Aboriginal Day to entertain, educate
Two of the community’s most prestigious art schools, the En’owkin Centre and Okanagan School of the Arts — working in partnership for this second year — have endeavoured to strengthen and connect the Indigenous and non -Indigenous communities of Penticton.
Join us in celebrating Indigenous Culture on Aboriginal Day, Wednesday, June 21 at the Shatford Centre, 760 Main St.
Festivities begin in the front yard at 4 p.m. with a Mini-Pow Wow with dancing, drumming, craft vendors and entertainment.
After the official opening, performances and speeches, everyone will be invited to enter the Shatford to enjoy the Resurgence Exhibition, curated by Dr Michelle Jack and Ann Doyon. This opening will be followed by a community feast with entertainment, during and after dinner.
The exhibition will feature some of the Okanagan’s finest Indigenous artists and will be an on-going venture where the two art schools will join forces to create a safe environment where connections can be created and maintained through mutual understanding and respect.
In the galleria are images of elders, youth, and historical events from the past featuring Okanagan Nation communities.
Facilitating generational connections throughout the communities in pictures, and inspiring fruitful discussions. Throughout the exhibition we are using language belonging to this region to recognize the traditional territory and hope to deepen our relationship to the land around us.
The Social Life of Water Exhibition will be on display as well.
The Okanagan Nation Alliance (ONA) brings the voices of syilx elders and Knowledge Keepers to this exhibition, offering an essential indigenous perspective that depicts the significance of water as it infiltrates every aspect of life.
In addition to exploring the past and present, the exhibition will examine our relationship with water in the future, inviting participants to imagine how a responsible relationship with water might look.
This project is a collaborative initiative between the Kelowna Museums Society, the Okanagan Nation Alliance, the University of British Columbia (Okanagan), the Sncewips Heritage Museum and the Okanagan Basin Water Board.