several occasions,
grapple constantly between the prospect of ‘producing’ tangible artworks takes a different spin on the artist as ‘compassionate activist’ and community
in a gallery-museum style approach, with that of actually ‘becoming’ a animator, which I have shared upon multiple occasions. ‘Community
work in and of itself in relation to a larger community. is not a static entity ‘out there’, but is manifested through action – it is
practiced’.20
They whip us up to see-think-feel weather fronts-new affects, subjectivities,
Witness fulfills the roles described as the ‘territory’ of community art
feelings, emotional eddies and tidals – that trigger transformative thought,
practice, depending on who you ask. Witness is Public Art, Activism,
action and behaviour. Let’s look at them as art-ethical processing plants Empowerment, Education, Collaboration, Celebration and Community
churning out options and potentials for chipping in, action and involvement Development, simultaneously... Perhaps the simplest explanation
for why community art practice has emerged recently is the need to
in the world.
contemporary society for us to find a space to speak – to participate
in the public sphere in critical dialogue, and not in a manner that is
The difficulty within a process-oriented possibility or ‘art-ethical processing bureaucratized, surveillanced, not about consuming products, and not
plants’ lies in overcoming traditional notions of producing a singular work removed from our embodied realities. – Amir Ali Alibhai, p.35
of art. That is to say free-association to create irregular, odd, eccentric,
idiosyncratic imaginings. Art to most people, especially within a ‘community Former director of the Songbird project, artist and friend, Beth Carruthers,
context’, must be ‘understood’ to be recognized as art. There is a judgement writes in an unpublished essay titled, “Returning the Radiant Gaze”, that
value placed upon a work immediately, which can also shut down a more “we have outlawed art, burned art and glorified art...not because art is
experimental, unregimented attempt. a mirror, a narrative, or a representation, but because art is something
more”. It is this ‘something more’ that I am always trying to touch with the
Jan Verwoert, professor of Contemporary Art at the Academy of Umea, art process. I become irked when art is downsized to a ‘task’, assigned a
points out that art has an ‘implicit critical potential’ which is different from ‘mission’, or reduced to grand-scale ‘propaganda’ for a political message.
an ‘explicit political effect’. The ‘implicit potential is the artist’s ability to It is insulting to the art practitioner. This was the case in many of the
un-frame existing definitions of art and artistic competence. Placing the artistic presentations at the KLARTEXT conference in Berlin of this year.
artist in the social context defines the criteria of competence for the artist It is not the elitist commercial criteria for ‘high art’ that I argue for, but
as negotiator, visionary, communicator, which limits this potential18’. If the transformative repositioning of the creative process to have effect in
artist’s are those working from the ‘inside-looking out’, whereas of neo- society, beginning with the plane of community.
liberal globalization from the ‘outside-looking in’, then what Robert C.
Morgan suggests to artists, is for an awareness of the limitations of his /
her involvement, and to ‘think inwardly in terms of what we can transmit
to the outside.19”
Amir Ali Alibhai, artist, curator and arts programmer at the Roundhouse

22. Community art practice emerges at a time when globalization and the There have been thousands of pictures taken. I rummage through a pile
dominant culture of consumption threatens the diversity and integrity of contact sheets from the panorama camera, searching for images I have
of distinct cultural communities and our traditional mechanisms for
over-looked in previous years; images which through time and distance,
community-building and maintenance (ie: the ‘public sphere’), and
indeed our sense of being active agents in society. begin to speak to me again. Years of collecting now become a recollection.
The photographic paper onto which the integral tri-packs and dye-couplers
– Amir Ali Alibhai, p 39
have adhered themselves to, are metaphorically symbolic of the residue
of an ancient ecology and lumberyard of ghosts. It almost stopped me
For me personally, art is not an easily understood relationship. Perhaps it
once from making more images, upon the realization of the absurdity of
is one part of my jobs as an artist and cultural worker – to assist people in
it all. ‘Ha la, Nancy, I mean that civilization is a nonsense you know’... I
feeling comfortable with not understanding. What differs between cultural
hear Vera’s heavy Czech accent sounding in my memory, laughing as she
practice and artistic practice is that to be considered ‘culture’ is to already
speaks with alarm. I continue sifting through the piles.
operate from an accepted canon, or a tradition drawing from its own rich
historical reclaimed roots. Whereas according to Mika Hannula ‘artistic Two trees stop my search.
research is a new area a field within university studies that deserves to be
called social innovation21’. Such artistic practice carries that very difficult ‘WildLife Tree’ and ’98.8’, (FIG 7 & 8), both of them neatly labeled with blue
task of reinventing culture or social innovation, in the here and now, and spray paint as if done so onto a chalkboard inside a giant classroom. One
therefore becomes ‘both a possibility and a risk’ (Hannula; 2004: 70). It of them was photographed in the time-span of a weeklong solo trip I made
does not have the stability that ‘culture’ carries. Borrowing heavily from the into the ‘rock shelter’ area of the Elaho Valley back in the summer of 1999.
cultural past, but far from being traditional, artistic research is about creating The whole area of forest was taped off by Interfor as ‘special management
new situations and new knowledge’s from a self-critical and self-reflexive zone’. I was asked by telalsemkin to photograph the area shortly after it
framework, combining theory, practice with anarchistic experimentation was discovered, and archeologist Yumks, Rudy Reimer, declared the area
(Hannula; 2004), and thus offering new ways of negotiating the world. It as a Squamish sacred site. Before I entered the rock shelter area, Splash,
Aaron Nelson-Moody prepared the songs and tumulth for the ancestors,
is a risky business. And because of this high risk factor, there also exists
acknowledging to them of my presence in the forest with the camera. I
a great potential for failure, which is also part of the inherent process of
was told that this neighbourhood of the mountain was used for people
community intensities and reinventing a whole other social imaginary.
who would leave their village sites and spend anywhere from 4 months, to
4 years, and even up to 16 years alone in the forest, conversing with the
natural world, learning how to become more human.
I formed alliance with the trees.

23. FIG.8, “Wild Life Tree”, C-print, 3’ x 8’, 2001
FIG.7, Cedar 98.8, C-print, 3’ x 8’, 1998

24. Ten thousand years since the last ice age, the temperate rainforest is an My referral to this image (FIG. 10) is two-fold: on the one hand I reflected
ancient ecology that has been evolving since time immemorial. ‘Rhizome on Emily Carr’s “Scorn be timber: beloved as the Sky”, a painting that
rainforest’ inspired by Deleuze, metaphorically mirrors a delightful ecosystem the well-known BC artist produced in the 1950’s, as a critical comment
as a living, breathing meme spreading beneath the forest floor, and springing on the logging industry and practices at that time. I climbed on top of the
up back onto itself, as a ‘thinking agency’, alive and teeming with memory, cabin of the truck for a better perspective, of the view down the Elaho
non-hierarchy and fusion. Which is closer to the way nature actually works Valley, at mile 60, when I saw her painting in my imagination. It was as
– a highly sophisticated process of ‘becoming-other’ than what is not itself; if nothing really changed in the forest management practices code in
a hybrid course of action. “Have Fun!” mimics the blue spray paint markings the course of fifty years. A lone cedar tree stands isolated among a bare
on the cedar tree scheduled for clear-felling, and logger culture of Squamish. ruin of newly erased land. With the next lightening storm, this cedar tree
wouldn’t stand a chance of not being blown down, lacking shelter and
foundational support from a larger ecosystem. Inferfor has support of the
law, when conducting forestry in this way. Unfortunately, what happened
the following week of taking this photograph was that the entire cut-
block ignited into a blazing inferno initially caused by a storm, and the
gasoline cans that were carelessly left on site. All the trees that had been
felled in the cut-block were left lying on the ground for more than half
a year. When the storm hit, and the fire started, everything, including
Interfor’s invested profits of horizontal timber, became a massive pit of
black ash.
FIG. 9, Have Fun! Photo-canvas heat transfer, 4’ x 5’, 2000

25. Secondly, what became clear to me after my week of solo time in the
rainforest was that I was actually never ‘alone’. There was a constant
hum of activity going on all around that I was not accustomed to noticing
living in the city. I had instruction to photograph the site for the Squamish
Nation. Soon I became aware that I was not the only ‘modest witness’
to this place and time, but that in my brief presence of being there, I too
was being witnessed and recorded in the memory of the land and those
species living there. What I was witness to was not simply a motionless
cedar tree rooted there in the nutrient-rich soil for the last 1500 years,
but a cedar tree endowed with a memory, history, agency, interdependent
relationships, all in a course of continuous unstable events in constant
processes of becoming change and transformation. The life-span of this
cedar tree was close to, or more than a millennia in age when the storm
struck, and lacking the support of a neighboring infrastructure, fell prey to
the expansiveness of wind and open air.
There becomes a different intelligence being included in the whole
process, where the visuals start to talk back.
- Katherine Dodds, notes from conversation, 2005
FIG.10, Cedar Elder as witnessed by daughter of immigrants, photo-canvas, 3’ x 8’, 2000
FIG.11, Daughter of immigrants as witnessed by cedar elder, photo-canvas, 3’ x 8’, 2000

26. FIG.13, Kal’kalhil wild woman of the woods eating her children, Photo-canvas B&W portraitof
mask and colour panorama landscape, 3’ x 10’, 2000
FIG.14, Breach of protocol, Photo-canvas B&W portrait of William Nahannee and colour
panorama landscape, 3’ x 10’, 2000
FIG.12, Untitled, Photo-canvas heat transfer, 6.5’ x 5.5’, 2000
I started with packing a 4x5 inch, 35mm and 6x6 medium format cameras,
along with a good supply of film. Walking alone for hours through cedar
groves, douglas firs and hemlocks forests and back into the clear-cut
where a base-camp had been set by the Western Canada Wilderness
Committee. My main concern was how this was being reported in the
media - the language that was being used and constructed, who was
doing the talking, and as a result - what social groups did that privilege or
silence?

27. In light of the injustices of cultural genocide in Canadian history with
regards to indigenous peoples, I think about how Squamish people are
so receptive to sharing the oral traditions of their history, land and culture.
Strange plant becomings, becoming tree. This is not the transformation
In what ways are those duties and responsibilities brought to the public
of one into the other, but something passing from one to the other. This
sphere, to encompass a shared history, and understanding of the land in something can be specified only as a sensation.
contemporary times? If history itself is a story of the winners, how then -Gilles Deleuze, A Thousand Plateaus, p. 173
is it possible to (re)write the script of the past, (re)invent the present,
and to (re)imagine a future? Not separate from one another, but rather The artist is a seer, a becomer. How else would he recount what
simultaneously, as if a triple person in a triple time, beginning with a past, happened to him, or what he imagines, since he is a shadow? He has
a future and a present (Homi Bhaba). We are responsible for our bodies, seen something in life that is too great, too unbearable also, and the
mutual embrace of life that threatens it.
our race and our ancestors – which include the stories of those that have
-Gilles Deleuze, A Thousand Plateaus, p. 171
been marginalized, silenced and made irrelevant. If art and culture have
any impact, how then can artists trained in traditional schools (as practiced
in Squamish culture, based on tradition, practice and apprenticeship) and
contemporary schools (based on praxis [theory / practice], and artistic
research) collaborate to find effective ways of communicating a new social
reality? A shared reality, which includes a shared responsibility?
FIG.15, Untitled, photo-canvas heat transfer, 3’ x 10’, 2000

28. Four I Summary
...constant interaction with what used to be called nature, what used to be
called culture, through the mediating factor which is universal technology
that we are moving in and consequently drawing into the environmental
issues, drawing on the political question of new technologies, drawing
on the kind of spirituality and issues of spirituality that are so important if
we are going to make sense of this real cultural upheaval we are going
through. And keeping in mind, basically and most naively, the importance
to reassert the difference woman can make. This, for me, is the central
issue: to go on reasserting a sexual difference as a positive factor of
dissymmetry between men and women. We have got something else
to offer and it may not sound very post-structuralist, but I could care
less because it is ultimately that political passion that is going to carry
through.
- Rosi Braidotti,Metamorphoses, p.
FIG.16, Love, loss and permutation, Photo-canvas transfer, 3’ x 8’, 2005