On March 5, 2026, the CMS Migration & Indigeneity research group and CMS staff joined a film screening of So Surreal: Behind the Masks, part of the Coastal Dance Festival 2026, at the Museum of Anthropology (MOA).
The first part of the event featured a dialogue on rethinking and rebuilding fragmented family legacies. The conversation focused on the stories behind one particular mask from the Kwakwakaβwakw (pronunciation: KWOK-wok-ya-wokw). Dr. Sarah Hunt shared that searching for the stories of a mask is a reconnection with nature and the ancestors of the Kwakwakaβwakw. It is also a key to rethinking Kwakwakaβwakw history from a femaleβs perspective. The discussion called for a re-examination of gender and history. By bringing a feminist approach to Indigenous stories, Dr. Hunt invited the audience to ask what is missing from them. In many stories, women have been defined by external forces, with their names often overlooked in the narratives. Reintroducing gender into Indigenous knowledge and storytelling helps build a different, more holistic understanding of Indigenous narratives.
Kwakwakaβwakw masks from Willie Seaweed (Hilamas), Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver
Through Indigenous narratives, the discussion also flowed to thinking about how the world is ordered. For example, while British law sought to conquer and define the ocean, Indigenous cultures recognized the deep bindings of their relations with nature and the inherent responsibilities to care for the water. This discussion opened a window for audiences to reimagine our relations with the water, the land, and the sky through a worldview outside the dominant power.
As the event shifted to the screening of So Surreal: Behind the Masks, directed by Cree filmmaker Neil Diamond, attention turned to the histories of ceremonial masks belonging to the Yupβik people (Alaska) and the Kwakwakaβwakw people (Northwest Coast) taken from their homelands, and the long, uncertain journey to trace and bring them back. The film movingly captured the trauma of colonial disruption: religious and legal bans that severed masks from their communities, scattering them across the world to museums and antique shops. Described as “tangible objects of the intangible,” these masks captivated some of the most celebrated Surrealist artists and writers. Yet their value in those circles was defined by Western eyes, not by the cultural and spiritual meaning they were always intended to carry. Colonialism had deliberately severed that meaning.
The film made clear that masks are far more than objects. Like a diaspora, they carry spirit, memory, and living connections to culture, history, and the natural world. And yet, there is no legal obligation to return them or even to respond to requests for their rematriation/repatriation. For many Indigenous people today, tracing these masks has become a form of reclamation, a way to deepen understanding of their own histories and restore bonds with ancestors long separated from them.
About the Migration & Indigeneity Research Group
The Migration & Indigeneity research group is an interdisciplinary group of migration scholars and students conducting research about transnational migration and exploring the intersection of migration and Indigeneity. This group has also been focusing on developing better relationships with local Indigenous communities, lands, and water to become better educators and researchers as settlers on Indigenous lands. It is coordinated by Ayaka Yoshimizu.
