A person stands in front of Skeena Reece's The Time it Takes
Skeena Reece, The Time it Takes, 2017, cradleboard, moss bag and moss. Collection of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, University of British Columbia. Purchased with support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Morris and Helen Belkin Foundation, 2018.

Skeena Reece creates “a place to rest for a moment”

Skeena Reece is one of the artists featured in An apology, a pill, a ritual, a resistance. Reece is a Tsimshian/Gitksan and Cree artist based on the West Coast of British Columbia. Her work The Time it Takes consists of an adult-sized moss bag, a traditional pouch for carrying babies. The artist describes it as “a place to rest for a moment, evoking a feeling of longing, not a feeling of loss. Being wrapped gives a calming feeling that elicits hope for the future, and is a way to hold people up.” The artwork began as a performance and evolved into this installation. It also became a video and series of photographs that document 12 individuals wrapped in the moss bag who influenced the artist and the art community in Vancouver. The work offers viewers the opportunity to consider how Indigenous forms of care can be scaled up from that which is provided to vulnerable infants to caring for our society as a whole.   

A detail shot of the embroidery featured in Skeena Reece's The Time it Takes
Skeena Reece, The Time it Takes (detail), Remai Modern, 2021. Photo Blaine Campbell
Skeena Reece - The Time it Takes
Skeena Reece, The Time it Takes, Installation view, Remai Modern, 2021. Photo Blaine Campbell
A close up of an artwork by Skeena Reece. Moss is on the floor, in a half-circle line against the wall of a gallery.
Skeena Reece, The Time it Takes (detail), Remai Modern, 2021. Photo Blaine Campbell