Sierra is an Indigiqueer urban and environmental designer by day, artist, dancer and choreographer by night. Sierra is from the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation) and is also Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw/Musga̱mgw Dzawada̱’enuxw, Łingít (Tlingit), and Magyar/Hungarian. Sierra’s ancestral Kwak̓wala name, K̓esugwilakw, means “Creator” or “Creative One” or “One Who Carves Wealth/the Supernatural into the World”. K̓esugwilakw comes from a family of artists and entrepreneurs, growing up in their ancestral North-West and Coast Salish cultures. K̓esugwilakw holds a Masters of Science in Sustainable Urbanism from the Bartlett School of City Planning from University College London, a Bachelors in Environmental Design from the University of British Columbia’s School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture and 10+ years of experience performing professionally. This has made them as salty as the Salish sea, critiquing colonialism Sierra focuses on decolonization through queering design and dance. Combining Indigenous design and research methodologies, oral history, primary archival research, Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), and embodied knowledge to develop uniquely queer, environmental, urban design and choreographed sovereign solutions. Choreographing space, working with concepts of shapeshifting, time, transformation, origin and healing. K̓esugwilakw’s forms of “embodied storytelling” works to challenge their audiences to question what is traditional and what is contemporary?
.jpeg)
%20(1)%20(1).png)
.png)
.jpg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpg)
