Land Acknowledgment

Seeyu Studios respectfully acknowledges that our work takes place on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the scəw̓aθən (Tsawwassen), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Semiahmoo, Kwantlen, Katzie, Kwikwetlem (kʷikʷəƛəm), Qayqayt First Nations, and other Coast Salish Peoples. We thank these First Nations for having cared for these lands and waters since time out of mind, and we extend our appreciation for the opportunity to live, work, learn, create, and share spaces as well as stories during our time here.

This territory acknowledgment is also a reminder of the past discriminatory practices that have had a lasting legacy and continue to create barriers for Indigenous peoples and other marginalized groups in Canada today. We wish to educate ourselves and others to support Coast Salish protocol (a term Indigenous peoples have adapted to use in external reference to the understanding of their expectations and desires) to guide our actions in helping disrupt and dismantle the effects of colonialism beyond this acknowledgement.

Here's what that compels us to do in our efforts to prioritize Coast Salish protocol:

• Ask how we can develop relationships with peoples whose territory we live on in the modern Canadian geopolitical landscape.
• Consider what our agency is doing beyond acknowledging the territory where we live, work, or hold our activities and events.
• Learn how to recognize, redress and give weight to the history, experiences, and identities that have been suppressed.
• Identify opportunities in our work, communities, and networks to encourage others to learn about the need for truth and reconciliation.
• Stay curious about creating healthy communities.
• Build upon relationships, conversations and types of work that has spirit in it.
• Help seek out avenues for those, whose voices have yet to be heard, to speak up without judgment.
• Make spirited work that will move people or create positive change.
• Bring only goodness into our work and what we leave behind.
• Spark and engage in open conversations about what we're not doing, what is not happening, or what is not being done to create substantive changes for marginalized individuals.
• Reflect upon actions we as individuals and as a collective can take to do deeper work toward reconciliation.

We invite you to join us in learning more about why we acknowledge the land we stand on, and the importance of reconciliation rhetoric by visiting the following resources:

• UNDERSTANDING WHY WE ACKNOWLEDGE TERRITORY
• SIGNIFICANCE OF ACKNOWLEDGING THE INDIGENOUS LAND WE STAND ON
• LISSA Land Acknowledgement, Template for Personalization, Definitions, and Speaker Protocol
• MAKING COAST SALISH TERRITORIAL ACKNOWLEDGMENTS MATTER‍
• ABOUT THE NATIONAL CENTRE FOR TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION (NCTR)