ABOUT

way’ lim ləmt (hello, thank you) for joining us virtually. We are encouraged by our learners and the tenacity of spirit we all have had this past year to adapt and transform the new virtual learning environment to our classes, and our classes to the virtual environment. We have had to be like water, flowing into this academic year and annual En’owkin Centre - Penticton Art Gallery in a mostly virtual setting. Our experience has been interwoven in many ways mirroring all living things, the continuous negotiating back and forth between the land, water, air, and beings. We find ourselves interwoven like a basket, in a new pattern with ancient memories.

The En’owkin Centre is an Indigenous post-secondary arts and cultural center located on the Penticton Indian Reserve. The National Aboriginal Professional Artist Training Program is one of many innovative programs housed at En’owkin. This two-year certificate program includes storytelling, media arts, performance arts, painting, sculpture, installation art, creative writing, and marketing. The focus of NAPAT is to protect and preserve Indigenous world-view and arts expressions within traditional heritage, utilizing interdisciplinary works with contemporary practice. The NAPAT program was developed to support the learning of how to “revitalize” traditional art forms into contemporary practice. This program creates many opportunities for the artists to collaborate and integrate many different media in their studies.

For many Indigenous people, learning is imbedded in history, memory, and story and the Creative Writing classes for NAPAT 2020 fully embraced this idea. As writers, we are aware of the impact our words will have in our communities and that our actions can affect others. Stories carry social and moral responsibilities for the teller as well as the readers and listeners. When beginning writers engage with Indigenous texts and other media, it transforms their understanding about the nature of stories and how we utilize them. Through assignments that challenged them to be realistic and creative, the writers built relationships with themselves and others; with the natural world; with their ancestors; and with the world around them. As the late Anishnabe writer Richard Wagamese says, “All that we are is story.”

It is with great honour and excitement that we present creative works of many kinds from our learners, alumni, and faculty. lim ləmt.

Dr. Michelle Jack and Karen W. Olson