I have always been a curious person and always needed to know the things people talked about but never said. Growing up you always knew that something was missing, not where it should be. There was a part of you that wasn’t there. That is the curiosity that fed this work, that led to it all. History denied us the right to know each other. I have spent a lot of my life thinking about this: “Who is my family? Who do we belong to?”. There was knowing you belonged here but not knowing how or where. Who was your family? Being out even around this coast and seeing someone–– “boy that person looks just like me”–– but not knowing who they were. But it was more than that. It was about the way we lived, the things we did. 

I think about the things that dad used to do that we just took for granted. But now that I am older I realize that they were part of ceremony that dad was doing but he never told us what it was. The things that we heard him and granddad talking about that we were living today. How things were going to be. And it is here now. 

I spent years looking to find out what happened to the part of our family that was rarely spoken of in front of us “kids”. What happened to them and where they went. With little success as an Indigenous woman things were closed to me. When I met Jessica in 2010 and we started talking about things it renewed hope that they were still out there, that there was still family left as I had been told there wasn’t, that they all died. 

It is through this help and support that we were able to look at the historical trauma that separated our family for over 125 years and help bring this story to life and to share it with you through this exhibition. 

As an artist this is the way I know how to share a story. And the story is so large that I couldn't see it as a performance. To bring the whole story to light we needed to reach out, start to bring family back together, and share our stories about the water we call home. That is how we came to be siyēye nii 'u tthu sut'ku'luts | siyēye tun’i ‘utl sqwun’u –the circle of women who created this exhibition. The story is bigger than just me - it is part of history, our history that we all carry. 

As Coast Salish women we carry stories. Old Sophy was married to a white man but our connections are still there. They got blurred in attempts to eradicate us. But they couldn’t. Through the strengths of our Indigenous grandmothers that siyēye nii 'u tthu sut'ku'luts | siyēye tun’i ‘utl sqwun’u all share, our stories and connections to water and fish have led us back to finding each other and putting our families back together, through a lot of generations. 

That is part of the cultural footprint. Our stories are being witnessed and held, bringing our young ones in so they know the stories. Sitting down and openly and honestly sharing our stories of connection with each other has been so powerful in bringing us back together as family. And the connections that we all shared through water and fish. 

What is the invitation for Galiano Island residents and visitors to the exhibition? I don’t know if it is an invitation, as much as a  challenge, maybe to witness this exhibition and to understand more about the land that they call home. To understand it through our eyes and what was here before. Our connections are not just to the land but to the water, to the fish. And to witness our re-presencing of ourselves in this place that was shared by so many. Are you ready to expand what you know about Galiano and some of the impacts of colonialism? Our stories are part of that land. They were there in that land and in those waters long before it was known as Galiano. 

June, 2022.

(Photograph by Kali Spitzer, 2022)