Response: Remembering Our Futures is the culmination of the Response Program, an annual filmmaking initiative that inspires artistic responses to historical and contemporary Indigenous ways of being. Participants engaged in a series of workshops led by Indigenous artists and Knowledge Holders during the summer of 2024 to produce an original video work on view in The Polygon Gallery's Seaspan Pavilion from March 5 to April 4, 2025.

Past generations, stories, and histories influence the way we look toward our futures, inciting care and intention as we imagine beyond current realities. By breaking down the dichotomy of past and present, we invite an all-encompassing understanding of the relationships that we hold. This year, participants were encouraged to consider experiences and connections that transcend time, and the ways in which formative influences remain vital and present throughout one’s life. Through techniques ranging from performance to animation, the artists' films in Response: Remembering Our Futures embrace themes of healing, intimacy, belonging, and resistance.

Looking forward can feel uneasy during a time where so much seems uncertain, but Remembering Our Futures reminds us that our relationships exist in all directions, and tending to them allows us to see further than ourselves.

About the Artists

Constance Arden is an artist, activist, and arts educator living in the Downtown Eastside, in Vancouver, British Columbia. She is humbled and inspired by her neighbourhood, and her work contemplates themes of loss, memory, and resonance.

Monica Cheema is a filmmaker, researcher, and educator based on the lands of the Semiahmoo and Kwantlen First Nations. Her work blends fiction and non-fiction to explore themes of land, labour, and loss.

Kiera Eustache is a member of Simpcw First Nation, where she was born and raised. She currently works as an Indigenous Education Worker at her local elementary school.

Melanie Evelyn is an interdisciplinary artist and educator exploring femininity through autobiographical, diaristic, and experimental works. She recently completed a residency in Falmouth, England, and debuted her drag persona Saturn Return.

Shayne Hommy is a multidisciplinary artist and designer from Northern BC. Her practice revolves around discovery, connection, identity, grief, and uncertainty, drawing largely from her Indigenous background. She is currently attending Emily Carr University of Art and Design for Communication Design.

Esther Jungnickel is a multidisciplinary artist from Singapore, now living on the traditional territory of the Kwantlen, Katzie, Matsqui, and Semiahmoo First Nations (Langley, BC). Her work explores intercultural identity, spirituality, mental health, and the relationships between people and the land.

Keenan Marchand is a Syilx multimedia artist based in Burnaby, BC. Predominantly working in digital art and music, their work revolves around themes of exploring growth, Indigenous futurism, and connection and disconnection between nature and culture.

Jennifer Sakeskanip (Mitchell) is a Cree multidisciplinary artist from Fort Chipewyan, AB. She works in sculpture, film, and painting. As a ’60s scoop survivor, she focuses on healing and reconnection within her art practice. Sakeskanip is currently pursuing her Bachelor of Visual Arts at Emily Carr University of Art and Design.

Kaleb Thiessen (Belak) is a Peruvian-Canadian multimedia artist who combines sculpture, video, and digital art. By merging physical and digital forms, he transforms everyday materials, inviting reflection on identity, memory, consumerism, and technology.

Parumveer Walia expands photography across video, installation, and other media to examine queerness as subject, aesthetic, and culture. Using experimental techniques, Walia borrows from historical accounts and interweaves them with his own lived experiences.

Naomi Watkins is a two-spirit Secwépemc multimedia artist based in Vancouver, BC. Their work weaves sculpture and media-installation to explore Indigenous displacement and spirituality while integrating text and video as central elements in their artistic practice.

Vance Wright is a reconnecting two-spirit member of the Tl’azt’en Nation, and was raised on the unceded territories of the Sinixt Nation in what is colonially known as Nelson, BC. Currently residing in the occupied and unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations in Vancouver, they are an emerging artist, curator, and writer.

Curated by Serena Steel

Banner image: Melanie Evelyn, Seafoam Dream, 2024