Diamond Point (artist)

Last updated

Diamond Point is a contemporary Coast Salish artist and member of the Musqueam Indian Band.

Contents

Biography

Point grew up on the Musqueam reserve south of the University of British Columbia’s Vancouver campus. Her last name, Point, comes from the colonial naming practices of places like Point Gray and Garry Point. Musqueam families like the Point family have been responsible for the oversight of these areas. [1]

Art Practice

Point's art practice encompasses graphic design, illustration, site specific installations, and sculptural work. Her work has been installed in several public art projects across the lower mainland, most notably in Vancouver and Richmond, both of which occupy Musqueam territory. [2] [3] Her work often focuses on Indigenous identity, heritage, and relationships between communities- whether different First Nations, First Nations and settler, or other iterations.

Her work, wəɬ m̓i ct q̓pəθət tə ɬniməɬ, installed on UBC Campus from the Reconciliation Pole to the Canadian flag on the rose garden plaza, deals explicitly with relationships and protocols between different communities. Taking inspiration from the annual Coast Salish Canoe Journeys, the work depicts a series of paddles being raised as canoers ask permission to come ashore. [4] Fraser River Families highlights the importance of salmon to Musqueam, and explores familial links between Musqueam communities and fishing practices ranging from UBC campus to Richmond and Steveston. [5] [6] Her designs were also selected for the Totem Park logos for three houses at the University of British Columbia residence that carry Musqueam names: həm̓ləsəm̓, q̓ələχən, and c̓əsnaʔəm. [7]

In addition to these public projects, her work has been shown at the Museum of Anthropology in the Claiming Space: Voices of Urban Aboriginal Youth [8] [9] [10] and at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery in Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts. [11] [12] [13]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Museum of Anthropology at UBC</span> Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, Canada

The Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia (UBC) campus in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada displays world arts and cultures, in particular works by First Nations of the Pacific Northwest. As well as being a major tourist destination, MOA is a research and teaching museum, where UBC courses in art, anthropology, archaeology, conservation, and museum studies are given. MOA houses close to 50,000 ethnographic objects, as well as 535,000 archaeological objects in its building alone.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Musqueam First Nation</span> First Nation in British Columbia, Canada

The Musqueam Nation is a First Nation whose traditional territory encompasses much of what is now Greater Vancouver, in British Columbia, Canada. It is governed by a band council and is known officially as the Musqueam Indian Band under the Indian Act. "Musqueam" is an anglicization of the Hunquminum name xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, which means "place of the river grass" or "place where the river grass grows"..

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery</span> Art Gallery in Vancouver, BC

The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in Vancouver, British Columbia, on the campus of the University of British Columbia. The gallery is housed in a building designed by architect Peter Cardew which opened in 1995. Cardew received a RAIC gold medal for the building's design in 2012. It houses UBC's growing collection of contemporary art as well as archives containing objects and records related to the history of art in Vancouver.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Salish peoples</span> Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest

The Salish peoples are indigenous peoples of the American and Canadian Pacific Northwest, identified by their use of the Salish languages which diversified out of Proto-Salish between 3,000 and 6,000 years ago.

Susan Point is a Musqueam Coast Salish artist from Canada, who works in the Coast Salish tradition. Her sculpture, prints and public art works include pieces installed at the Vancouver International Airport, the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington D.C., Stanley Park in Vancouver, the Museum of Anthropology at UBC, the Penn Museum in Philadelphia, and the city of Seattle.

Lorna Brown is a Canadian artist, curator and writer. Her work focuses on public space, social phenomena such as boredom, and institutional structures and systems.

Joan Balzar was a Canadian artist, known for her vividly coloured hard-edged abstract paintings, which sometimes included metallic powders or neon tubing.

Laiwan is a Zimbabwean interdisciplinary artist, art critic, gallerist, writer, curator and educator. Her wide-ranging practice is based in poetics and philosophy. She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Debra Sparrow, or θəliχʷəlʷət (Thelliawhatlwit), is a Musqueam weaver, artist and knowledge keeper. She is self-taught in Salish design, weaving, and jewellery making.

Tania Willard is an Indigenous Canadian multidisciplinary artist, graphic designer, and curator, known for mixing traditional Indigenous arts practices with contemporary ideas. Willard is from the Secwepemc nation, of the British Columbia interior, Canada.

Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun is a Cowichan/Syilx First Nations contemporary artist from Canada. His paintings employ elements of Northwest Coast formline design and Surrealism to explore issues as environmentalism, land ownership, and Canada's treatment of First Nations peoples.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allyson Clay</span> Canadian artist

Allyson Clay is a Canadian visual artist, curator, and educator based in Vancouver, B.C.

Kathy Slade (1966) is a Canadian artist, author, curator, editor, and publisher born in Montreal, Quebec, and based in Vancouver, British Columbia. She is currently a Term Lecturer at Simon Fraser University's School for the Contemporary Arts.

Jennifer Weih is a Canadian artist and educator based in Vancouver, British Columbia. She currently teaches at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design. Weih received her BFA from the Emily Carr University of Art and Design and her MFA from the University of British Columbia. She works in installation, objects, video, and print. Her projects include a range of aesthetics including found, manufactured, or crafted materials. She is part of the production team at Other Sights for Artists' Projects. Weih was a programmer for VIVO Media Arts Centre, which she initiated community oriented projects, and founded Signal and Noise Media Art Festival.

Tʼuyʼtʼtanat-Cease Wyss is a Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Stó꞉lō, Kānaka Maoli (Hawaiian), Irish-Métis, and Swiss multi-media artist, ethnobotanist, independent curator, educator, activist, and small business owner based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Tʼuyʼtʼtanat is Wyss's ancestral name, which means “woman who travels by canoe to gather medicines for all people.” Wyss's interdisciplinary practice encompasses aspects of visual art, fiber arts, ethnobotany, storytelling, and community education, among other interdisciplinary approaches, and she has been working with new media, performance, and interdisciplinary arts for more than 30 years. As a Coast Salish weaver, Wyss works with wool and cedar and uses indigenous plants in the dyeing process. Wyss also engages with beekeeping and gardening practices as part of community-led initiatives and as a way to explore aspects of land remediation - the ability of plants to remediate soil that has been contaminated with colonial toxins.

Kamala Todd is a filmmaker, community planner, and curator based in Vancouver, British Columbia. She is of Métis, Cree and European descent. Her writing, films, and curatorial practice often revolves around the topic of Indigineity in Canada.  

Olivia Whetung is a contemporary artist, printmaker, writer, and member of the Curve Lake First Nation and citizen of the Nishnaabeg Nation.

Lisa C. Ravensbergen is a multi-disciplinary artist and writer of Ojibwe/Swampy Cree and English/Irish descent, based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Ravensbergen is a Jessie-nominated actor, dramaturge, director and dancer. Ravensbergen is an Associate Artist with Full Circle First Nations Performance Group and Playwright-in-Residence with Delinquent Theatre. She holds undergraduate degrees from Trinity Western University and Simon Fraser University and an MA in Cultural Studies from Queens University.

Scott Watson is a Canadian curator, writer, and researcher based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Watson was the Director/Curator of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at the University of British Columbia from 1995 to 2021. As faculty in the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory at the University of British Columbia, he helped initiate the Critical Curatorial Studies program at UBC in September 2002. Through his research and publications, he has acted as a champion of contemporary Vancouver artists.

Chrystal Sparrow is a traditional and contemporary Musqueam Coast Salish artist living in Vancouver, British Columbia on unceded Coast Salish territory.

References

  1. ↑ "Diamond Point: Fraser River Families | Richmond Art Gallery | Richmond, BC, Canada" . Retrieved 2021-03-22.
  2. ↑ "Musqueam Territory". Musqueam. Retrieved 2021-03-22.
  3. ↑ "Musqueam & UBC". Indigenous Portal. Retrieved 2021-03-22.
  4. ↑ "Soundings: Diamond Point and Coastal Wolf Pack". Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery. Retrieved 2021-03-22.
  5. ↑ "Celebration: Fraser River Families | Richmond Art Gallery | Richmond, BC, Canada" . Retrieved 2021-03-22.
  6. ↑ "Diamond Point: Fraser River Families | Richmond Art Gallery | Richmond, BC, Canada" . Retrieved 2021-03-22.
  7. ↑ "New Musqueam Logos at Totem Park | SHCS Staff Website" . Retrieved 2021-03-22.
  8. ↑ Dowell, Kristin L. (2015). "The Future Looks Rad from Where I Stand": A Review of "Claiming Space: Voices of Urban Aboriginal Youth" at the UBC Museum of Anthropology". Anthropologica. 57 (1): 239–246 – via JSTOR.
  9. ↑ Assert, Defend, Take Space: Aboriginal Youth Conference on Identity, Activism and Film. Aboriginal Youth & Media Conference at MOA, Retrieved 2021-03-21.
  10. ↑ Artist Interview: Diamond Point , retrieved 2021-03-22
  11. ↑ "Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts". Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery. Retrieved 2021-03-22.
  12. ↑ "Soundings Performances at the Belkin Art Gallery - Posts - Independent Curators International". curatorsintl.org. Retrieved 2021-03-22.
  13. ↑ Areskoug, Meredith. "Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts – Preview Magazine" . Retrieved 2021-03-22.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.