She’s Changing How Indigenous Artists See Themselves

Walking into the Stínestin Gallery is like being welcomed into a home. The entrance is tucked around the back of a building in a neighbourhood on Kamloops’ North Shore.

Once you enter, you walk down a hall that sends you in the direction of a small room that looks like a kitchen with a large collapsible table and a wall-sized shelf full of art supplies, mugs and paper plates.

This is the room where workshops with names such as “Doing Ugly Things” and “Ribbon Garment” are held as well as storytelling circles and artist talks. Just from looking at photos of the events on social media, you can hear laughter.

Next to the workshop room is a gallery featuring 50 square feet of wall space that boasts a dizzying display of artwork in a range of mediums. The gallery creates a kind of perceptual distortion because of how much it holds despite its small size.

There’s a palpable soul to the space embodied by its creator, Shay Paul, the project director and gallery curator. She describes herself as an artist, organizer and facilitator and yet she’s redefining each one of those roles, not only for herself but for the community of artists around her.

The Stínestin Gallery was born out of the Indigenous Resurgence Project, which Paul launched in 2021 as a Kamloops-based arts collective that shares and showcases the work of Indigenous artists. She describes that at the heart of the Indigenous Resurgence Project is “a commitment to community, belonging and self-determined creativity.”

While the Indigenous Resurgence Project is about supporting local artists, the gallery is the showcase of their work.

Shay Paul, at left, with Elder Joanne Brown, at right. Brown is a member of the Cheslatta Carrier Nation, L’silu clan who shared opening remarks at the Trout Children exhibition opening on March 13, 2026.

Photo by Amira Alam.

A recent showcase was an exhibition that ran from March to May 2026 called Trout Children . It brought together 10 Indigenous students and alumni from Thompson Rivers University whose work centred around art as storytelling. The artworks ranged from vibrant oil paintings to rawhide and drum paintings, photographs and intricate beadwork.

“Some people don’t even realize that they’re really walking into a gallery at first,” Paul said, referring to the accessible, lived-in sensibility of the place. “It’s demystifying the professional arts and it’s also making it more tangible and obtainable to the general public.”

The recent Trout Children exhibition at the Stínestin Gallery featured a vibrant range of artwork including this painted drum by Haisla artist Shoshana Wilson.

Photo by Amira Alam.

The reconciliation committee of the Kamloops United Church made an in-kind donation to bring the Stínestin Gallery space to life. Paul suspects that in a couple of years, she will run out of room. Growth is certainly where things are going.

We sat down together this spring to discuss the community she’s helping to build, the need for artists to feel a sense of belonging and what drives her forward.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The Tyee: How do you describe the Indigenous Resurgence Project?

Shay Paul: I describe this project as an artist-led, artist-organized collective for artists. At the root, that is very much what this project is, not only to me, but to the people who engage in activities and programing and exhibitions. It’s a space to come together and to socialize and make connections and friendships and learn from one another and grow together.

Why is that so important to you?

When I talk with people and I talk about what it is that they want to see in the community or how they think there are gaps that they’re experiencing or challenges that they’re facing, it all kind of wraps back around to belonging and place and how do you connect with other people?

That is the No. 1 question with all the artists that I work with. Where do I belong and who do I belong with, especially in the Kamloops area?

I find that there’s a very interesting identity in Kamloops, and there’s a lot of different perspectives and a lot of politics around that. We have the presence of Tk’emlups here and that is a very prominent presence and as it should be, and I’m a Tk’emlups member, I’m proud of that as well.

But when we look at the overall identity of Kamloops, it’s very multicultural because of Thompson Rivers University. We are very privileged to have such a vibrant cultural tapestry here in Kamloops and that also extends to Indigenous folks as well.

The urban Indigenous population in Kamloops is so vast, and it actually makes up a majority of the Indigenous people who are self-identifying in the area. The majority of them are urban from other areas or other Nations.

So when we think about that and this project and all of the other intricacies that make up Kamloops and the people who live in it, how do you find connection when you feel disconnected in the community, in the city?

Where do you l…