The Suitcase: Intergenerational He
aling through Traces of the Past
By Lyana Patrick
& Ashli Akins
Exhibit Dates: Dece mber 8\, 2016 – February 28\, 2017. Stop by any time between 8am - 5pm\, Mo nday - Friday.
After Lyana’s Gramma Aloo (gramma “mom” in Carrier) pa ssed away\, her parents gave her a suitcase containing materials she had us ed to make moccasins\, gloves\, and other items. Lyana couldn’t bear to loo k 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 hundre ds of paper cut-outs of hands and feet. Lots of caribou cut-outs (Gramma Al oo’s clan). Tubes of beads. These cutouts represented the day-to-day life o f 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 scho ol.
This exhibit takes us on a journey through Gramma Aloo’s life\, a nd in doing so\, has acted as a piece of Lyana’s healing journey as she lea rns more about her grandma’s life story. The multi-media exhibit includes p hotographs\, cardboard cutouts\, explorations of the exhibit’s themes of in tergenerational healing and reconciliation through the written word\, and a n invitation for the viewer to actively respond.
Biographies:
Lyana Patrick is a member of the Stellat’e n First Nation of the Carrier Nation in British Columbia. Lyana is a PhD ca ndidate in UBC’s School of Community & Regional Planning\, where she explor es her interests in governance\, history\, health\, and storytelling. She b ridges the gaps between health\, planning\, and education through decoloniz ing research methodologies\, Indigenous planning\, transformation of pedago gical approaches in planning education\, and the critical ways in which hea lth and healing intersect with planning.
Ashli Akins is a PhD student at UBC’s Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program\, com bining the disciplines of law\, anthropology\, First Nations & Endangered L anguages\, and environmental studies to explore the role of arts to reclaim voice for historically marginalized populations. Her background lies in in ternational development\, NGO management\, arts-based approaches to conflic t resolution\, and international human rights. She is an avid photographer\ , and has photographed and exhibited around the world.
Lyana and Ashli met through their shared interest in intergenerational m emory\, and the power they see in art to palatably convey the themes of col lective memory\, intergenerational knowledge transmission\, and intergenera tional 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. Both Lyana and Ashli are Liu Scholars at t he Liu Institute for Global Issues\, Public Scholars in UBC’s Public Schola rs Initiative\, and recipients of the prestigious Vanier Canada Graduate Sc holarship. Lyana and Ashli are co-curators and writers of the exhibit. Ashl i is the exhibit photographer and Lyana is the poet\, sharing some of her w ritten words throughout.
LOCATION:Lobby Gallery\, Liu Institute for Global Issues GEO:49.268776;-123.199987 URL;VALUE=URI:https://sppga.ubc.ca/events/event/lobby-gallery-exhibition-su itcase-intergenerational-healing-traces-past/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://sppga.cms.arts.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2015/12/Suitcase_homepage.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Vancouver BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 DTSTART:20161106T090000 TZNAME:PST END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR