Payek niyanawn – We Are All One
Payek niyanawn – We Are All One broadens the scope of my previous work to include the historic Métis region of Beaver Hills, an area dear to the heart of Kayla Larson, Interim Director of the X̱wi7x̱wa Library at UBC. An Indigenous data sovereignty activist, Kayla’s work on and off campus strengthens Indigenous knowledge, community, and scholarship.
The artwork, a portrait of place, emerged from our conversations about landscapes that shape and sustain us — places where land, plants, animals, memory, and community remain inseparable.
Icons of the plants and animals from Beaver Hills (known as amiskwaciy in Cree) have been arranged into a spiral reflecting a non-hierarchical worldview in which all beings exist as kin within a shared ecological community. The animals close their eyes to us in quiet dismay.
Kayla Larson reflects on the enduring pull of amiskwaciy:
“The Beaver Hills are deeply entwined in who I am… When I close my eyes I smell the sweetness of sage and meadow grass… I see my ancestors in the northern lights.”
Photo Credit: Lina Samoukova