Indigenous arts including literature, music, and film will be on display as the inaugural Nighthawk Arts Festival hosts events across the Downtown Eastside during the Labour Day long weekend.

The festival will incorporate a poetry event, a female hip-hop showcase, a concert featuring indigenous female vocalists, short-film screenings, and a daylong event in CRAB Park on Sunday (August 31) that will include traditional drummers and a local stop on a 10,000-kilometre totem-pole journey.

“We’re a small team who just wanted to be able to create space, not only for people to consume art, but for indigenous artists to have a stage to share their stories and to share their work, and to connect with the people,” Ronnie Dean Harris, one of the festival organizers, told the Straight by phone.

Harris, aka Ostwelve, said there’s a “huge gap” when it comes to indigenous arts festivals in the city.

“I think for the most part when we deal with festivals, there’s one Native group that does the opening, and then that’s it, and so it’s like this very museumlike tokenism that happens in the festival scene,” he said.

The Nighthawk Arts Festival, which Harris said started with a vision from vocalist and fellow organizer Dalannah Gail Bowen more than two years ago, aims to provide not just a showcase for indigenous arts, but a gathering space in the city.

“We need something that brings people together and creates a sense of community, with not just the indigenous folks, but with people that live in the Downtown Eastside, Gastown, and then the waterfront area,” he said.

Events will take place from August 28 to September 1 at venues including the Carnegie Community Centre, CRAB Park, Fortune Sound Club, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden, and Unit/Pitt gallery.

The festival is produced by the Downtown Eastside Centre for the Arts, which is hoping to make it an annual event. “We really want to make this work and introduce ourselves to the community and bring people together,” Harris said.

Find more information at the Nighthawk Festival Facebook page.