Stqe:ye' (Wolf) / Meatlover

Eliot White-Hill (Kwulasultun)
September 21 – November 10, 2024
The Cabinet | Room 4390
149 W. Hastings St., Vancouver

Reception, September 20, 4:30 PM – 6:00 PM | Refreshments will be served

In Eliot White-Hill’s work, traditional Coast Salish designs are carefully cut out of discarded pizza boxes. The installation in the Cabinet refers to a place outside the gallery, the home of his ancestors, the Senewélets, on Gabriola Island. In a memoir in the archive of the Royal British Columbia Museum, White-Hill learned that archaeologists had excavated the “False Narrows Midden” in 1966 and 1967, and that they had found several burial sites containing skeletal remains dating as far back as AD 300 to 400. While the memoir notes “the importance of this location in Nanaimo Ceremonialism,” no one consulted Indigenous leaders on these exhumations. White-Hill’s work functions as a contemporary midden, one that is overseen and protected by Stqe:ye’ in a belated gesture of respect for his ancestors.

Biography

Eliot White-Hill, Kwulasultun (he/they) is an artist and storyteller from the Snuneymuxw First Nation in Nanaimo, BC. His interdisciplinary art practice is rooted in honouring and celebrating the stories and teachings passed down by his family, community, and culture. He works across a range of mediums including digital art, sculpture, painting, installation, creative writing, and curation. He currently resides on the territory of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.