Shut up and Write returns for the Spring semester!
An invitation to bring your homework, poetry, screenplay, sketch book, or fan fic and write together with Indigenous Writer-in-Residence, Molly Cross-Blanchard and other folks who need a bit of community and motivation. Casual drop-ins are welcome, and people from all backgrounds and positions within the university are encouraged to join.
Location: KPU Surrey, Main 166 – Indigenous Gathering Place
Looking to engage with climate change learning at KPU and express your feelings on the environmental crisis we’re all living through? Want to join a community at your university and have your voice heard?
Both faculty members and students from any department are invited to join members of the Climate+ Challenge at one of our monthly drop-in Climate+ Café events to meet with like-minded individuals and share their opinions to help shape the future of climate change learning and involvement at KPU.
Sessions will be held at Surrey and Richmond:
Surrey campus
Main courtyard by the pond
Feb. 16, 12:30-1-30pm (in person and online)
Richmond campus
Wilson School of Design (WSD)
Feb. 16, 12:30-1-30pm (in person)
Mar. 14, 12:30-1:30pm (in-person and online)
April 13, 12:30-1:30pm (in-person and online)
The Café is bring your own beverage but free apples will be provided, so make sure to attend and enjoy! For more details about the Climate+ Challenge check out our website, or fill out our contact us form to get in touch with us directly. We hope to see you at the Climate+ Café!
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS for RIGHT TO FOOD ZINE ISSUE #33 – SPRING 2023!
RTFzine.org is currently accepting submissions (articles, poems, and Arts) in relation to food and food justice, for Winter Solstice 2022 Right to Food zine. Submissions can be sent by Feb 14th @ Noon.
Send to rtfzine@gmail.com.
Hard print copies of Issue #32 Winter 2022 are AVAILABLE NOW
Grab your FREE copies. Available at the DTES Neighbourhood House (573 East Hastings St. corner Princess Ave. Vancouver, BC). Also, at Spartacus Bookstore, JJ Beans, DTES Women’s centre, Pulp Fiction Books, & Quest on E. Hastings
We love food and are looking for like-minded individuals who are also passionate about food. We invite you to join us in giving voices to issues affecting our communities’ access to food. We also aim to promote sustainability and the protection of land, water, and food sources now and for future generations.
Join us for our next team meeting via zoom Saturday January 28th @7PM
For the past 10 years, Right to Food Zine (RTF Zine) has published 3-4 issues a year—each designed, written, and published completely by volunteers. It is always free, and accessible online & in print.
We will gather to listen to Billie Pierre of Nlaka’pamux Nation share their accounts of criminalization by the Canadian Government in their work to protect their traditional and unceded territory under threat of the TMX pipeline expansion.
Billie Pierre was one of several people who were violently arrested while in ceremony to protect salmon bearing Thompson River in Tk’emlups te Secwepemc (Kamloops BC).
In December 2022, Judge Fitzpatrick found all eight accused guilty of Criminal Contempt of Court, over two years after they were arrested in October 2020 on unceded Secwepemc’ulew. Those found guilty include Hereditary Chief Saw Ses, Secwepemc Matriarchs Miranda Dick and April Thomas, Nlaka’pamux land protector Billie Pierre and four settler supporters: Romilly Cavanaugh, Heather Lamoureux, Susan Bibbings and Laura Zadorozny.
Billie Pierre is mother and land defender from the Nlaka’pamux nation. She has been active in and supported various Indigenous movements since the 90’s.
In the past few years, she has focused on raising awareness about the negative impacts the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion is having on the Nlaka’pamux territory, and the threat it will continue to pose in the years to come if it’s ever operational.
Through the impact from the clearcut logging to the risks of pipeline ruptures, to the impact of global warming from the expansion of the Alberta tarsands, this project is an infrastructure to support this.
The effects of climate change on Nlaka’pamux territory can be seen by everyone. In 2020, Lytton BC, the heart of Nlaka’Pamux territory was burned by wildfires, and that fall, Merritt BC, was flooded. The causes of these environmental catastrophes can be linked to climate change and logging.
Participants will have an opportunity to ask questions.
Faculty of Arts welcomes Brandi Bird, Indigenous Writer-in-Residence and Brandon Gabriel, Indigenous Artist-in-Residence to KPU for the Spring semester. They join Molly Cross Blanchard, Indigenous Writer-in-Residence and Á’a:líya Warbus, Indigenous Artist-in-Residence who have been extended for another semester. They will continue their work with consultations, in-class visits, events, and more student, faculty, and staff engagement. If you would like to schedule an online consultation or invite them to attend a class or event, please email Arts.CommEvents@kpu.ca
Brandon Gabriel
Born and raised on the Kwantlen First Nation Reserve in Fort Langley BC, Canada. He was educated in Cultural Anthropology, Visual Art, and Marketing at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, then received his Bachelor’s Degree in Visual Art from the prestigious Emily Carr University of Fine Art and Design (2006).
Brandon is a multi-talented contemporary mixed media artist who specializes in painting, drawing, graphic design, architectural design concepts, and public art installations. His work has been exhibited in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, USA, and across Canada, specializing in Architectural Conceptual Design; Public Art Installations; Graphic Design; Painting; Drawing; Consulting; Education Modules for all ages and institutional settings.Á’a:líya Warbus
Á’a:líya is Stó:lō with roots in the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sema: th, Sq’éwlets and Sts’ailes First Nations. She has worked in the unceded territories of the Coast Salish as an artist and activist for the past 18 years. She is currently focused on writing, directing and being a mom to her three young children.
Á’a:líya’s narrative short fiction and short documentaries explore themes of Indigenous culture, Indigenous matriarchs, and the effects of colonization on her family and community. Her stories are a mix of both modern and traditional themes driven by her experience growing up in both worlds simultaneously.
Indigenous Writer-in-ResidenceBrandi Bird
Brandi is an Indigiqueer Saulteaux, Cree and Métis writer from Treaty 1 territory. They currently live and learn on the land of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh & Musqueam peoples. Their work has been published in The Puritan, Poetry is Dead, Room Magazine, Brick Magazine, Prism International and others. Their first book, “The All + Flesh”, is being released with House of Anansi Press in Fall 2023. They enjoy listening to the same song over and over again and love their three cats, Babydoll, Burt, and Etta.Molly Cross-Blanchard is a white and Métis writer, editor, and educator born on Treaty 3 (Fort Frances, ON), raised on Treaty 6 (Prince Albert, SK), and currently living on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples, colonially known as Vancouver.
She is the former poetry editor of PRISM international and the former publisher of Room. Her work has appeared in many journals including CV2, The Malahat Review, SubTerrain, The Puritan, Grain, Quill & Quire, Asparagus, and The Tyee.
Molly’s poetry chapbook is I Don’t Want to Tell You (Rahila’s Ghost Press, 2018) and her debut full-length book of poetry is Exhibitionist (Coach House Books, 2021), which was shortlisted for the ReLit Award for Poetry. Her poem “First Contact: Métis” was shortlisted for a 2022 National Magazine.
Drop-in Consultations
In person one-on-one consultation sessions are available with the Indigenous Artists and Writers-in-Residence at the Indigenous Gathering Place, KPU Surrey, Main 166.
KPU Library Richmond Campus is pleased to invite you to the launch of the χʷəχʷéy̓əm Indigenous Collection Wednesday, January 11 from 12 – 1pm. We are very pleased to expand this collection from Surrey to all campus libraries in 2023!
Left to Right (Len Pierre, Elder Lekeyten, Rachel Chong, Diane Purvey, Todd Mundle, Steve Cardewell, Trina Prince, Lisa Higashi.)
Once again, Elder-in-Residence Lekeyten from Kwantlen First Nation will open the space in a good way. We are pleased to have KPU’s AVP Indigenous Leadership, Innovations, and Partnerships, Gayle Bedard join us to speak to how spaces like χʷəχʷéy̓əm contribute to the broader changes across KPU. Designer, graduate from Wilson School of Design, and current Coordinator of Indigenous Student Transitions and Engagement with Indigenous Services for Students, Jennifer Lamont will speak to her work in the space. Lastly, Indigenous Engagement and Subject Liaison Librarian Rachel Chong will share the process of expanding χʷəχʷéy̓əm.
(Len Pierre & Rachel Chong)
We hope you will join us in the New Year to celebrate this new space at the Richmond Campus Library.
hay cxʷ q̓ə,
Rachel
Left to Right (Steve Cardewell, Len Pierre, Rachel Chong, Todd Mundle, Diane Purvey, Natalie Wood-Wiens, Alan Davis.)
In this KPU Reads, Gerald Bent shares his thoughts on David Milward’s bIn this KPU Reads, Gerald Bent shares his thoughts on David Milward’s book, Reconciliation & Indigenous Justice: A Search for Ways Forward(2022). Gerald is an Indigenous faculty member at KPU. He teaches various Indigenous themed courses in Indigenous studies and in the criminology department. For 14 years, Gerald has worked at the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC), working with Indigenous men and women who are incarcerated. Gerald is also a graduate student at the University of Northern B.C., researching and writing about his Nation’s traditional court system called Xitli’ix. He is also investigating his Indigenous community’s current restorative justice program, which is available to all members of the Lytton First Nation. Gerald finds it challenging to leave the Jimmy Choo store without making a purchase.
Gerald Bent is an Indigenous faculty member at KPU.
In Reconciliation & Indigenous Justice: A Search for Ways Forward, Indigenous legal scholar David Milward examines the negative impacts of the Indian residential school, which many First Nations children across Turtle Island/North America, were forced to attend. One of David’s arguments is the intergenerational trauma that many Indigenous children experienced while at residential school is a contributing factor to the continued hyper-incarceration of Indigenous men and woman, including Two-Spirit offenders, in the criminal justice system.
One teaching that David emphasizes with the reader is many settler peoples/Canadians hold on to the notion that since the Indian residential school is a thing of past, there is no longer a responsibility to connect this dark part of Canadian history to the present. From an Indigenous and correctional context, I offer the following:“Even though the last Indian residential school closed in 1996, many Indigenous peoples who are incarcerated at the CSC, are still dealing with the past harmful traumas they experienced at the residential school.”
Throughout Milward’s book, he describes to readers several ways on how residential school survivors, their families and the Indigenous community, can address the lingering impacts of the Indian residential school.
I have read several journal articles written by David Milward, including this latest book, and it is my opinion that it is essential reading – especially if KPU students want to have a stronger foundation about the Indian residential school, restorative justice, Indigenous corrections and interventions, Indigenous healing, and Elders working inside federal prisons.
