WESTERN FRONT – Part 1: Night follows night, and the two and three-stringed instruments talk to each other

Conceived as a space of gathering, testimony and witness, Curry Cockle Chow Mein (2026) draws from the legacies and practices of the potlatch, and Reece’s Tsimshian, Gitxsan, Cree, and Métis heritage. Reece’s performance takes its title from a recipe testifying to the varied influences in Indigenous cuisine, as well as the reality that while white-owned businesses refused to serve Indigenous people well into the 1970s and 80s, Chinese restaurants did not. Curry Cockle Chow Mein challenges ideas of authenticity, breathes life into culinary objects, and nods to the historical exchange of goods and people across colonial trade routes. Reece’s performance activates the shared table as a place to rest, honor elders and create experiences that cannot be put into words.

Curry Cockle Chow Mein is the opening event of Night follows night, and the two and three-stringed instruments talk to each other a multi-modal, multi-sensory assembly that moves across disciplinary and institutional boundaries. Taking inspiration from polyphonic collectives and embodied ritual practices, it brings together the resonant works of Jasleen Kaur, Christian Nyampeta & Kivu Ruhorahoza, Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa, Skeena Reece, and Constantina Zavitsanos.

Drawing its title from a poem penned by Hafez Shirazi, Night follows night shifts attention away from representational discourse towards practices of embodiment, to accommodate emergent aesthetic forms in which song is lament, food is evidence, poetry is history, and objects speak. This assembly creates space for practices of trans-temporal interlocution, interruption, eruption and prophecy. It asks: how can we move beyond exhibitionary formats towards spaces of polyvocal collaboration, plural assembly, and fugitive sociality?

Co-curated by Susan Gibb, Vanessa Kwan and Sadia Shirazi.

Two hands held palms up over a wooden table, stained deep red with salmon blood and scales. Beneath them, bright red-orange salmon fillets rest on flattened cardboard marked "Hartley Bay" in handwriting, with several fish-cleaning knives laid around them.

About the Artist

Skeena Reece is a Tsimshian, Gitxsan, Cree, and Métis artist based on Vancouver Island. Her multidisciplinary practice involves performance art, writing, singing, video and visual art. She incorporates a mix of traditional knowledge, humour, socio-political observations and spirituality to confront settler-colonial preconceptions about the experiences of Indigenous people, and specifically Indigenous women. Reece’s installation and performance work has garnered national and international attention, most notably for Raven: On the Colonial Fleet (2010) presented at the 2010 Sydney Biennale. Her recent solo exhibitions include Surrounded at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver (2019), and Touch Me at the Comox Valley Art Gallery, Courtenay (2018). Her video work, Touch Me (2013), was recently exhibited at, and acquired by, the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (2025). Reece studied Media Arts at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. She is the recipient of the British Columbia Award for Excellence in the Arts (2012), the VIVA Award (2014), and the Hnatyshyn Award (2017).

Close-up portrait of Skeena Reece, with long blonde hair, false lashes and red lipstick, gazing sideways toward the camera with a serious expression. She wears a red woven cowboy hat with a Canadian flag ribbon band, and her cheek has a temporary tattoo reading "I ♥" over a Canadian flag. Behind her, out of focus, are a blue sky and a parking lot.

Accessibility

The Grand Luxe Hall is located on the second floor of Western Front, which is accessed by a flight of twenty-six stairs. While plans for a full building upgrade to facilitate access for wheelchair users are still underway, events in the Grand Luxe Hall are made available virtually via high-quality livestream (see link above).

Alternative formats: Live ASL interpretation will be available.

Further details about accessibility at Western Front can be found here.

Acknowledgements

100 Years in the Making | This event is organized in support of  ECU 100, Emily Carr University of Art + Design’s centennial anniversary.  Presented with support from the Audain Foundation.

Organized by Libby Leshgold Gallery, Western Front, and the Department of Art History, Visual Art & Theory at the University of British Columbia, with additional support from the Audain Endowment for Curatorial Studies; the Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery; the Indigenous Initiatives Fund; Critical Image Forum; and the Curatorial Research Cluster at the University of British Columbia.

Courtesy of Skeena Reece.

Courtesy of Skeena Reece.
Portrait of Skeena Reece.

Portrait of Skeena Reece.

Western Front is a non-profit artist-run centre in Vancouver.

We acknowledge the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations as traditional owners of the land upon which Western Front stands.