Sesemiya

[RSVP](https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/open-studio-sleway-working-with-cedar-with-sesemiya-tickets-645644107907 "button")

Open Studio is a monthly program for young visitors and families inspired by contemporary art practices and CAG’s current exhibitions. In June, we invite you to join us for a hands-on workshop led by exhibiting artist Sesemiya.

Inspired by her current exhibition *s7ulh waḵáy̓stn iy ta stamsh cht* (Our Weapons and Warriors), participants will learn about ancient weapons and tools of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh stamsh (warrior). Sesemiya will guide the group in making a fundamental and versatile tool, cedar rope, as well as talk about the importance of protecting our wild spaces and waterways.

### RSVP
Registration for this event is free, but limited. A number of spots are reserved for families. RSVP to secure your place [here](https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/open-studio-sleway-working-with-cedar-with-sesemiya-tickets-645644107907).

### Biography
Sesemiya (Tracy Williams) is a knowledge seeker, dreamer, water protector, land defender, lover, mother, auntie, weaver, and cultural practitioner. Her rich relationships with plants, animals, land, and water have taken her to the tops of mountains, the bottom of the ocean, fields of fireweed, and occasionally art galleries. Her work as an artist and educator is deeply invested in cultural revitalization and she has developed numerous programmes for connecting Sḵwx̱wú7mesh youth to traditional hand technologies and knowledge for living off the land. Her work has appeared in exhibitions such as *lineages and land bases*, Vancouver Art Gallery (2020); *Intangible: Memory and Innovation in Coast Salish Art*, Bill Reid Gallery (2017); and *N. Vancouver*, The Polygon Gallery (2017). In 2021, a commissioned work of Sesemiya’s was included in the Vancouver Art Gallery’s presentation of Yoko Ono’s *Water Event*. Sesemiya is a proud member of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Nation.

### Accessibility
ASL interpretation is available on request. Requests can be accommodated up to 5 days in advance. Please contact [learning@cagvancouver.org](mailto:learning@cagvancouver.org) to book or for more information.

Sesemiya in profile holding a woven basket.

thumbnail_Sesemiya Headshot - Courtesy of the artist.jpg

Sesemiya Headshot - Courtesy of the artist.jpg

Working with Cedar with Sesemiya (Open Studio)

Sléway̓

[RSVP](https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/talk-gabrielle-lhirondelle-hill-dionne-lee-sesemiya-with-lorna-brown-tickets-636858449767 "button")

Join us for a public conversation between the summer 2023 exhibiting artists, moderated by Lorna Brown.

### RSVP
Registration for this event is required. Secure your place [here](https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/talk-gabrielle-lhirondelle-hill-dionne-lee-sesemiya-with-lorna-brown-tickets-636858449767).

### Accessibility
ASL interpretation is available on request. Requests can be accommodated up to 5 days in advance. Please contact [learning@cagvancouver.org](mailto:learning@cagvancouver.org) to book or for more information.

### Biographies
Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill is an artist and writer. Her practice explores the history of found materials to enquire into concepts of land, property, and economy. Recent exhibitions include the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the 59th Venice Biennale; Le Magasin CNAC, Grenoble; the Vancouver Art Gallery; the College Art Galleries at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon; and Gallery TPW, Toronto. She is a member of BUSH gallery, an Indigenous artist collective that seeks to challenge Eurocentric art models, and to centre the land and Indigenous epistemologies. Hill is Cree and English, with maternal roots in the Michel Band and Papaschase. She lives on the unceded territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, xʷməθkʷəy̓əm and səlilwətaɬ Nations.

Sesemiya (Tracy Williams) is a knowledge seeker, dreamer, water protector, land defender, lover, mother, auntie, weaver, and cultural practitioner. Her rich relationships with plants, animals, land, and water have taken her to the tops of mountains, the bottom of the ocean, fields of fireweed, and occasionally art galleries. Her work has appeared in exhibitions such as *lineages and land bases*, Vancouver Art Gallery (2020); *Intangible: Memory and Innovation in Coast Salish Art*, Bill Reid Gallery (2017); and *N. Vancouver*, The Polygon Gallery (2017). In 2021, a commissioned work of Sesemiya’s was included in the Vancouver Art Gallery’s presentation of Yoko Ono’s *Water Event*. Sesemiya is a proud member of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) Nation.

Dionne Lee is a visual artist working in photography, collage, sculpture, and video. Her work explores power and personal history in relation to the American landscape, and interrogates historical narratives that exist within photographic representations of land and place. Lee received her MFA from California College of the Arts. She has exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Feria Material, Mexico City; New Orleans Museum of Art; Aperture Foundation, New York; Silver Eye Center for Photography, Pittsburgh; Museum of Fine Arts Houston; and the San Francisco Arts Commission, among others. Lee was a 2022 Artist-in-Residence at the Chinati Foundation and is a 2021–2023 Artist-in-Residence with Unseen California.

Lorna Brown is a Vancouver-based visual artist, curator, writer and editor. Brown is a founding member of Other Sights for Artists’ Projects, and is an ongoing member of the Other Sights Producer team. She was the Director/Curator of Artspeak Gallery from 1999 to 2004, an artist-run centre focusing on the relationship between visual art and writing. Between 2015 and 2022, she was Acting Director/Curator at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at the University of British Columbia, curating exhibition series such as *Beginning With the Seventies* that explored the relationship between art, archives and activism. Brown has exhibited her work internationally since 1984, and has taught at Simon Fraser University and Emily Carr University of Art and Design where she received an honorary doctorate of letters in 2015. Awards include the Vancouver Institute for the Visual Arts Award (1996) and the Canada Council Paris Studio Award (2000). Her work is in the collections of the Belkin, SFU Galleries, the National Gallery of Canada, the BC Arts Council, the Surrey Art Gallery and the Canada Council Art Bank.

thumbnail_In Conversation - Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill, Dionne Lee and Sesemiya with Lorna Brown.jpg

In Conversation - Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill, Dionne Lee and Sesemiya with Lorna Brown.jpg

Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill, Dionne Lee & Sesemiya with Lorna Brown

In Conversation

Please join us to celebrate CAG's summer 2023 exhibitions, *Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill: M******, *Sesemiya: s7ulh waḵáy̓stn iy ta stamsh cht*, and *Dionne Lee: Ratios*. The artists will be in attendance.

All ages welcome. Cash bar.

### RSVP
No advance registration required.

thumbnail_Process image 2 (cropped), Gabe Hill.png

Process image 2 (cropped), Gabe Hill.png

Summer 2023

Opening Reception

For more than twenty years, Sesemiya (Tracy Williams) has been engaged with the revitalization of Coast Salish cultural practices. Through research, collaborative experimentation and consultation with Knowledge Keepers, Sesemiya’s work embodies her deep knowledge of Coast Salish lands. A fifth-generation cedar weaver, the objects she makes extend directly from her practice of gathering and preparing wild materials. 
 
Sesemiya presents at the Contemporary Art Gallery *s7ulh waḵáy̓stn iy ta stamsh cht* (Our Weapons and Warriors), a new body of work that sees the artist engaging the theme of land defence. Employing materials such as cedar slats and roots, fishskin leather, animal bones, and synthetic human skin, the exhibition alludes to the figure of a Sḵwx̱wú7mesh warrior in traditional accoutrement, armed with tools for battle. While the tools Sesemiya has recreated are anachronistic in nature, the project of cultural revitalization they result from is vitally urgent. *s7ulh waḵáy̓stn iy ta stamsh cht* proposes traditional ways of living, knowing, and being with the land to themselves be acts of resistance to the ongoing colonial occupation of unsurrendered Sḵwx̱wú7mesh lands, in the artist’s words, “inspiring the future generations of stelmexw to *tl’a7ashen ta nexwniẁ-chet* (celebrate our teachings that make us who we are).”

#### Biography
Sesemiya (Tracy Williams) is a knowledge seeker, dreamer, water protector, land defender, lover, mother, auntie, weaver, and cultural practitioner. Her rich relationships with plants, animals, land, and water have taken her to the tops of mountains, the bottom of the ocean, fields of fireweed, and occasionally art galleries. Her work has appeared in exhibitions such as *lineages and land bases*, Vancouver Art Gallery (2020); *Intangible: Memory and Innovation in Coast Salish Art*, Bill Reid Gallery (2017); and *N. Vancouver*, The Polygon Gallery (2017). In 2021, a commissioned work of Sesemiya’s was included in the Vancouver Art Gallery’s presentation of Yoko Ono’s *Water Event*. Sesemiya is a proud member of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) Nation.


CAG Summer 2023 Program Guide - Web.pdf

CAG - Sesemiya - Exhibition Guide - Regular Print - Web.pdf

CAG - Sesemiya - Exhibition Guide - Large Print - Web.pdf

A carved stone wrapped with a rope displayed on a wooden surface.

thumbnail_Stone Necklace (1) copy.jpg

Stone Necklace.jpg

clothing, armour and weapons belonging to a Squamish warrior in a room with dark grey walls, with a white wall in the foreground with the artist's name and exhibition's title printed on it. 

thumbnail_01 Sesemiya 2023.jpg

01 Sesemiya 2023.jpg

rear view of clothing, armour and weapons belonging to a Squamish warrior, suspended in mid-air and arranged to look like an exploded view diagram. a hide war robe is most prominent; an antler and stone club is also visible from the side.

thumbnail_02 Sesemiya 2023.jpg

02 Sesemiya 2023.jpg

side view of clothing, armour and weapons belonging to a Squamish warrior, suspended in mid-air and arranged to look like an exploded view diagram. coiled cedar rope, war whoop and a knife in a sheath are visible from the side.

thumbnail_03 Sesemiya 2023.jpg

03 Sesemiya 2023.jpg

frontal photo of clothing, armour and weapons belonging to a Squamish warrior, most prominently a headpiece made of cedar boughs, cedar breastplate, war apron, sneakers made from tanned hide, and arm and leg covers made fishskin leather

thumbnail_04 Sesemiya 2023.jpg

04 Sesemiya 2023.jpg

a suspended envelope-shaped bag made of tanned leather suspended between the edges of a hide robe and cedar war apron and breastplate. the bag is fringed on its right and left edges and on the edge of the flap, and held closed by a small bone.

thumbnail_05 Sesemiya 2023.jpg

05 Sesemiya 2023.jpg

a cedar breastplate with owl feathers and talons hanging from its front face, tanned hide leather straps, and a bear tooth necklace and beaver spine necklace suspended in front of it

thumbnail_06 Sesemiya 2023.jpg

06 Sesemiya 2023.jpg

a pair of fishskin leather leg covers suspended behind the bottom of a cedar war apron. the knees of the leg covers feature a zig-zag patterned shape

thumbnail_07 Sesemiya 2023.jpg

07 Sesemiya 2023.jpg

a pair of converse all-star-style sneakers made from tanned hide, suspended several inches above a concrete floor. the sneakers' soles resemble moccasins.

thumbnail_08 Sesemiya 2023.jpg

08 Sesemiya 2023.jpg

the bottom half of a fishskin leather arm cover, arranged to look as if it's holding a wooden shaft. the hand of the arm cover bears a zig-zag patterned shape. fish scales are visible in the texture of arm cover throughout.

Sesemiya

Exhibitions

Talks & Events