Kiona Callihoo Ligtvoet is Cree and Métis descending from Michel Band. Seth Arcand is a Cree filmmaker from the kipohtakaw Cree Nation (Alexander). Their communities neighboured on the prairies before the enfranchisement of Michel band in 1958. Not neighbours in the colonial sense of white picket fences and carefully marked yet arbitrary border lines, but neighbours that hold to the nehiyaw law of wahkohtowin, with shared landmarks, and shared understandings of place across generations that don’t hold to the rigidity of colonial borders. In making this work, Kiona and Seth explored the unmarked spots and gravel roads between where they each grew up, understanding the land from the distance between landmarks, from the desire paths that remain, and the roads that cover the ones that existed before.

êpêkiyokêyân exists as an archive of visits. Kiona & Seth’s practices overlap within the archive. As a painter and multidisciplinary artist, Kiona’s practice explores archiving as an ongoing love letter - a documentation of moments from the land she grew up on, with snippets of stories that hold their secrets close. Seth’s work as a filmmaker explores the nehiyaw laws of pimatisiwin and wahkohtowin - of balance, and of kinship, documenting these stories as a way of reclaiming his place between the prairie grass and sky.

Their archive doesn’t hold to the restrictiveness of academia, but instead playfully holds stories: visits to Kiona’s moshom’s farm to pick cranberries, wild mint, and saskatoons, each visit beginning with a mark in the calendar for the next. Stories told while sitting together, wandering around the bush in hi-vis vests, and following the desire paths between. A pocket knife accidentally flung into bushes during harvest, to be found when the snow melts in springtime. Tea made from mint harvested on the farm, in chipped mugs around a kitchen table.

êpêkiyokêyân holds visiting at its heart. It leaves desire paths for you to follow, to visit these stories and to understand their importance. It holds space to rest at the kitchen table, to trace your fingers along the paths burned within it, to consider how to hold relationships close.

Desire path: an unplanned route or path (such as one worn into a grassy surface by repeated foot traffic) that is used by pedestrians in preference to or in the absence of a designated alternative (such as a paved pathway).

Curated by Sanaa Humayun

Acknowledgements

Thank you to the Edmonton Arts Council and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts for funding the works produced in êpêkiyokêyân, coming to visit.

The table was designed and built by Colbey Shaw for this project, and wood burned by Kiona and Seth. We’re grateful for all his help.

Aiy hiy to Seth’s relatives, and his sister Emory Arcand, for helping us learn to speak and write “coming to visit” in nêhiyawêwin.

Aiy hiy to Kiona’s moshom, Ernie Callihoo, for welcoming us every week with teachings, stories, ginger ale, and for letting us make artwork about the land he’s fought to keep and caretake.

Many people helped us make this project possible.

Installation photographs by Paige Paton.