May 2025

Vancouver Land

On my return to Canada, I’ve been thinking a lot about land. Most talks or performances in Vancouver begin with a land acknowledgment that the city is built on the unceded lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. If at times this becomes performative, as Cliff Cardinal’s provocative show As You Like It Or the Land Acknowledgment,  which we saw last year, showed, it’s also important as a first gesture, at