River Drawings

In this thesis, I outline a multimodal research project that investigates my relationship to the lower Fraser River from Yale BC to the mouth and takes up methods of physical exploration, conversation and drawing. My research questions include: As a fifth generation settler, woman, artist and forestry laborer, how might I form a respectful relationship to land and water in a moment of indigenous resurgence during the Anthropocene? And through representation, how might I contribute to the construction of landscape as a cultural medium? First, I briefly contextualize both my positionality and the Fraser River delta area, and then introduce a methodological framework that incorporates long-term place-based and embodied investigations including walking and swimming, and conversations with indigenous and non-indigenous people who share interests and hold knowledge about the river. These practices have been influenced by an understanding of land and water as having implicit agency and power far beyond their role as consumptive resources; and have been guided by an ethos of respect and reciprocity that draws on ideas imbedded in many indigenous research methodologies. I then introduce a co-emergent drawing practice that is linked to site-based investigations by the idea of wayfinding, and utilizes site-derived plant and mineral-based pigments. Included is a description of artistic process and formal elements of the work, a discussion about materiality as imbedded in ecological relationships, and a conversation about my choice to use halq’eméylem place-names to both indicate where the pigments were found and to honour the depth of cultural knowledge imbedded in the landscape of the lower Fraser River. This thesis defines a practice that takes up formal image making while engaging in the politics of place from a critical settler perspective. It describes a deep artistic investment, guided by a cyclical and iterative engagement with land, form, material, language, theory and intuition.