Discussion in English and French with simultaneous interpretation.

This fourth and last Gákte-Quipo e-meeting will offer you a chance to meet Teko Wayana artist Ti’iwan Couchili and Ts’msyen artist Mangyepsa Gyipaayg-Kandi McGilton. They are invited to discuss how important is the preservation of tradition-based skills and knowledge in their creative work. This talk is part of a cycle that takes place virtually in the Time to Come Together, the last part of the exhibition "Environmental Injustice - Indigenous People's Alternatives". Just as the artwork Gákte-Quipo ties together the individual stories of indigenous peoples’ struggles to gain control over their lands and territories, these encounters will forge connexions between the artists and the audiences interested in hearing their stories.

To follow this event live on zoom click HERE

TI’IWAN COUCHILI (born in 1972) is a visual artist from Guyana. The daughter and granddaughter of shamans from the Teko and Wayana traditions ; her childhood on the banks of the Tampok River, in south-west French Guyana, was nurtured by the elders’ tales. Today she is the first Teko woman wood painter. In her works, she finds inspiration in her culture’s traditional graphic arts : basket work, beadwork, body painting and pottery patterns. Ti’iwan Couchili’s technique uses the paint made from the coloured earths of “hut skies”. Her work denounces social and ecological disturbances endured by Amerindian communities in Guyana, first and foremost water pollution and the contamination of animals and people by very high levels of mercury, in the form of a series of frescoes of which the best known is entitled “Imprégnation Mercurielle”. MANGYEPSA

GYIPAAYG-KANDI McGILTON (born in 1985) is a Ts’msyen artist and basket weaver born and living in Metlakatla, in south-east Alaska. Her self-taught textile work with beads combines tradition and modernity. Kandi also practices the Ts’msyen style basket work of Annette Island using local plant species. She is an advanced learner of the Sm’algyax language, that she has learned from Sarah Booth and Theresa Lowther. With David R. Boxley and Gavin Hudson, she co-founded the Haayk Foundation, a non-profit organization whose mission is to revitalize the Sm’algyax language, which includes a bilingual basketry programme in Sm’algyax and English