Celebrating Indigenous heritage at the Come Toward the Fire festival

Isabella Falsetti / The Ubyssey

September 17 and 18 was the first ʔəmi̓ ce:pxwiwəl (Come Toward the Fire) Festival held in collaboration between the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts and Musqueam. The festival featured local artists, vendors, and performers as a celebration of Indigenous pride.

A festivalgoer makes a fist in solidarity as Miss Christie Lee, Lady Sinncere and DJ A-SLAM perform “Can’t Kill Me,” a rap dedicated to missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. Isabella Falsetti / The Ubyssey

Hugo Alejandro, an artist from northern Mexico, takes inspiration from his ancestry to create designs for his custom clothing and jewelry brand, RBRTH Official. Isabella Falsetti / The Ubyssey

Isabella Falsetti / The Ubyssey

Cliff Atleo, an SFU professor with Nuu-Chah-Nulth/Tsimshian heritage, is the owner and founder of Iron Dog Books. The bookstore started as a mobile bookshop in 2017 — the first of its kind in Vancouver — then expanded to a brick and mortar location in the Hastings-Sunrise neighbourhood in 2019.

Isabella Falsetti / The Ubyssey

“We’re from the prairies and seeing some of our culture represented here feels really good,” says Casey Desjarlais, founder of Decolonial Clothing. “As Indigenous peoples we face so much of the same struggles, but we’re all from different territories and lands and coming here to celebrate ourselves — it feels good. It feels like unity.”

Members of Indigenous Enterprise, a troupe of dancers from Canada and the US, perform on stage. Isabella Falsetti / The Ubyssey

Many festival attendees listened to the concert on the lawn accompanied by their canine friends. Isabella Falsetti / The Ubyssey