Building the visual language with Anuximana

The primary touchstone of the visual language came through my collaboration with Nuxalk artist and carpenter Anuximana–Jade Hanuse.

The most immediate example is Jade’s image of S7ayulh, the Thunder Being, which fills the sliding glass doors at the entrance. It announces very quickly that the exhibition is entering a particular visual and cultural world, and that the imagery visitors encounter has an author and a relationship to the material around it.

Jade created nine original illustrations for the nine sections of the exhibition, each using Nuxalk imagery specific to the ideas and stories being presented. Her illustrations became recurring visual anchors throughout the gallery: sometimes small and embedded in the labels, sometimes occupying an entire wall or case, and at the entrance on a completely different scale.

The palette came directly from colours we saw in Nuxalk Territory: muted greens, blue-greys and darker tones from the land and water. Woodgrain runs through the casework too, tying the space back to carving, cedar and the forested landscape.

The labels are simple and direct. I used a bold, rounded condensed typeface for titles, with a geometric sans serif for subtitles and body text. Large areas of colour and plenty of space keep the graphics from competing with the objects. Some sections carry a lot of information and others are much quieter, but the same visual language holds everything together as the exhibition moves through history, law, family, land, ceremony and contemporary life.

I worked with Nuxalk knowledge-keeper Qwaxw—Spencer Siwallace to create the map of Nuxalk Territory. Maps carry political and historical meaning, especially when they define land and boundaries, so it was important that this one came directly from Nuxalk knowledge rather than from outside books or academic sources. It was another way of keeping Nuxalk voices at the centre of the exhibition.

The territory was one of the first things visitors encountered spatially. The map sat directly opposite beautiful footage of the flight into Bella Coola along the Bella Coola River, grounding the exhibition in place from the beginning. Photographs of contemporary community life carried that connection through the rest of the gallery.