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As waters merge

swaying waves beckoning us closer

This exhibition is part of a long-term curatorial inquiry that looks to the Pacific Ocean as a guide for understanding the fundamental way the ocean influences our pleasure, joy, romance, love, movement, and togetherness. The act of standing at the edge of land and gazing out at the sea teaches us about how we understand these vital elements of self as constantly becoming, never stagnant. The ocean proves to us over and over how we are forever changing, as we evolve within interconnected ecosystems. These systems then become present in how we gather and build communities.

As waters merge—swaying waves beckoning us closer engages deeply with the role of joy and pleasure within the ecosystems at the edges of the Pacific Ocean. The included artworks visualize the pleasure found within curated spaces for joy, capturing moments of coming together, prioritizing leisure, love, and joyous future worlds. Through contemporary art and poetry, this exhibition brings forward expressions of ecosystems from around the Pacific Ocean in order to understand the distinct elements at play when we consider multiple sites of gathering that prioritize collective joys.

For those of us who have faced the cruel, systemic, and murderous tactics of colonization, prioritizing our collective joy and pleasure so that it overflows into a future that is bright and luminous is a distinct form of protest. As waters merge suggests that we might find possible avenues for locating this joy and pleasure through the ocean itself.

Camille Georgeson-Usher

Camille Georgeson-Usher is a Coast Salish / Sahtu Dene / Scottish scholar, curator, and writer from Galiano Island, BC. She is Assistant Professor of Modern and Contemporary Indigenous Art at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC and is the Audain Senior Curatorial Advisor on Indigenous Art at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Through her research, she is interested in how peoples move together through space, how public art becomes a site for gathering, and intimacies with the everyday. She uses her practice as a longdistance runner as a methodology for embodied theory and alternative forms of sensing place and, particularly, sensing the ocean.

Jazmine Andrew

Jazmine (Ts̓ qáxa7) Andrew is a Lil̓wat / St’át’imc / Sinhalese curatorial assistant, undergraduate student, and artist from Mount Currie, B.C. She is currently focusing on First Nations Indigenous Studies and Visual Art at the University of British Columbia, while working at the First Nations House of Learning as well as with Dr. Camille Georgeson-Usher on research and exhibition development. Jazmine loves finding opportunities to express herself through art, and has been experimenting with multimedia paintings and logo designs while incorporating traditional symbols, materials, and teachings. While being passionate about kinship and relationality, she is looking forward to continuing making connections through creative praxis.