Mamuk Xalaqɬ iliʔi

July 8 - 27, 2016 | Littman Gallery

Reception: Friday, July 8, 2016 | 6 - 8pm

Curated by Cass Ray

mamuk [má(ˇ).mᴜk] “to do” or “to make”

x̣alaqɬ iliʔi [x̣á(ˇ).lʌqł ʔi.liʔi] open space

For the month of July the artists will be responding to the definitions of these Chinook words.

Exhibiting Artists:

Demian DinéYazhi’

Sara Siestreem

Sky Hopinka

keyon gaskin

Sharita Towne

Gabe Flores

Events:

Queer Indigenous Rites Workshops with Demian DinéYazhi’

July 11-13

Queer Sovereign Rites* is a three day workshop focused on reclaiming Indigenous Queer & TwoSpirit identity through visual & oral art. Local Indigneous Diné artist, Demian DinéYazhi’, hosts the workshop with the intention of amplifying IQ/2S aesthetics created by & for Indigenous Peoples.

This workshop would invite local Indigenous Queer and Two Spirit community members into the gallery over the course of 2-3 days to engage in intentional conversation, reading, ceremony, art creation, and collaboration. Depending on the level of involvement and permission, this would be documented and presented in the gallery. This would be a safe space and the gallery would need to be accessible and able to accommodate various times that largely depends on people’s availability.

The end goal is make work to help progress the Indigenous Queer and Two Spirit movement forward through interaction, healing, and collaboration. This is a community event hell bent on addressing spirituality through written, oral and visual art.

In Your Wildest Dreams opening reception: Demian DinéYazhi’

Thursday, July 21

In Your Wildest Dreams is an installation that merges poetry, landscape representation, intimacy, memory, and the queer male body.

Featuring poetry reading by Tommy Pico

chinuk wawa social club

Monday, July 25

Chinuk Wawa (also known as Jargon and Chinook Jargon) is a hybrid lingua franca consisting of simplified Chinookan, combined with contributions from Nuuchahnulth (Nootkan), Canadian French, English, and other languages. It originated on the lower Columbia River, where it once was the predominant medium of intertribal and interethnic communication. Even after English came into general use on the lower Columbia, Chinuk Wawa survived for generations in families and communities shaped by the meeting of the region’s historically diverse tribes and races.

We will be inhabiting the gallery with speakers, teachers, and learners of chinuk wawa as a part of mamuk x̣alaqɬ iliʔi. This will be an opportunity to speak the language, practice what you’ve already learned, learn something new, and participate in contributing to an immersive language environment. There will also be chinuk wawa videos looping and a chance to contribute to a new video project. Everyone is welcome, all language levels welcome.

Recent Videos from Sky Hopinka: film viewing

Wednesday, July 27

Sky Hopinka presents a program of his videos as part of the ongoing mamuk x̣alaqɬ iliʔi exhibition at the Littman Gallery.His work centers around personal positions of homeland and landscape, designs of language and facets of culture contained within, and the play between the accessibility of the known and the unknowable. Those concepts weave and fold upon each other, forming layers of simple movements and complications drifting atop various forms of documentary and story.