TEAM
Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun
Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun is an advocate for contemporary indigenous issues in Canada. This is evidenced by his exhibition history and reception of awards, such as the Vancouver Institute for the Visual Arts (VIVA) award in 1998. Especially relevant to his practice are the elements of Coast Salish cosmology, Northwest Coast Design and the Western Landscape Tradition. Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, of Coast Salish descent, graduated from the Emily Carr College of Art and Design in British Columbia. Yuxweluptun is Salish for “man of many masks,” a name given to the artist during his initiation into the Sxwaixwe Society at the age of fourteen. Yuxweluptun’s political roots can be traced back to childhood. His father was founder of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs and Vice President of the North American Native Brotherhood. His mother was Executive Director of the Indian Homemakers Association of British Columbia. With his parents as role models, Yuxweluptun was involved in Native politicization, attending meetings, demonstrations, and mailing out copies of The Native Voice, the province’s first Native newspaper.
Yuxweluptun has chosen art as a way to voice his political concerns, exposing environmental destruction and the struggle of Native people. He believes that his artwork stimulates dialogue between Native and non-Native people.
Paisley Smith
Paisley Smith is a Canadian filmmaker & virtual reality creator based in Los Angeles, California and Vancouver, British Columbia. Paisley grew up on the Unceded Territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.
Paisley Smith is the creator of Homestay, an interactive VR documentary produced by the National Film Board of Canada Interactive, with Jam3. Homestay has screened internationally at IDFA DocLab 2017, Expanded Realities at the Open City Doc Fest (London), Reel Asian International Film Festival (Toronto), and the Vancouver International Film Festival's Immersed 2018. Homestay won the BC Spotlight Audience Award at the inaugural VIFF Immersed Exhibition 2018.
Smith is the recipient of the 2018 Sundance Institute and Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Fellowship for her forthcoming VR experience, Unceded Territories, a collaboration with acclaimed artist and VR pioneer Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, with support from Creative B.C.
Paisley is a visiting artist at the University of Southern California's Interactive Media Division's Mobile & Environmental Media Lab, led by Scott Fisher, and a 2021 Annenberg Innovation Lab Fellow.
Smith holds an MFA from the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts and a Bachelor of Arts Honours in Film and Media Studies and Art History from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.
A Tribe Called Red
Bursting forth from Canada’s capital, native Producer and DJ crew A Tribe Called Red is making an impact on the global electronic scene with a truly unique sound.
If you’re an indigenous person living in a country that was forcefully colonized, it’s all too common to find yourself underrepresented and misrepresented if not blatantly and systematically devalued and attacked. Positive role models and a positive self-identity are hard to come by, yet the Canadian DJ collective A Tribe Called Red is a modern gateway into urban and contemporary indigenous culture and experience, celebrating all its layers and complexity.
Looking to the future, without losing sight of their past, ATCR straddles a broad range of musical influences based in modern hip-hop, traditional pow wow drums and vocals, blended with edgy electronic music production styles. Currently made up of Bear Witness and 2oolman, ATCR first got together in 2008. They are part of a vital new generation of artists making a cultural and social impact in Canada alongside a renewed Aboriginal rights movement called Idle No More. In 2014, they garnered mainstream recognition when the band became the first Indigenous group to win the Breakthrough Group of the Year award at the Juno Awards (Canada’s Grammys), and in 2018 they received the prestigious award for “Group of the Year.”
A Tribe Called Red promotes inclusivity, empathy and acceptance amongst all races and genders in the name of social justice. They believe that indigenous people need to define their identity on their own terms. If you share this vision, then you are already part of the Halluci Nation.
“We are the Halluci Nation.”
Credits
Spirit Bear | Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun
Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun | Co-director, Artist Paisley Smith | Co-Director, Writer
Patrick Weekes | Tech Director
Jason Legge | Producer
Ketsia Vedrine | Producer
Peter Denny | Producer
Dirk van Dinkel | Creative Director
Matthew Smith | Lead Developer
Nicky Thomson | Developer
Shaun Larkin | Creative Developer / Artist
Cliff Li | Developer
Andrew Guan | 3D Artist
Miguel Sastre | 3D Artist
Adrian Ellis | Composition & Sound Engineering Kieran Wagstaff | Recording Engineer
Caitlin Conlen | Graphic Design
Roxanna Suarez | Exhibition Designer
Music:
Stadium Pow Wow Feat. Black Bear | A Tribe Called Red
Sila Feat. Tanya Tagaq | A Tribe Called Red Album: We Are The Halluci Nation
Special Thanks:
Stephen Foster | Director, Centre for Indigenous Media Arts | Advisor Scott Fisher | Founding Chair of the Interactive Media Division in the USC SCA, and Director of the Mobile and Environmental Media Lab | Advisor
Erika Kumar
Graeme Berglund
Sarah Macaulay
Nikki Peck
Kamal Sinclair
Ruthie Doyle
Guillaume Decouflet
Simon Anderson
The Sundance Institute
The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation
Creative B.C.
This project is proudly supported by: Creative B.C. Interactive Fund Sundance Institute & Robert Rauschenberg Foundation
