{"id":611,"date":"2017-06-20T16:42:06","date_gmt":"2017-06-20T23:42:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/twospiritjournal.com\/?p=611"},"modified":"2018-12-28T13:06:24","modified_gmt":"2018-12-28T21:06:24","slug":"two-spirit-art-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/twospiritjournal.com\/?p=611","title":{"rendered":"Two-Spirit Art Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Dayne Danger with one of their pieces at the QAF. Photo credit: Harlan Pruden<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

(Vancouver, BC<\/em>)<\/p>\n

At Saturday\u2019s opening reception of Vancouver\u2019s annual Queer Arts Festival<\/a>, Fabian Bon, (Metis, from Manitoba, Dakota and French<\/em>), a local #Two-Spirit<\/a> leader, shared with the Two-Spirit Journal of how they were overwhelmed when they walked into the Roundhouse<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor so many years, I\u2019ve supported the QAF<\/a> and a scene one or two Two-Spirit artist or exhibits,\u201d said Fabian Bon. \u201cBut this year\u2019s, wow, the entire space is inclusive, reflective and honoring of my Two-Spirit community. It\u2019s very powerful and so emotional!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year\u2019s QAF<\/a> exhibition\u00a0UnSettled<\/a>\u00a0features the works of Indigenous artists who identify within the Two-Spirit context yet also challenge this binary through their own experience and cultural understandings,\u201d Adrian Stimson, the Curator of UnSettled.<\/p>\n

Stimson continues, \u201cFor too long, the absence of representations of Two-Spirit people, art, and being from contemporary popular culture has been endured; it is part of the colonial project, to eradicate, to deny our natural beings, to dominate, assimilate, to ultimately erase our beings and memory from time.\u00a0UnSettled\u00a0deploys artistic and critical discourse to focus on Two-Spirit resilience with work addressing power, representation, sexuality, language, body, tradition, memory, colonial narratives, and knowledge sharing.\u201d<\/p>\n

As reported in Vancouver\u2019s Westender, \u201cStimson brought together a dynamic group of indigenous artists, including George Littlechild, John Powell, Dayna Danger and Vanessa Dion Fletcher, who look to explore the two-spirit identity. In other words, art that examines gender, spirit and sexual orientation beyond the binaries of black and white, male or female.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Two-Spirit Journal caught up with the talented Dayna Danger, an emerging Two-Spirit, Queer, Metis\/Ojibway\/Polish artist raised in Winnipeg, MB. Below is a recording of our conversation at opening:
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