Transformed Woman Haudenosaunee artist Aiyyana Maracle wonders in her essay Performance Art and the Native artist: An rEvolutionary Mix?, “As intriguing as this past decade of Native performance art has been to be part of, I’m quite looking forward to the next decade…Know anybody that wants to join up?” 

Artists and curators Tania Willard and Dana Claxton—using grunt gallery’s archive and their history of collaboration with the organization as an initial point of inquiry—will curate a new performance by Vance Wright, grunt gallery’s 2026 curatorial fellow.

Considering themes of sacred sexuality, decolonial kink, trust, consent, the lineage of Indigenous performance art, and the body and the land as archive, Wright uses a series of actions, natural materials, oration, and sound, to ground this performance work in Indigenous queer ways of being.

grunt gallery is an artist-run centre, founded in 1984 on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations (Vancouver, Canada). grunt gallery has hosted historic festivals and individual presentations of Indigenous performance since the early 90s, many of which were organized by Aiyyana Maracle. The program offers performances, exhibitions, special projects, and public programming with a focus on practices and perspectives that question established values in contemporary art production.