On Being Situated

Join Green College Leading Scholars and invited guests as they discuss the opportunities for growing reparative justice across different fields in relation to the place that is now known as the City of Vancouver. The evening will begin with an introduction to the invited guests: Sharon Fortney, Museum of Vancouver, Wilson Mendes from xʷc̓ic̓əsəm Garden (IHREG) and Tyler Hagan from Experimental Forest Films. As a group, we will address a series of questions based on the prompt, “How do you define/align/reject the idea of reparative justice in your work, art, or activism?”. We will then turn towards more casual discussion and small group conversations moderated by the Green College Leading Scholars.

Dr. Sharon Fortney is a graduate of the PhD and MA program in Anthropology at UBC, and formerly a non-resident member of Green College. She is the first Curator of Indigenous Collections and Engagement at the Museum of Vancouver, where she is also Chair of the Repatriation Committee - a Sub-committee of the Collections Committee. She has worked for many local museums and communities on exhibitions and research projects. Sharon has Klahoose (Northern Coast Salish) and German ancestry.

Tyler Hagan is a Michif and Canadian filmmaker based on unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) nations in Vancouver, B.C. His producing credits include the feature debut from Kathleen Hepburn NEVER STEADY, NEVER STILL (2017), THE BODY REMEMBERS WHEN THE WORLD BROKE OPEN (2019) by Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and Kathleen Hepburn; and UNTIL BRANCHES BEND (2022) by Sophie Jarvis.

THE BODY REMEMBERS WHEN THE WORLD BROKE OPEN premiered at the Berlinale 2019 and all his films have played at the Toronto International Film Festival, followed by four selections by TIFF for Canada’s Top Ten. THE BODY REMEMBERS was picked up for distribution by Ava Duvernay’s ARRAY, who released the film on Netflix and in Theatres in the US. The film received the prestigious Toronto Film Critcs’ Association Best Canadian Film Award, as well as 3 Canadian Screen Awards for Best Direction, Best Original Screenplay and Best Cinematography; and 3 Vancouver Film Critics’ Circle Awards including Best Canadian Film. NEVER STEADY, NEVER STILL was nominated for 8 CSA Awards, again including Best Motion Picture, and won 3 awards from the Vancouver Film Critics’ Circle, including Best Canadian and Best BC Film. UNTIL BRANCHES BEND recently premiered in 2022 at TIFF and took home the Best BC Film from the Vancouver International Film Festival. His directorial work has shown at Berlinale and includes work with the NFB, CBC, and the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver. He received his BFA in Film from Simon Fraser University.

Wilson Mendes is a land-based Indigenous scholar, educator, artist, and community planner. He is of Terena descent and has spent the last decade living on the occupied unceded lands and waters of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ speaking xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) People. He is a Ph.D. candidate and sessional lecturer in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems, as well as the Research and Education Advisor for the xʷc̓ic̓əsəm Garden and a member/coordinator of the UBC Indigenous Land-based Health, Wellness , and Educational Research Cluster. His research is focused on promoting Indigenous cultural revitalization through intergenerational land-based education. His doctoral research examines the intersection of Indigenous land-based teaching and learning, Indigenous urban youth cultural identity, and food sovereignty. Wilson’s research priorities decolonization efforts that promote and enhance the health and wellbeing of urban Indigenous communities by meaningful felt-sense engagement with land, food, culture, and community.

The city of Vancouver is often celebrated for its environmentalism and high quality of life for residents, but sitting with the harm of settler colonial influences on this land reveals deep-seated problems of cultural exclusion, environmental extraction and animal exploitation, real estate speculation and housing unaffordability, and social resistance to engage with antiracist critique. The series spotlights local activists and cultural practitioners who are creating counter-institutional mechanisms that confront the violence of settler colonialism and the unfettered extraction of environmental resources that has accompanied it. We invoke the term reparative justice to connote a range of activist practices that approach reparations, restitution and healing through cultural work and planning. This series features conversations that explore how the crumbling of social and material infrastructures can make space to build new systems and relationships with more ethical structures that address harms instead of ignoring them.

Series Conveners: Kimberly Bain, English Language and Literatures; James Connolly, Community and Regional Planning; Igor Drljaca, Theatre and Film; Ayasha Guerin, English Language and Literatures; Chris Patterson, Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice; Bronwen Tate, Creative Writing; and Hannah Turner, Information.