Sydney Pickering is from the Lil’wat Nation and based in British Columbia. For her Emerging Artist Scholarship, Sydney continued her ongoing mentorship with Mara Cur to practice hide tanning and created a short film titled Distance and an accompanying hide to be projected on.
Website: sydneyp.ca
Instagram: @sydneyfrances.p
Distance
film, brain tanned deer hide, sinew, acrylic paint, sinew, drift wood, 40x60in, photography credit: Dallas Tremblay
Distance (detail)
film, brain tanned deer hide, sinew, acrylic paint, sinew, drift wood, 40x60in, photography credit: Dallas Tremblay
“Distance is about reflecting on the past to give the possibility to move forward in the future. It is thinking through the histories of displacement forced upon First Nations within the Vancouver area, histories that are directly tied to my family and continue to affect us today. Distance is not only an interpretation of physical distance but also distance in time and memory. The memories of these moments live within the land, our bodies and spirit. The water, the land and its beings are witnesses to these histories and their bodies effected just as much as ours from these colonial actions. Distance is a personal interpretation of the past, an imagining and sentiment to what it must have felt to have to live through these forcible acts of genocide and to hold and acknowledge these people I hold dear and to heal.”
– Sydney Pickering
