'I wanted to bring it back to what it is to us.'

Dividing the centre gallery hangs a large dance screen, by Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw artist and singer William Wasden Jr. Traditionally in potlatches, dance screens are used to divide the "behind-the-scenes” preparation from the floor where the ceremony is conducted, Nicolson explained. In the exhibit, the gallery separates one set of artwork from a space laid out “almost ceremonial.”

On the other side of the masks and William Wasden Jr.'s dance screen, Inuk/Haitain Taíno artist Siku Allooloo shared a poem, made out of sealskin on canvas. Photo by Rachel Topham Photography

Feast dish lids, taken back into the hands of the community from the Museum of Anthropology, for the purpose of the exhibition, rest in the middle of the room. The lids are positioned where the fire would usually be in a ptlatch, Nicolson explained.

"I wanted to show these lids, but shift the meaning and understanding of what those things are," Nicolson said. On the wall is a life-size photograph of Kwakwaka'wakw men, taken in Kingcome, who are looking into the rest of the space.

"These are all our grandparents. My grandpa's older brother is standing beside the Dzunuḵ̓wa mask," Nicolson said. "They have their arms around each other, there's a sense of comradery there, a sense of community. Having the piece blown up life-size gives the sense of the collective."

"When you look at the context of this large photograph, you see there’s so much going on and it all speaks to feasting and feeding the people and the relationship to land and the abundance of that place, and the people who live off that," Nicolson said. "One of the things that struck me from home, is the love and care our grandparents instilled in us. They really tried to teach us to love and care for one another, and that we had a responsibility for one another and that’s very different from a modern society, where people feel as individuals you must struggle on your own to become successful in life."

Nicolson said the photo of their grandparents reminded her of how the old people taught them to look out for one another.

"We're bringing forward our traditions today. We're continuing forward our traditions, not in an entertainment, or recreational way, but in integral ways, utilizing spaces that perhaps people wouldn't think of as traditional spaces, like a contemporary art gallery, but spaces we feel we must engage with to continue our traditions," she said.

The masks are usually displayed at the Museum of Anthropology, with the same tiny photograph of the Kwakwaka'wakw men situated near it. Nicolson said that depiction emphasizes focus on the object and a reinterpretation of what the object is to the public.

People gathered at the Belkin gallery on Jan. 10 for the opening of Hexsa'am: To Be Here Always. The exhibition gives viewers and participants a chance to experience a more "traditional and ceremonial" space, where community members have taken Kwakwaka'wakw ancestors back from the confines of the Museum of Anthropology. Photo by Michael Ruffolo

"I wanted to bring it back to what it is to us," she said. "We see those pieces with our grandparents and we understand them in a way that talks about our traditional economy and our traditional way of life, which is everything we're trying to fight for through the title and rights cases we put forward.

Our investment is each other and the land

The Dzawada'enux First Nation is currently involved in multiple important legal actions to assert their laws, rights and title. In June last year, the nation filed a claim of Aboriginal title in B.C. Supreme Court to stop the operation of open-net fish farms in their traditional territories in and around the Broughton Archipelago northeast of Vancouver Island.

On Jan. 10, 2019, the nation filed another claim in the federal court in Vancouver, suing the government for authorizing licenses for the fish farms operating in their waters, without their consultation or consent. The claim says the fish farm operations pollute and poison wild salmon and infringe on the nation's constitutionally protected rights. Their case is the first ever rights-based challenge to the federal licensing process that fish farm companies rely on to operate along the coast of B.C.

The Dzawada'enuxw Nation filed their more recent law case against Canada on the morning of the opening for the exhibition at the Belkin gallery. The two events and communal actions are intimately and inherently related. Hereditary chief Willie Moon said these actions represent another historic moment for their people. Photo by Michael Ruffolo

"We're not so much interested in investment in an economic sense, our investment is in each other and the land," Nicolson said. "This photograph of the men represents that - these physical bodies of our grandparents, blown up life-sized, looking out at us, looking at the viewer in a way that has tremendous agency and that asks, ‘are you carrying forward in a way we understood things?’”

As a descendant of these men, that is a question Nicolson said she constantly asks herself: are we carrying forward our understanding and ways of being?

"Our political actions are imbedded in that question," she said.