Presented with support from the Audain Foundation.
Night follows night, and the two and three-stringed instruments talk to each other is a two-day, multi-modal, multi-sensory assembly that moves across disciplinary and institutional boundaries. Taking inspiration from polyphonic collectives and embodied ritual practices, it brings together the resonant works of Jasleen Kaur, Christian Nyampeta & Kivu Ruhorahoza, Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa (BFA ’05), Skeena Reece (BFA ’04), and Constantina Zavitsanos.
Night follows night is grounded by a new performance commission by Skeena Reece (BFA, ‘04). Conceived as a space of gathering, testimony and witness, Curry Cockle Chow Mein (2026) draws from the legacies and practices of the potlatch, and Reece’s Tsimshian, Gitxsan, Cree and Métis heritage. Curry Cockle Chow Mein challenges ideas of authenticity, breathes life into culinary objects and nods to the historical exchange of goods and people across colonial trade routes. Reece’s performance activates the shared table as a place to rest, honour elders and create experiences that cannot be put into words.
Registration opening soon.
Skeena Reece is a Tsimshian/Gitxsan, Cree, and Métis artist based on Vancouver Island. Her multi-disciplinary practice involves performance art, writing, singing, video and visual art. She incorporates a mix of traditional knowledge, humour, socio-political observations and spirituality to confront settler-colonial preconceptions about the experiences of Indigenous people, and specifically Indigenous women. Reece’s installation and performance work has garnered national and international attention, most notably for Raven: On the Colonial Fleet (2010) presented at the 2010 Sydney Biennale as part of Beat Nation. Her recent solo exhibitions include Surrounded at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver (2019), and Touch Me at the Comox Valley Art Gallery, Courtenay, BC (2018). Her video work, Touch Me (2013), was recently exhibited at, and acquired by, the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (2025). Reece studied Media Arts at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. She is the recipient of the British Columbia Award for Excellence in the Arts (2012), the VIVA Award (2014), and the Hnatyshyn Award (2017).
100 Years in the Making | This event is organized in support of ECU 100, Emily Carr University of Art + Design’s centennial anniversary.
Organized by Libby Leshgold Gallery, Western Front, and the Department of Art History, Visual Art & Theory, with additional support from the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery; The Indigenous Initiatives Fund; Critical Image Forum; and the Curatorial Research Cluster at the University of British Columbia.