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By 2 Rivers

June 23, 2023

Free three-day event is also available to stream

2 Rivers Remix Society (2RMX) and VirtualFeast.ca present

BRING THE CHILDREN HOME

2 Rivers Remix Music Feast LIVE at

Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Powwow Arbor
345 Powwow Trail, Kamloops, BC V2H 1H1

July 7, 8-9, 2023
2riversremix.ca

From July 7- 9th, 2023, 2RMX partners with Tk’emlups te Secwepemc to present “Bring the Children Home: 2 Rivers Remix Music Feast.”

The FREE three-day feast of contemporary Indigenous music and culture is set for the beautiful Tk’emlups te Secwepemc Pow Wow Arbor in Kamloops, BC. “Bring The Children Home” features more than 40 incredibly talented and diverse Indigenous artists, toplined by Haisla hip-hop megastars Snotty Nose Rez Kids (SNRK) and electric powwow supergroup The Halluci Nation (formerly A Tribe Called Red).

BRING THE CHILDREN HOME will be live-streamed at feast.2rmx.ca

Co-headlining/featured artists include: Métis Canadian Folk Music award winner Amanda Rheaume, urban/rez roots hip hop vital voice Leonard Sumner, 2-Spirit powerhouse singer Shawnee Kish, veracious Mohawk singer song writers Logan Staats and sister Layla Black, sovereign story/song-weaving Anishinaabe sisters Leanne Betasamosake Simpson and Ansley Simpson, ambassador and iconic songwriter of the people, Keith Secola, Inuit folk rock legend Willie Thrasher, Mohawk Rez Bluez Master Murray Porter and bass badass Helene Duguay, conscious evolutionaries of Chicano hip hop Atzlan Underground, and 2-Spirit trans house music diva Quanah Style, just to name a few.

Also joining us for this stacked lineup are roots rock soulful The North Sound, folk/country spirit captivatress Kym Gouchie, Black Owl Bluesman Gerald Charlie, soulful pop heart-opening Hayley Wallis and the Brighter Futures, contemporary roots singer/songwriter Mimi O’Bonsawin, young blues phenom Garret T Willie, ‘For The People’ soothing storytellers Margit Sky Project, Indigiqueer pop artist Nimkish, Indigifunk empowerhouse Curtis Clearsky and the Constellationz, roots rock reggae artists The Spiritual Warriors, hip hop roots fusionists The Melawmen Collective, and punkabilly pranksters, Jason Camp and The Posers.

The roster also includes an array of BC-based hip hop artists, such as Earthchild, Kiva MH, Geo aka The Voice, A’a’liyah, Rich & Beka, SacRed, and more, plus 2-Spirit neuro-divergent performing artist Madeline Terbasket aka Rez Daddy, and much more.

Leading up to the three-day cultural feast in Tk’emlups, 2RMX’s Summer Movable Feast Tour launches on June 30 at Lytton First Nation to commemorate two years of Nlaka’pamux resilience since the Lytton Fire, then proceeds July 2 to the St’at’imc Nation (Lillooet), and July 4 in the Secwepemc Nation (Skeetchestn). Each unique event includes a core of nationally and internationally known artists, as well as local and regional talent from each of the territories.

“2RMX planning was buffeted by the effects of human-caused-climate-change again this year, forcing us to move four venues and communities at the last minute, including our main event”, stated Meeka Morgan, 2RMX’s Artistic Director. “2RMX is eternally grateful to the communities who came to aid and host us this year. Our hearts go out to 2022’s 3-day festival venue, the community of Cache Creek, who suffered catastrophic flooding again this spring. We hope to return with musical medicine when it is the right time to do so, as we continue to envision a return to our original host community of Lytton, BC. We found ourselves reaching out to Tk’emlups te Secwepemc to host and are so thankful they embraced us with their support.”

As BRING THE CHILDREN HOME is the 2RMX theme of 2023, it seems surreal yet so meaningful that the healing music of 2 Rivers Remix will envelop in love the nearby former site of Kamloops IRS where the 215-plus unmarked graves of Indigenous children were confirmed in May 2021.

And so, water who brings us all life, brought us to where we needed and navigated to be. While planning and carrying out the Movable Feast events this year, the shifting waters reminded us that we also must be ready to shift, make changes, and move, but also to reach out, collaborate and cooperate with kindness and grace.

The Journey of 2 Rivers Remix:
2 Rivers Remix (2RMX) is a free annual multi-day feast of contemporary Indigenous music and culture, initially (2018-2019) hosted outdoors at Tl’kemtsin (aka Lytton BC) on Nlaka’pamux territory, then streamed online during the pandemic (2020-2021). 2RMX features all Indigenous-led musicians and artists – focusing on women, 2-Spirit, youth, elders and survivors – creating an environment of safety, tolerance and value for all people. 2 Rivers Remix Society, is a Non-Profit Society with majority First Nations directors and a mandate to educate, empower and inspire Indigenous people to tell their own stories through contemporary Indigenous cultural expression.

On June 26th, 2021, 2RMX produced an outdoor event at the wonderful Nlaka’pamux interpretative Tuckkwiowhum Village to honour the 215-plus Indigenous children then recently confirmed in unmarked graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School site during one of the hottest days recorded on Turtle Island. Only four days later, June 30, 2021, our beautiful host community of Tl’kemtsin/Lytton was razed to the ground in an unprecedented event that not only took homes and a whole village, but also 2 lives… Some of our staff, board, and their families lost their homes and many are still evacuated. Our office, festival archive, youth project exhibitions, and sound/video equipment was reduced to ashes.

In 2022, 2RMX pivoted to a “Movable Feast” in the aftermath of the cataclysmic fire that destroyed our previous live festival site – along with 90 percent of Tl’kemtsin/Lytton. 2RMX partnered with 8 Indigenous communities in 2022 to present Movable Feast, culminating in the 2 Rivers Remix Festival being held in Cache Creek, BC. 2 Rivers Remix Society continues to support our affected Indigenous communities that have in the last years suffered from waves of the COVID pandemic, catastrophic wildfires/flooding/infrastructure destruction,the ongoing confirmations of hundreds more unmarked graves at Indian Residential Schools across Turtle Island, and the deadly toxic drug supply crisis.

2022 was the first time since the pandemic that we were able to hold a multi-day, 2RMX LIVE in-person event, and we were graciously hosted by the community of Cache Creek, in the territory of the Stuc’tews (Bonaparte First Nation) People. Until mid May of 2023 we planned to return there, but the rising waters once again navigated our journey of musical medicine… We wrap those communities still recovering with loving comfort and care, and are grateful for the ones who reach back when called upon for support.

Looking forward to this year’s event, be sure to tune in and watch the stream at feast.2rmx.ca

2 Rivers Remix Society acknowledges the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, The BC Arts Council, the Government of Canada, First Peoples’ Cultural Council, Creative BC, Factor & the Vancouver Foundation, as well as Canada’s private radio broadcasters. Media Sponsors – Stir, exclaim! & CFJC-TV.

The exhibit includes 90 works from native artists made following World War II.  
Nina Giraldo” class=”uk-display-block uk-position-relative uk-visible-toggle”> click to enlarge

Nina Giraldo

The exhibit includes 90 works from native artists made following World War II.

Today, the Saint Louis Art Museum presents its first exhibition focusing on modern and contemporary Native American art.

Action/Abstraction Redefined: Modern Native Art, 1940s-1970s uses themes of artistic continuity and student experimentation to reshape narratives of Native American art following World War II. The exhibit opens today with a free, public preview celebration from 4 to 8 pm featuring cocktails, entertainment and guided discussions.

“It’s a thematic look at this really pivotal chapter in the history of Native American art where we broadly see a transition from ancestral forms of media to new modes of expression that are more in line with contemporaneous global art practice,” says Alexander Brier Marr, the Saint Louis Art Museum associate curator of Native American art who put together the St. Louis presentation of the exhibition.

The exhibit was first shown by the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The IAIA is the only art school devoted to native arts in North America and is home to many prominent native artists, including Kay Walkingstick and Lloyd Kiva New.

Neil Parsons’ Untitled (Pueblo Forms).  
IAIA Museum of Contemporary Arts” class=”uk-display-block uk-position-relative uk-visible-toggle”> click to enlarge

IAIA Museum of Contemporary Arts

Neil Parsons’ Untitled (Pueblo Forms).

The St. Louis exhibit features works primarily from the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts at IAIA alongside work borrowed from other national lenders and from SLAM’s own collection. It is currently the only expanded presentation of the exhibition in the country. Organized chronologically, the show features 90 works by about 40 different artists.

When Marr first saw the IAIA’s collection of postwar native art in 2018, he was blown away and knew he wanted to bring some of it to St. Louis.

“It’s a really fascinating story, where native artists are very strategically engaging with multiple sources,” Marr said. “So they’re creating really new pathways for artistic production, while still retaining an anchor in their communities and their heritage.”

The Saint Louis Art Museum was one of the first museums in the country, if not the first outside of the southwest, to collect contemporary Native American work in the early 1930s, according to Marr. The current museum collection, however, has a gap in the 20th century that this new exhibition will fill.

The exhibit expands and responds to the museum’s 2008 Action/Abstraction: Pollock, de Kooning, and American Art, 1940-1976 exhibition with an array of Native American art including paintings, sculptures and literary works. The influence of ancestral indigenous art on prominent American artists, including Jackson Pollock and Adolph Gottlieb, is also showcased in the presentation.

One featured artist is Fritz Scholder, a former instructor at IAIA, whose New Mexico Number 1 series depict the state’s landscapes and terrain through colorful abstraction. In this period, many native artists were inspired by modern art movements that freed them from stereotypical expectations of Native American art.

Fritz Scholder’s painting New Mexico Number 1 (center) depict the state’s landscapes and terrain through abstraction.  
Nina Giraldo” class=”uk-display-block uk-position-relative uk-visible-toggle”> click to enlarge

Nina Giraldo

Fritz Scholder’s painting New Mexico Number 1 (center) depict the state’s landscapes and terrain through abstraction.

Native artists are helping to surface the colonial histories and experiences of native people, but they’re also just creating great work, Marr says with a chuckle.

“There’s this sense of a real movement taking place and of achievement and competence and success among native artists, which is really coming through,” he says.

To accompany and build upon its art, the exhibition includes printed and audio exhibition guides, catalogs, books and even a media wall with direct thoughts and quotes from the artists.

The exhibit will be on display through September 3 in the Mae W. Whittaker Gallery 212 at the Saint Louis Art Museum (One Fine Arts Drive, Forest Park, 314-721-0072, slam.org). Ticket prices are $6 to $12, with free entry on Fridays. Upcoming exhibition-related events at SLAM include an artist panel conversation at 6 p.m. on Friday, as well as a Family Sunday event from 1 to 4 pm that features dancing and art projects for children. In late July, the Saint Louis Art Museum will collaborate with the MFA Creative Writing program at IAIA for a native literary festival with author readings and writing workshops.

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