Performing History & Land in Vancouver's Stanley Park — with Selena Couture

Selena Couture is a settler scholar and Assistant Professor at the University of Alberta, in Edmonton/ Treaty 6 territory and Métis Region No.4. Her projects engage with theatrical and cultural performances including speech acts, place naming, Indigenous language revitalization and phenomenological spatial orientations. Through these elements she explores relationships to land: deconstructing conceptions of settler colonial whiteness and possession while foregrounding the maintenance of Indigenous places through performance. Publications include, Against the Current and Into the Light: Performing History and Land in Coast Salish Territories and Vancouver's Stanley Park (McGill-Queen's UP Indigenous and Northern Series, 2020) and On this Patch of Grass: City Parks and Occupied Lands (Fernwood 2018).She holds a SSHRC Insight Development Grant, "Decolonizing Performative Reenactments of History" which engages with the historical narratives created in rural BC, taking into account the lack of treaties to govern settler access to the land; the continuously present Indigenous protection of unceded territories despite settler colonial extraction; and the unique relation to the lands expressed through Indigenous languages.She is also a co-director of the Ecologies research cluster in the SSHRC Partnership Grant "Hemispheric Encounters: Developing Transborder Research-Creation Practices," (2020-2027) led by Dr. Laura Levin of York University. The project is developing a network across the Americas of organizations, artists, activists and scholars actively working in and with hemispheric performance to share strategies and resources. Her research in this project focuses on human and environmental effects of transnational resource extraction, as well as site-based performance strategies of refusal that address urban, environmental, and spatial politics.Her research practice responds to the growing crisis of global warming, develops a wider collaborative network and expands efforts to create responsible relations with Indigenous people, lands and all other-than-human beings.Resources:— Against the Current and Into the Light: https://www.mqup.ca/against-the-current-and-into-the-light-products-9780773559219.php — UBC's First Nations and Endangered Languages Program: https://fnel.arts.ubc.ca/— Inventing Stanley Park by Sean Kheraj: https://www.ubcpress.ca/inventing-stanley-park— The Archive and the Repertoire by Diana Taylor: https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-archive-and-the-repertoire— The Native Brotherhood of British Columbia: https://www.nativebrotherhood.ca/— Ashes on the Water: A Podplay Video: https://vimeo.com/27876873— The Road Forward by Marie Clement