Break My Body, Hold My Bones

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Award Recipient

Opus Art Supplies Graduation Award MFA – Honourable Mention

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Isabella Dagnino

My research takes place in my hometown, the rural community of Hope, B.C.. situated on the traditional territory of  Chawathil First Nation and the Tiyt Tribe. The Tiyt Tribes of the Stó:lō territory extend along the boundaries down both sides of the Fraser River. 

Throughout my time at Emily Carr University of Arts + Design I have engaged with many forms of research, using my lens to look at the complex history of Hope and its settler identity that is so deeply tethered to forms of extraction colonialism and white supremacy. Using anti-colonial and Indigenous/Intersectional Feminist theory as well as forms of lived experience rooted in coming of age and punk ethos to unpack the questions; “How does extraction colonialism impact community? and How do we form kinship in spite of embedded forms of white supremacy?” Through experimental filmmaking and analog photography, I work in a coming-of-age framework to examine what it means to grow up in a place so tethered to active forms of extraction and colonial narratives.