Artist Talk | Sonny Assu

Sonny Assu (Ligwiłda'xw of the Kwakwaka'wakw Nations) was raised in North Delta, BC, over 250 km away from his home ancestral home on Vancouver Island. Having been raised as your everyday average suburbanite, it wasn't until he was eight years old that he uncovered his Kwakwaka'wakw heritage. Later in life, this discovery would be the conceptual focal point that helped launch his unique art practice. Assu explores multiple mediums and materials through a lens of pop culture, nostalgia, decolonialism, and Indigenous Futurism. Sonny often imbues his work with autobiographical, humorous, and political connotations to deal with the realities of being Indigenous in the colonial state of Canada.

Sonny received his BFA from Emily Carr University in 2002 and his MFA from Concordia University in 2017. After living and working in Vancouver and Tiohtiá:ke (Montreal), he has settled with his family in ƛam̓atax̌ʷ (Campbell River, BC).