Julie Adams remembers when she first saw the fiber artist Marques Hanalei Marzan in action. It was 2016, and they were both attending the Festival of the Pacific Arts in Guam. Marzan was sitting on the ground quietly absorbed in weaving, seemingly unfazed as hundreds milled around him, chatting loudly and blaring music. He was in his zone.

Adams, a curator at the British Museum, just watched. “I was too shy to interrupt him and say hello,” she says. “But in the back of my mind, I was already thinking about how we could commission him to make a piece.” Of course, she had heard of Marzan. Adams considers him “one of the most renowned Hawaiian weavers working today.”

A year later, Adams welcomed Marzan to the British Museum for a private viewing of one of the world’s most important collections of ancient Hawaiian fans. He pored over each item—admiring the skills of the weavers who created them—estimating that only 20 or 30 fans exist today. At that time, the museum was planning an exhibition to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Captain James Cook’s first voyage to the Pacific. Adams asked Marzan to create a crescent-shaped fan, known as a peahi, as part of the tribute, an example of artifacts from that time.

“It was just super overwhelming to get that opportunity to visit, but also then to get that inquiry for a commission to bring a modern voice and perspective back into the collection that they steward, that was so special,” he says. Some 500 years ago, Hawaiian chiefs would trade these fiber fans for European goods. For his modern-day take, Marzan used pandanus, a type of palm-like pine leaf.

The tradition of weaving the lau (leaves) from the hala (pandanus) tree was brought to the Aloha State when the first Polynesian settlers arrived in canoes with sails fashioned from the material, according to some historians. Those early Hawaiians realized this resource could be used to craft other essential items like clothing, mattresses and shoes.

There aren’t many who have mastered the technique or the ancient style of weaving used to create the fans. Marzan, 44, who first learned the art as a teenager, is one of the few who possesses that rare expertise. “To create contemporary pieces with these ancient skills is really unique,” says Kilohana Silve, an art critic.

Over the past 25 years, Marzan has perfected multiple fiber-weaving techniques, including plaiting, twining, netting and cord-making.

“He’s using those finely honed skills and creating something that steps forward in time,” says Silve. “That’s very exciting, and it’s wonderful that his work is being recognized beyond Hawaii shores.”

Marzan’s weaving and art have taken him to the Marshall Islands, Canada, New Zealand and American Samoa. In 2018, his craft led him to Paris for the Festival des Arts d’Hawaii. There, five fans he created appeared in an exhibition at Orenda Art International, a gallery known for embracing emerging artists and helping them gain international acclaim.

“This show was so important,” says Silve, founder of the Hawaii festival, who lived in Paris for 30 years. “I wanted people out there, especially in important art worlds like Paris or New York or Tokyo, to be aware of the excellent artists that we have in Hawaii. The reactions were just everything that we anticipated. People were fascinated. They were just in awe, because [the weaving technique] is clearly so difficult to do.”

The work was very well received by critics, but Marzan’s artistry isn’t just for aficionados. “It’s one thing for people to go into a gallery and ooh and ahh and say, ‘Oh, c’est magnifique.’ It’s another thing [for them] to, you know, bring out their checkbook and purchase a piece. I was so thrilled to see that his works were all bought,” says Silve.

In addition to their intricate beauty, Marzan’s creations may draw customers because many of his pieces are also functional, like the dresses he made out of pig intestines for the Maoli Arts Movement Wearable Art Show, an annual one-night event in Honolulu that gives native Hawaiian designers a platform to showcase their wearable-art creations.

Just as he draws on the traditional Hawaiian practice of using lau hala to make baskets and shoes, Marzan is inspired by ancient Japanese artisans. Long ago, they created fabric from paper. It was placed under garments to wick away moisture.

Having a “living, active purpose” for his work is important to Marzan, he says. Rather than just gallery exhibition work to hang on a wall, he wants his pieces to come to life.

To some, the items stockpiled in the carport at Marzan’s home, which is in Manoa, on Oahu, might look like clutter: paper cordage, an array of tree branches, homemade fish traps and swordfish bills. However, they are all likely to take on a second life as art.

The carport is where Marzan sits cross-legged for hours looping coconut coir, making nets and twining. Meanwhile, birds chirp, gentle trade winds whistle and raindrops offer a soothing sound.

The lush valley, known for its consistent drizzles, is ideal; it’s utterly relaxing, and the moist environment also “allows for the fibers to be more supple and malleable,” Marzan says. “Sometimes when it’s too dry, fibers can get too brittle and break. I think it’s just very conducive to my artwork.”

Marzan also works on his porch, weaving at a small table and on the living room floor. He streams “The Big Bang Theory” for background noise. “I get into that meditative state,” Marzan says. “I just let things go, and my hands just move without any kind of conscious direction or focus.”

On one nearby table sits an elaborate cape made of coconut rope, which would have been suitable for a chief in ancient times. Nearby, a jumbled net form is starting to take the shape of a coral head.

He describes the different materials he incorporates in his art—like berries that grow wild in the mountains and used for dyes, and the paper mulberry used to make kapa (bark cloth)—and how passionate he is about the gathering process. Meanwhile, his fingers are busy looping together paper cordage that will eventually be part of a larger installation piece in an upcoming show.

He doesn’t know what the final product will look like, how large it will be or how long it will take. It all comes together as he goes; there is no plan ahead of time, no sketch, no brainstorm. He allows inspiration to strike along the way.

Marzan was just 5 years old when he made more than 100 one-inch origami cranes for his Japanese grandmother’s 60th birthday party. The feat was an early sign of not only persistence but also exceptional dexterity, qualities that he is renowned for.

“I was always interested in creative things, drawing, making things with my hands, going outside, playing with the mud and making them into forms or different things,” says Marzan, who descends from a long line of artisans. His Filipino ancestors were basketmakers. Silk weaving was done on his Japanese side, and his Hawaiian family is known for canoe-building. However, it was his great-grandmother’s papales, or hats, hanging in his childhood home in Kaneohe, Oahu, that inspired him.

“The hats were a functional necessity for workers, so that was a form of income for her,” Marzan says about the matriarch who passed away before he was born. A skilled weaver, she crafted them to protect those toiling under a hot sun on the coffee plantations on the island of Hawaii. She produced functional art, not unlike her great-grandson.

“Unfortunately, none of her children or grandchildren during her lifetime showed any interest in learning from her. So those skills and insights passed away with her,” Marzan says.

What he didn’t learn at the foot of his elder, he hopes to acquire through experience, practice and determination. He wants to recreate his great-grandmother’s designs.

“I believe in the concept of ancestral memory,” he says, referring to a theory that some experiences leave a genetic imprint and are passed down to descendants. “Sometimes we don’t know why we are doing something, and then it makes sense. What we do today has significant ties to what has happened in the past.”

When he first worked with the lau hala, manipulating it felt almost innate. “I just attribute it to my great-grandmother. She just was guiding my hands,” he says.

Today, Marzan can craft hats almost identical to his matriarch’s. However, the starting pattern, called the Honaunau piko (center), unique to her community, is still a mystery.

That lost knowledge motivates Marzan to instruct others. He often teaches workshops to students of all ages. “This skill that I’ve shared with them, it’s not for them to keep to themselves,” says Marzan. In fact, he challenges each of his students to teach at least one other person how to weave “so this skill gets passed on to someone and is available to future generations.”

Mr. Hamm is now hitched.  
Photo via AMC” class=”uk-display-block uk-position-relative uk-visible-toggle”>

Photo via AMC

Mr. Hamm is now hitched.

The Sexiest St. Louisan alive is officially off the market.

People Magazine reports that Jon Hamm got married on Saturday, tying the knot with 34-year-old actress Anna Osceola in Big Sur.  The John Burroughs School alumnus, 52, has never previously been wed.

Significantly, the series that made Hamm a major star, Mad Men, filmed its series finale in Big Sur, and the then-unknown Osceola played a small role in the episode as a receptionist. The two later both found their way to 2022’s Confess, Fletch and got engaged just this March after dating for three years.

Much as tying the knot under the Arch (or at Busch Stadium?) be better for local star-gazers, we like the symmetry of returning to the spot where it all began.

So what’s not to like about this union? She’s beautiful; he’s beautiful. He’s great; she seems great. Only a total asshole would  be sad about a union so, well, gorgeous.

And with that, we wish them both a lifetime of happiness — or whatever passes for a lifetime these days in Hollywood. No really! We’re happy for him! Truly!

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This June as the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture in Riverside, California celebrates its first anniversary with a new exhibit of “Cheech Collects,” Rio Grande Valley artists continue to claim their place at the table.

The museum, also known as “The Cheech,” opened in June 2022 as part of a partnership between actor and avid Chicano art collector Cheech Marin, Riverside Art Museum and the city of Riverside to highlight and promote better understanding and appreciation for Chicano art. The initial collection of more than 500 works for the museum was gifted by Marin.

“Cheech Collects” is a rotating exhibition that showcases work from the permanent collection, new acquisitions and works on loan from Marin’s private collection. The 2023 edition of “Cheech Collects” features 35 artists across over 90 works — including that of Valley artists Paul Valadez and Candelario “Cande” Aguilar Jr.

Valadez is an assistant professor of art at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and lives in Edinburg and was born in San Francisco.

He uses multiple materials, from mixed media to acrylics, to create works that explore identity and the perception of what Mexican-American art can be.

“A lot of the work I make deals with my identity and what I deal with, especially as a Hispanic, Chicano, Latino, Mexican-American, Tejano, Californio, xchicanx and Latinx person,” he said.

A big part of that exploration of identity is seen through the idea of Mexican food stemming from Valadez finding a throughline in his own experiences he could use to articulate this complex layering of identities in his art.

Valadez has three 28-by-22-inch pieces currently on display, titled “Mangonada,” Fresonada” and “Raptilia” that use acrylic paint on paper with a special thickening agent — menudo spice — to create these brightly colored and almost gestural depictions of food.

He uses the menudo spice partially because of its thickening prowess for his paint. It also, he feels, adds another layer of material to the finished piece since it is a culturally specific food element.

For the exhibition reception on June 17, Valadez also showcased his performance art, as he did the year prior. It is part of his potlach series that involves creating and giving away sketches he makes in leftover books.

The name potlach refers to the tradition of indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest to give away all their possessions to raise their status in their social circle and as a display of wealth.

In addition to Valadez, for the second year in a row, Brownsville native and artist, Candelario “Cande” Aguilar Jr., is displayed as part of the exhibition.

Aguilar creates paintings, found-object assemblages, sculptures and video pieces to depict life along the U.S.-Mexico border through a colorful abstract style that he calls barrioPOP. The artist often uses hand-painted signage, image transfers and other found materials to assemble a regional visual language colored by his first experiences with art through local advertising signage.

This year, the piece “Las Varatas” is on display at The Cheech. The 116.75-by-147.5-inch work incorporates 30 laminated handwritten grocery store specials signs, which Aguilar Jr. received from the now-closed Lopez Supermarket No. 1 at McDavitt Boulevard and Roosevelt Street.

To Aguilar, the piece is quintessential barrioPOP with its bright colors, repetition of form and instant signifier as uniquely South Texas.

The artist was surprised to learn that he was in this exhibit. Aguilar says that with the number of works in the permanent collection, he expected to wait years, not months until his work went up again at The Cheech.

“What are the odds of one of your pieces being shown twice,” he said.

“Cheech Collects” will be on display at the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture until May 12, 2024.

The Reclaiming Our Identities powwow celebrated the two-spirit community during Pride weekend in Minneapolis.

Singers, dancers, and community gathered for the powwow at South High in Minneapolis. Fringed with rainbow colors, the gymnasium was transformed from a basketball court to a dance arena. Just down the hall in the open-air lunchroom, Indigenous artists and vendors covered folding tables with beaded jewelry, hats and ribbon work.

The next row over, community organizations set up tables with pamphlets and flyers, and paper powwow fans — much needed for a hot June day.

Volunteers wore bright pastel tee shirts with the progress pride and gender fluid flag, everyone celebrating Indigenous queer identities.

Two-spirit refers to an Indigenous person who has both a masculine and feminine spirit, a way people from across many tribal nations identify their spiritual and gender identity.

New Native Theater, a company in Minneapolis hosts the annual social dance. This was the second year that organizers welcomed people to the gathering.

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Charli Fool Bear, who is Dakota from the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, is an artistic producer with New Native theater. She says the event began to honor two-spirit theater artists and art-makers.

“Theater itself is built on the work of two-spirit people. A part of Indigenous theater’s history starts with two-spirit folks,” said Fool Bear, “People who put it all on the line for our community, for storytelling, for … everything.”

Two-spirit Sisseton Dakota elder and lifelong Minneapolis resident Reva D’Nova said she arrived from another event to spend the day with her two-spirit relatives.

“The recognition of the two-spirit community is long overdue,” said D’Nova.

As a two-spirit elder, D’Nova says her role is to providing guidance to the younger people, “If I’m able to help them and guide them than I am happy to do it.”

Longtime Minneapolis resident Mo Mike helped lead the day’s events as one of two head dancers. Cree from Beardy’s-Okemawis First Nation, Saskatchewan, Mike identifies as two-spirit transmasculine. He says the event’s organizers work hard to make the space welcoming for people who may not have grown up going to Indigenous social gatherings.

“This will be safe space for them to be who we are as two-spirit trans people, gender non-conforming. We’re making it as safe as possible for all of us to be there.”

Brian Heart, a citizen of the Yankton Sioux tribe and a longtime resident of Minneapolis was asked by the event’s organizers to offer welcoming remarks.

“It’s time that we’re able to come out, be who we are, share a part of our knowledge and our wisdom,” said Heart, “It’s never too late to learn who you are as a person.”

Deanna StandingCloud, citizen of Red Lake Nation, has been MCing powwows for the past several years. She says the powwow is important to her as a parent.

“I am the mother of a two-spirit daughter. it’s really taught me a lot about being an Anishinaabe person, and also being a mother,” says StandingCloud, “A powwow for the two-spirit community needs to be a safe place because we’re reclaiming a lot of those teachings and a lot about being in community with each other.”

The event made history as the first powwow to have two women as MCs. Deanna StandingCloud was joined by her longtime friend—who also just happens to share her first name. Deanna Beaulieu, citizen of White Earth Nation, joined StandingCloud at the MC stand. For Beaulieu it was her first-time MC-ing.

Beaulieu says she was a bundle of nerves on her way to the powwow.

She credits her own two-spirit family members with helping to instill within her and other young family members a sense of acceptance. She said it helped her to remember to just be herself as she stepped into the new role.

“Raising us with that sense of like ‘We are accepting people and we’re generous with the spirit of giving and sharing, and inclusion’. I think that’s super important.”

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The cruise ship with about 1,000 passengers anchored off Nome, too big to squeeze into into the tundra city’s tiny port. Its well-heeled tourists had to shimmy into small boats for another ride to shore.

It was 2016, and at the time, the cruise ship Serenity was the largest vessel ever to sail through the Northwest Passage.

But as the Arctic sea ice relents under the pressures of global warming and opens shipping lanes across the top of the world, more tourists are venturing to Nome — a northwest Alaska destination known better for the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race and its 1898 gold rush than luxury travel.

The problem remains: There’s no place to park the big boats. While smaller cruise ships are able to dock, officials say that of the dozen arriving this year, half will anchor offshore.

That’s expected to change as a $600 million-plus expansion makes Nome, population 3,500, the nation’s first deep-water Arctic port. The expansion, expected to be operational by the end of the decade, will accommodate not just larger cruise ships of up to 4,000 passengers, but cargo ships to deliver additional goods for the 60 Alaska Native villages in the region, and military vessels to counter the presence of Russian and Chinese ships in the Arctic.

It’s a prospect that excites business owners and officials in Nome, but concerns others who worry about the impact of additional tourists and vessel traffic on the environment and animals Alaska Natives depend on for subsistence.

The expansion will “support our local economy and the local artists here, the Indigenous artists having access to the visitors and teaching and sharing our culture and our language and how we how we make our beautiful art,” said Alice Bioff, an Inupiaq resident of Nome.

Bioff was a tour guide who greeted the Serenity’s passengers when they arrived in 2016. One of the guests admired her cloth kuspuk, a traditional Alaska Native garment similar to a smock, and wanted to know if it was water resistant.

It wasn’t, but the interaction inspired Bioff to create her own line of waterproof jackets styled like kuspuks. She now sells to tourists and locals alike from her own Naataq Gear gift store, a retail spot in the post office building, where about 20 Alaska Native artists offer ivory carvings, beadwork or paintings through consignment.

Studies show that cruise ship passengers typically spend about $100 per day in Nome, city manager Glenn Steckman said.

With the expansion, he’s hoping guests on larger cruise ships will extend their stays to experience more of Nome and the tundra, to view wild musk ox, or to sip a drink at the 123-year-old Board of Trade Saloon.

Climate change is making this all possible.

Nome, founded after gold was discovered in 1898, has seen six of its 10 warmest winters on record just in this century. The Bering Strait shipping lanes have gotten only busier since 2009, going from 262 transits that year to 509 in 2022.

“We’re going to be the first deep-draft Arctic port but probably not going to be the last,” Nome Mayor John Handeland said.

The Bering Sea ice on average reaches Nome in late November or December, about two or three weeks later than it did 50 years ago, said Rick Thoman, a climate specialist at the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

In 2019, mushers in the Iditarod, who normally drive their dog teams on the Bering Sea ice to the finish line in Nome, were forced onto the beach because of open water. The ice season will only get shorter, Thoman said.

The existing port causeway was completed in the mid-1980s. The expansion will be completed in three phases and effectively double its size. The first part of the project is funded by $250 million in federal infrastructure money with another $175 million from the Alaska Legislature. Field work is expected to begin next year.

Currently three ships can dock at once; the expanded dock will accommodate seven to 10.

Workers will dredge a new basin 40 feet (12.2 meters) deep, allowing large cruises ships, cargo vessels, and every U.S. military ship except aircraft carriers to dock, Port Director Joy Baker said.

U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, an Alaska Republican, said the expanded port will become the centerpiece of U.S. strategic infrastructure in the Arctic. The military is building up resources in Alaska, placing fighter jets at bases in Anchorage and Fairbanks, establishing a new Army airborne division in Alaska, training soldiers for future cold-weather conflicts and has missile defense capabilities.

“The way you have a presence in the Arctic is to be able to have military assets and the infrastructure that supports those assets,” Sullivan said.

The northern seas near Alaska are getting more crowded. A U.S. Coast Guard patrol board encountered seven Chinese and Russian naval vessels cooperating in an exercise last year about 86 miles (138 kilometers) north of Alaska’s Kiska Island.

Coast guard vessels in 2021 also encountered Chinese ships 50 miles (80 km) off Alaska’s Aleutian Islands.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg last yea r warned that Russia and China have pledged to cooperate in the Arctic, “a deepening strategic partnership that challenges our values and interests.”

Still, the prospect of Nome welcoming more tourists and a greater military presence bothers some residents. Austin Ahmasuk, an Inupiaq native, said the port’s original construction displaced an area traditionally used for subsistence hunting or fishing, and the expansion won’t help.

“The Port of Nome is development purely for the sake of development,” Ahmasuk said.

Details

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.