Indigenous
Brilliance
A collective dedicated to celebrating Indigenous cis and trans women, trans men, Two-Spirit, and nonbinary storytellers.
Feminist Indigenous Resurgence
Intergenerational Knowledge Sharing
Honouring Our History
Collectivity and Collaboration
Community Engagement
Accessibility
Representation
Humility
Global Indigeneity
Sovereignty and Liberation in Art and Literature
Feminist Indigenous Resurgence Intergenerational Knowledge Sharing Honouring Our History Collectivity and Collaboration Community Engagement Accessibility Representation Humility Global Indigeneity Sovereignty and Liberation in Art and Literature
Our Story
The Indigenous Brilliance Collective (IBC) was established on the traditional, ancestral, unceded, and occupied territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Today, our collective members are grateful to operate from the stolen lands of many nations including the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh), Wet’suwet’en, and qiqéyt (Qayqayt) peoples. We recognize the long history of dispossession of each of these lands, and we honour the resistance and good work being done to bring these truths to the surface. We hope that this work we are doing together will honour and be a part of our own calls to reconciliation.
Indigenous Brilliance is a collective dedicated to celebrating Indigenous cis and trans women, trans men, Two-Spirit, and nonbinary storytellers. Founded in 2018, the collective was created to amplify the voices of Indigenous writers through a quarterly reading series. While we now only host an annual reading series, Indigenous Brilliance has continued to expand our programming by hosting both in-person and online events, readings, book clubs, workshops, and more, always with the goal to amplify Indigenous storytellers. Through it all, our programming remains centred around our core values of feminist Indigenous resurgence, community engagement, and liberation in art and literature. As our founding members said:
“We believe that this is an incredibly important time to be centering Indigenous stories and to be shining the spotlight on the brilliance that exists in our communities”.
We hope that our work as the Indigenous Brilliance will continue to reflect this belief as we come together with a shared vision of Indigenous resurgence: a resurgence that exists through the act of making space for ourselves and each other, through community building, and through the radical act of living and loving. We want to celebrate Indigenous stories and the different ways we think, share, and perform. We hope that our work will allow us to come together to stand behind those voices while we’re standing with each other.
Keep up to date with our events, workshops, podcast episodes and more on our website and Instagram page.
Our Collective Values
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As our founding members wrote, we center “resurgence that exists through the act of making space for ourselves and each other, through community building, and through the radical act of living and loving.”
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We value lineage and knowledge sharing across generations. The IB collective is currently in its “second generation” and we grow from the founding generation, their wisdom and work, in the work we do today.
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Read about the IB creation story, and get to know more about our first generation collective members (Patricia Massy, Jónína Kirton, Jessica Johns, jaye simpson, and Emily Dundas Oke). We are grateful to you all for setting us up to do this work, and hope to honour your work and story.
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Our work is rooted in a lineage of collectivity. Throughout our history, IB has been a collective of Indigenous and Black women/trans/2S/queer people who share the value of community care and event organizing in literature and the arts. We recognize that the systems we operate in are antithetical to slow work, collaboration, care, and collectivity, and so we try to resist.
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Based on the unceded, unsurrendered and stolen territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓ əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱ wú7mesh (Squamish), and sel̓íl̓witulh
(Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations; our work is rooted in celebrating, engaging, and centering women/trans/2S/queer people and communities across turtle island (online and offline). -
It is our intention to attend and adapt to access needs of the diverse communities and individuals we engage with. We acknowledge that although we stay open to accessibility feedback and requests, and do our best to create accessible and safer spaces, we are not able to meet all needs all the time. We hope to increase accessibility to the arts and literature community in the work that we do.
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The IB collective aims to engage, uplift, and prioritize marginalized voices within the Indigenous arts and literature community. This includes, but is not limited to honoring our women, trans, queer, 2S, disabled, mentally ill, and rural communities/kin.
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We acknowledge that we will always do our best to represent and support the diverse experiences of Indigeneity, and that we can/will always grow toward doing better. We welcome models of accountability required to keep us on a path of doing good work when we falter.
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Beyond the celebration of Indigenous women/trans/2S/queer stories, art, and creation from across Turtle Island, our collective celebrates the brilliance of our Black and Brown, POC kin from across the globe. Indigenous Brilliance celebrates the brilliance of POC who share collective ancestral ties to the lands and traditions of the place their ancestors are from, and/or from where they have been displaced. We recognize the specificity of place, and hope our platform(s) allow for complex understandings of how imperialism and colonialism manifests in anti-Indigeneity in various forms, and the resistance shown.
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We aim to uplift all those across the globe who share in the resistance of the colonization of their people, who embody the resurgence of their traditional cultures, and who create to strengthen their sovereignty and liberation.
Meet the Team
The Indigenous Brilliance Collective is composed of five mixed-Indigenous individuals who each bring diverse skills and unique experiences to the vital work we undertake together. Through the inherent nature of collective work, we collaborate closely and share these skills, ideas, and experiences. Additionally, Indigenous Brilliance operates under a mentorship model, where former collective members remain available for on-call support.
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Tara Preissl (She/Her) is Scottish, Austrian, Hungarian, Stó:lō, and has ancestral roots in Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Nation. She is a citizen of Leq’á:mel First Nation (Jasper/Johnson family) and was raised in a suburban environment on the stolen lands of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, xʷməθkʷəjˀəm, and səlilwətaɬ Nations. Since 2022, she has resided in the rural community of Smithers, BC on Gidimt'en clan territory of the Wet’suwet’en Nation.
Tara has experience as a fundraiser, grant writer, editor, board member, and community organizer in Indigenous and BIPOC-led collective and nonprofit spaces, including as a member of IBC since 2022. Motivated by the inspiring efforts of grassroots community movements and guided by her values and lived experience as a queer, chronically ill, Indigenous and settler woman, Tara remains on a continuous journey of learning what it means to create an equitable and just society for all.
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natasha gauthier is a mixed-heritage multidisciplinary artist living on the unceded lands of the qiqéyt, səl̓ilwətaɁɬ təməxʷ, sc̓əwaθenaɁɬ təməxʷ, sq̓əc̓iy̓aɁɬ təməxʷ, šxʷməθkʷəy̓əmaɁɬ təməxʷ, and S’ólh Téméxw First Nations (new westminster, bc). She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia, and her writing has appeared in The Malahat Review, The Capilano Review, CV2, and other literary magazines. Her comic book, Appointment Day, was part of a project between UBC and the BC Children's Hospital to bring awareness about neurodivergence into the operating room. Her work often explores her mixed-European and Indigenous heritage, gender roles, neurodivergence, and outsidership. She has been a member of the Indigenous Brilliance Collective since 2023.
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Andrea Tsugawa (she/they) is a Quechua-Mestizo-Japanese storyteller and visual artist with a love for horses and nature. Born in Peru, they weave a rich cultural heritage into their work and explore faith, culture, creativity, and social justice through their Indigenous Theological Studies and preparation for Ministry.
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Emma Jeffrey (she/her) is an artist and writer of Red River Métis and Irish-Canadian descent. Born and raised on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples, Emma has family ties to Treaty 1 territory, where she has traveled to spend time with her late great grandmother, and attend ceremony with her aunties, Elder Mae Louise Campbell and Jamie Goulet, with their organization Clan Mothers Healing Village.
A graduate of Capilano University’s Arts and Entertainment Management Program, Emma is passionate about art as community building. Alongside her work with Indigenous Brilliance, Emma has an extensive history of working within community arts programming. A musician and writer, Emma has worked with several Vancouver-based literary publications, including Room Magazine, Stir, and The Capilano Review.