Among the four exhibitions that opened Nov. 27 at the Yukon Arts Centre (YAC), the works in Shared Territories have probably been seen by the most people, however fleetingly.
Elizabeth Kyle, CEO of the YVR Art Foundation (yvraf.com), in attendance at the opening, to the millions of people who travel through the Vancouver Airport every year and who can enjoy works made by emerging and mid-career First Nations artists, created as part of the foundation’s scholarship program.
Every year, the YVR Art Foundation offers scholarships for B.C. and Yukon Indigenous Emerging or Mid-Career visual artists to work with a mentor or attend an art school. As part of this process, they create an artwork to fit into a display case at YVR.
Award recipients gather in late May at the beginning of their year-long award period, and then also the following year for the beginning of their works’ display at the airport.
Most of the artworks currently on display at the YAC are from the cohort awarded their prizes in 2023.
However, there are also works from previous cohorts, including Upper Tanana artist Ddhälh kït Nelnah (Teresa Vander Meer-Chassé), who received her scholarship in 2016 and 2019. She is a member of White River First Nation. Her 2019 work studies her family history using two photographs by Joe Langevin : one of her great-grandpa, Little John (also known as White River Johnny); and one of her great-great-grandma, Skookum Lucy.
She has transformed their figures into black-velvet silhouettes, with beaded edges. Each figure holds snowshoes. Ddhälh kït Nelhah frames these figures with snowshoe frames held together with actual moose backstrap sinew. Most sinew used today is waxed-imitation “sinew” in nylon. Both the framing snowshoes and the ones the figures are holding are adorned with pompoms in acrylic yarn.
Violet Gattensby, of the Carcross/Tagish First Nation, received her scholarship in 2016 and 2022. Shared Territories includes her 2016 piece, Fog Woman Bentwood Box Design, loaned to the exhibit by the Yukon Permanent Art Collection. Gattensby works on two almost symmetrical panels in formline design. The greyed-blue and dark-red acrylic paint play against the shimmering birch wood grain.
Also from the Permanent Collection, you can visit Jared Kane’s Raven and Creek Woman (2021). Kane, from the Ta’an Kwäch’än Council, created this work supported by a 2020 YVR Mid-Career Artist Scholarship. Kane accents his wooden carving of Fish, Raven and Creek Woman (also known as Raven and Creek Mother), with black paint and operculum shell teeth. He created the piece working with Master Carver Keith Wolfe Smarch.
Adanchilla Pauls Lepine, of Champagne and Aisihik First Nations, created a large beaded, wearable chest piece with her scholarship: My voice is carried with the feather (2025).” The piece is in the form of an eagle feather. Beadwork on the surface depicts flowers and a mountain, expressing what she feels when she holds an eagle feather. The piece supports long leather fringes.
Karra Macintosh, of Kwanlin Dün First Nation, made a cape entitled Dancing with Spirits in the Sky (2024). She uses beadwork on melton cloth, with black fox fur on the neck piece. This piece would wrap the wearer in a winter night. Fox footprints, a silvery moon and snow-capped mountains adorn the front while three skirted women dance their own shawls on the back, among the northern lights. The long burgundy fringe makes me want to see this piece moving in a fashion show, or in dancing.
Also from Kwanlin Dün First Nation, Eila Vallevand’s Shaggin’ Wagon (2024) uses a looser approach. She made a backless top that laces up the back, using layered strands of beads as a choker. The top features a block print of her late-father’s well-loved van, into which Vellevand has beaded. Cap sleeves made of coyote fur complete the look.
Olivia Cox, of the Teslin Tlingit Council, is also a 2023 scholarship recipient. Her black-and-white silent film differs in media from the rest of the works. It layers scenes of herself and her “close friends and family” walking in a Yukon winter landscape. Cox adds transparent edits, layering in cut spruce, landscape from a moving vehicle, and feet walking on railroad tracks over the snow. The snow becomes something like a screen.
Dustin Sheldon, of the Teslin Tlingit Council, shows a canvas called E C L I P S E (2024). He adorns its black surface with stars, masks, traditional Tlingit houses, boxes and so on, rendered in fine copper lines. Among them gather stars, rendered in silver lines.
At the Vancouver airport, last May, the scholarship recipients for 2025 gathered along with those from 2024 who were returning with their completed works.
If you are travelling internationally, make a point of seeing the 2024 cohort works at gates E74, D62 and D66. You can’t get in there without a boarding pass, for that part of the airport, so do make a point to look if you have time in-between connecting flights. Anyone past security at the airport can also see the works in the Domestic Flights area at gates B14 and B15.
In 2024, there were no participants from Yukon First Nations; and in 2025, only Elijah Morberg (Tahltan, Tlingit). So if you’re an emerging or mid-career Yukon First Nations artist, 2026 might be a good time to apply. Visit yvraf.com to watch for the call for applications in mid-January.
You can see Shared Territories in the Main Gallery at the YAC, along with David Garneau’s Dark Chapters, until Feb. 20.
The Spirit of Guiding, a collection of watercolours created around Girl Guides badges, remains up in the ATCO Electric Yukon Youth Gallery until the same date. If you visit before the end of January, you will also see Superbloom: A Climate Resilience Project, made by many hands guided by Nicole Schafenacker and Krystle Silverfox, in the Community Art Gallery.
The Yukon Arts Centre Gallery is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday and before shows in the theatre.
