Sussan Yanez

Sussan Yáñez is a mother, artist and cultural facilitator of mixed Mapuche, Andean, German, Spanish and English ancestries and a grateful guest on the unceded territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, səlil̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ and xwməθkwəy̓əm territories.Sussan has received training from Wetsuweten Community Developper Jolene Andrew and (hc)PhD Squamish and Stolo Multidisciplinary Artist Cease Wyss through the Resurfacing History Project into cultural facilitation and recently worked as the Operations Manager for the Indigenous Matriarchs for Media Lab (www.im4lab.com) which offers state-of-the-art techniques and technologies to Indigenous artists for XR/AR/VR environments and characters.She currently supports the Centre for Migration Studies at UBC as a Cultural Facilitator on two research project called ‘Belonging on Unceded Territories’ and ‘Building Relations through Stories’ in supporting respectful relations with Indigenous peoples of the lands and developing further projects based on relational reciprocities. Sussan has been working on independent community research with the Wixárika nation on their laws, traditions and protocols regarding responsibilities associated with holding ceremony and carrying medicines. She was recently selected among the Response: Resonance 2022 Indigenous cohort at the Polygon Art Gallery where she produced and screened a short documentary called ‘the land teaches us our ceremonies, not the laboratory’ on the effects of the psychedelic movement framed as cultural genocides.