Fireline Kinship by Taylor Baptiste of the Osoyoos Indian Band, and Syilx Okanagan Nation, is an exhibition that powerfully considers the deep interconnection between land, body, memory and visual language. Prompted by the urgent pressures of climate catastrophe in her home territory and the 2021 Nk’Mip Wildfire, Baptiste has cultivated a visual response that reflects on both the devastation of fire and its role as a natural force of renewal and transformation.

Drawing from Syilx storytelling, ceremony, and ways of knowing, Fireline Kinship considers how future landscapes, dreams, and teachings are intimately tied to the territory itself. The artworks in the exhibition honour the firefighters who risk their lives to protect homes, people, and the land—a courageous role of critical importance.

Fireline Kinship invites viewers to listen closely—to the land, to memory, and to the possibilities that arise from collective strength and care. It is a reflection on loss and renewal, fear and hope, and the enduring bonds that hold people together. The exhibition celebrates how resilience and solidarity come to emerge when communities face shared challenges.

Fireline Kinship marks the first solo presentation of all artworks within the exhibition, including several sculptures created by transforming firefighter equipment into regalia. These are presented alongside the premiere of a newly commissioned film work, wherein the sculptural regalia are activated through healing dance, ceremony and song upon the territory in which they were conceived.