Vines Art Festival

August 8-19, 2018 | vinesartfestival.com

Vines Art Festival, Vancouver’s unique multidisciplinary eco-arts festival, features over 70 performing and visual artists at parks throughout Vancouver: Trout Lake Park, Kitsilano Beach, CRAB Park, Granville Island, Roundhouse Community Centre, and Strathcona Park –  August 8th-19th, with the main event at Trout Lake Park on August 18th. In its fourth year, this 100% free, all-ages, event joins activism with the arts, not to mention it’s fun, interactive and celebratory!

Our featured artist duo is the Resilient Roots emerging artist, Jaz Whitford, spoken word performer from the Secwepemc Peoples, and Award Winning musician Sandy Scofield, who is Métis of Saulteaux and Cree Nations.

Resilient Roots is the heart of Vines Art Festival, bringing together emerging Indigenous artists who are also bearing their souls on the frontline grassroots movements, speaking out against the Pipelines and resource extraction, and combining art with activism – Artivism.

This year’s group is diverse and well spoken, with the emerging artists growing in their practice with the opportunity to work with an Indigenous mid-career artists to mentor them in creating a new, never-before-seen piece to be performed in the Finale of this summer’s festival on August 17th and 18th at Trout Lake Park!

The line up of the Resilient Roots program includes Alex Taylor McCallum with mentor Nikki Ermineskin, Jaye Simpson with mentor Edzi’u, Jaz Whitford with mentor Sandy Scofield, Mitcholos Touchie with mentor Jonina Kirton, Valeen Jules with mentor Rosemary Georgeson, and Crystal Smith with mentor Ronnie Dean Harris.

Our featured artist duo is the Resilient Roots emerging artist, Jaz Whitford, spoken word performer from the Secwepemc Peoples, and Award Winning musician Sandy Scofield, who is Métis of Saulteaux and Cree Nations.

Jaz is an anti-professional, working as a street musician, slam poet with a focus on decolonization and indigenous autonomy. they are a defender of the sacred and use their craft as a tool to decolonization and land sovereignty. they reside as a guest on unceded and ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-waututh), and sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) First Nation peoples, otherwise and colonially known as Vancouver. they and their fire are from the Secwepemc nation of the south central interior.

Jaz has been presented by Vines Art Festival, Vancouver Verses Festival, Spartacus Books, Savage Society, Vancouver Poetry Festival and Vancouver Public Library. Jaz also sang with Arcade Fire in the 2018 Juno’s. They are in a mentorship with Sandy Scofield, creating their unique bluesy sound and they look forward to releasing their first album soon.

Jaz in the recording session with mentor Sandy Scofield in preparation for their first album to be released at Vines Festival 2018.

Sandy Scofield is a multi-award winning composer, musician and singer. She has studied classical, jazz, African, Indonesian gamelan and electro-acoustic music. A Métis from the Saulteaux and Cree Nations, she hails from four generations of fiddlers, singers and musicians. Among her four recordings to date, she has won five Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards, a Canadian Folk Music Award, an Indian Summer Music Award (U.S.A.), a Western Canadian Music Award and received three consecutive Juno nominations. Over the years, she has mentored innumerable First Nations singers and songwriters in the way of rudimentary music theory, vocal techniques, songwriting craft and music-industry protocol. She has toured to festivals on five continents with the the International Rainforest World Music Festival in Borneo, 2011 making the fifth.  She has composed for dance, film, television and theatre, with the Aboriginal Welcoming Song for the 2010 Olympic Opening Ceremonies, the highlight to date.

Upon interview with the two featured artists, Jaz says

“The importance of this mentorship to me is upholding indigenous values and teaching methods through a one on one relationship and community based teaching style.”

Sandy Scofield highlights that the mentor relationship is that of historical cultural practices of passing down knowledge in generations, is elated to be sharing studio time in this mentorship, and is proud of how gifted Jaz already is!

Jaz in the recording session with mentor Sandy Scofield in preparation for their first album to be released at Vines Festival 2018.