This fall, Richmond Art Gallery will present a moving solo exhibition by Manuel Axel Strain, marking their official debut with the gallery. Titled xʷən̓iwən ce:p kʷθəθ nəw̓eyəł (Remember your teachings), the show runs from September 13 to November 9 and features a powerful new installation that honours the Coast Salish longhouse while inviting viewers to confront and reconsider the dominant colonial structures embedded in Canadian society.
A 2-Spirit artist of Musqueam, Simpcw, and Syilx descent, Strain centres Indigenous ways of knowing in their practice, drawing from the wisdom of family, community, and ancestral memory. The longhouse—a traditional cedar-plank structure once found all along the coast—becomes the heart of the exhibition, celebrated not just as architecture, but as a spiritual and philosophical framework for collectivism, care, and cultural continuity.
Curator Zoë Chan describes the exhibition as a profound exploration of relational values, a continuation of the gallery’s earlier work with Strain during the 2020 Capture Photography Festival. This new presentation expands their practice through multimedia works, including painting, sculpture, and video, all deeply informed by lived experience and intergenerational teachings.
Visitors can engage directly with the artist through a rich lineup of public programs. Events include a collaborative drawing session during Culture Days (Sept. 21), a special Mandarin-language tour (Sept. 27), an interactive youth night (Oct. 17), and a virtual artist salon (Oct. 22). Each gathering invites the community to reflect, connect, and co-create—echoing the values at the heart of the longhouse itself.
Remember your teachings is not just an exhibition—it is a call to presence, to ancestral memory, and to a future shaped by values rooted in care, resistance, and renewal. —Vita Daily
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