Resonant Bodies explores the intersections of displacement, reconnection, and the inherent animacy of more-than-human beings. Naomi Watkins is from the Secwépemc nation, from BC’s southern interior. Their work challenges anthropocentric perspectives on belonging, aiming to spark critical dialogue regarding identity, revealing that our sense of place is a collaborative experience shaped by both human history and the living landscapes we inhabit.
To encounter the contemporary Indigenous experience through the lens of a two-spirit Secwépemc artist raised away from unceded homelands is to confront the geography of proximal displacement. In this exhibition, spatial dislocation is not merely charted along the asphalt highway connecting the urban sprawl of Vancouver to the inland rivers of Kamloops; it resides in the subtle, enduring friction between presence and absence, ancestral memory and diaspora.
Watkins reflects:
“While working with these cedar beings, I became more and more attentive to the offcuts and natural forms that emerged from carving, noticing that they seemed to speak for themselves when I worked alongside them rather than carving something representational. This became part of a larger process of figuring myself out and returning to the stories and relationships that shaped me while growing up away from my nation. Through these gestures, I have found an intimate threshold that I want to linger within–a space where I can consider proximity, displacement and belonging while being generative and careful.
These works are an attempt to remain open to that learning and to the ancestral stories resting within cedar grain, moving through green-hued lakes and carried across each limb of sand. In this way, Resonant Bodies offers a continued gesture outward: a call to keep listening, keep learning and keep returning to the relationships that make this connection and care possible.”
Please note: For Low-sensory Thursday on October 1, there may be residual scents from smudging, but no other scent or particulate advisories for the rest of the show. Masks mandatory throughout for all Low-sensory Thursdays.
About the Artist:
Photo credit: Pip Mamo, 2025
Naomi Watkins (they/them) is a 2S Secwépemc interdisciplinary artist from Tkʼemlúps te Secwépemc. Through peripatetic and land-based methods, they reflect on how personal and ancestral displacement and reconnection shapes our relationship to place, aiming to create spaces of belonging.
They hold an MFA (2025) and BFA (2023) from Emily Carr University of Art and Design, supported by a SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship. Their work has been exhibited at the Museum of Vancouver and Polygon Gallery.
Learn more by visiting naomiwatkins.com or check out Watkins’ Instagram @naomiwatkinsva
About the Curator:
Daina Warren (she/her) is a member of the Montana Cree First Nation in Maskwacis, Alberta. She holds a BFA from ECU and an MA from the University of BC. Warren completed Canada Council curatorial residencies at grunt gallery and the National Gallery of Canada, participated in the 2015–2017 International First Nations Curators Exchange, and earned both the 2018 Hnatyshyn Foundation Award for Curatorial Excellency and the Manitoba Art Council’s Award of Distinction. She was the Director of Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art Gallery (2011–2022), and is now an independent curator and Director of Setting Sun Circle in Bellingham, Washington.
Artist Talk – In Conversation: Naomi Watkins and Tania Willard
Sunday, October 18, 1pm to 3pm | Free.
At grunt gallery (#116–350 E 2nd Ave, Vancouver, BC)
Join us at grunt gallery on October 18, 2026, from 1pm to 3pm, for an evocative artist talk featuring Naomi Watkins in conversation with curator and artist Tania Willard.
Together, both artists will explore Watkins’ exhibition Resonant Bodies, examining how raw materials, kinetic movement, and acoustic frequencies transform the gallery into a surrogate landscape of reciprocal return. Centering Secwépemc culture and language (Secwepemctsin), the dialogue delves into the installation’s sensory architecture—from carved cedar chambers carrying aerial waterways to low-frequency transducers (114–115 Hz) that physically pulse through the room. Watkins and Willard will unpack the intersections of ancestral land, material memory, sound, and nationhood, offering insights into how contemporary spatial practices disrupt the white cube to ground viewers in relational humility.
Limited capacity, arrive on time to secure a seat!
Please email access@grunt.ca with any accessibility questions or concerns.
Tania Willard is a mixed Secwépemc and settler artist whose research intersects with land-based art practices. Her practice activates connection to land, culture, and family, centering art as an Indigenous resurgent act, through collaborative projects such as BUSH Gallery and support of language revitalization in Secwépemc communities. Her artistic and curatorial work includes Beat Nation: Art, Hip Hop and Aboriginal Culture at the Vancouver Art Gallery (2012-2014). Willard’s work is included in the collections of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Forge Project, Kamloops Art Gallery, and the Anchorage Museum, among others. In 2025 Willard won one of the top Canadian contemporary art awards, the Sobey Art Award.
Image courtesy of Naomi Watkins, 2026.
Digital programming:
Current digital assets such as the curatorial essay, visual descriptions of the work, and the transcripts for the video and creative access audio tour can be found on the Resonant Bodies – Audio Description and Transcripts page.
Creative Access Audio Tour
Site map:
A PDF containing art work titles and materials. A tactile map has been created and is available at grunt gallery. Information about the 2D and tactile maps are available within the Creative Access Audio Tour and were used as a reference tool for self-guided movement through the show. Contact archives@grunt.ca to learn more about the tactile map.