Curry Cockle Chow Mein

A new performance by Skeena Reece Conceived as a space of gathering, testimony and witness, Curry Cockle Chow Mein (2026) draws from the legacies and practices of the potlatch, and Reece’s Tsimshian, Gitxsan, Cree, and Métis heritage. Reece’s performance takes its title from a recipe testifying to the varied influences in Indigenous cuisine, as well as the reality that while white-owned businesses refused to serve Indigenous people well into the 1970s and 80s, Chinese restaurants did not. Curry Cockle Chow Mein challenges ideas of authenticity, breathes life into culinary objects, and nods to the historical exchange of goods and people across colonial trade routes. Reece’s performance activates the shared table as a place to rest, honor elders, and create experiences that cannot be put into words. Food will be served during the performance. Accessibility The Grand Luxe Hall is located on the second floor of Western Front, which is accessed by a flight of twenty-six stairs. While plans for a full building upgrade to facilitate access for wheelchair users are still underway, events in the Grand Luxe Hall are made available virtually via high-quality livestream. Alternative formats: Live ASL interpretation will be available. Further details about accessibility at Western Front can be found here. Night follows night, and the two and three-stringed instruments talk to each other Curry Cockle Chow Mein is the opening event of Night follows night, and the two and three-stringed instruments talk to each other a multi-modal, multi-sensory assembly that moves across disciplinary and institutional boundaries. Taking inspiration from polyphonic collectives and embodied ritual practices, it brings together the resonant works of Jasleen Kaur, Christian Nyampeta & Kivu Ruhorahoza, Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa, Skeena Reece, and Constantina Zavitsanos. Drawing its title from a poem penned by Hafez Shirazi, Night follows night shifts attention away from representational discourse towards practices of embodiment, to accommodate emergent aesthetic forms in which song is lament, food is evidence, poetry is history, and objects speak. This assembly creates space for practices of trans-temporal interlocution, interruption, eruption and prophecy. It asks: how can we move beyond exhibitionary formats towards spaces of polyvocal collaboration, plural assembly, and fugitive sociality? Acknowledgements 100 Years in the Making | This event is organized in support of ECU 100, Emily Carr University of Art + Design’s centennial anniversary. Presented with support from the Audain Foundation. Organized by Libby Leshgold Gallery, Western Front, and the Department of Art History, Visual Art & Theory at the University of British Columbia, with additional support from the Audain Endowment for Curatorial Studies; Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery; The Indigenous Initiatives Fund; Critical Image Forum; and the Curatorial Research Cluster at the University of British Columbia.