Transits and Returns

Transits and Returns
By Debra Sparrow
Transits and Returns
Transits and Returns is a group exhibition of nineteen artists from Indigenous Nations situated throughout the Great Ocean, otherwise known as the Pacific. The exhibition highlights practices rooted in the specificities of place and culture, and routed via their travels—artistic, bodily, and intellectual, explored through themes of materiality, movement, kinship and representation. Collaboratively led by Indigenous curators Freja Carmichael, Sarah Biscarra Dilley, Léuli Eshraghi, Lana Lopesi, and the Vancouver Art Gallery’s Senior Curatorial Fellow of Indigenous Art, Tarah Hogue, Transits and Returns includes artworks by Edith Amituanai, Christopher Ando, Natalie Ball, the BC Collective, Drew Broderick, Hannah Brontë, Elisa Jane Carmichael, Mariquita Davis, Chantal Fraser, Maureen Gruben, Bracken Hanuse Corlett, Taloi Havini, Lisa Hilli, Carol McGregor, Marianne Nicolson, Ahilapalapa Rands, Debra Sparrow, and T’uy’tanat Cease Wyss.
Senior Musqueam artist and weaver Debra Sparrow will contribute a selection of weavings to the exhibition. Loaned from the commissioning collectors, these ceremonial blankets were created to honour high ranking individuals or to mark a significant moment in the receiver’s life. Sparrow and her sisters Wendy John Grant, Robyn Sparrow and other Musqueam community members began to study the weaving techniques of their ancestors in the 1980s, reviving a practice that had been severely interrupted by colonization. Historically, blankets and other woven items produced by skillful hands were central to every aspect of life, from utilitarian (yet masterfully designed) objects to ceremonial blankets. Sparrow continues to weave in this tradition, while also utilizing her deep understanding of Salish weaving patterns and design forms in new applications, such as public art.