Darylina Powderface

Darylina Powderface is a Stoney Nakoda and Blackfoot artist and storyteller whose work spans performance, video, and digital media. She began her artistic journey in 2012 at the Vancouver Institute of Media Arts (VanArts), studying Acting for Film & Television, and later earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Simon Fraser University in 2020. Rooted in Indigenous sovereignty, resistance, and survivance, her art explores self-identity and cultural connections beyond Western frameworks.

Darylina’s process is community-driven, having collaborated with Vancouver-based arts organizations such as Savage Society, Full Circle: First Nations Performance, Leaky Heaven Performance, and 2 Rivers Remix Society. Her work weaves together past, present, and future narratives, exemplified by her involvement in Spiderwoman Theater’s Misdemeanor Dream, an Indigenous reimagining of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. As a filmmaker and producer, she created a four-part docu-series on Indigenous food sovereignty, and her podcast Aiysiniiksin: Keeping the Tradition Alive (2021) shares traditional and contemporary Indigenous stories through conversations with artists, scholars, and relatives.

Darylina’s work has been recognized with a scholarship from the First Peoples’ Cultural Council in British Columbia. In 2022, she began a mentorship with filmmaker and visual artist Sky Hopinka in Brooklyn, NY, drawn to his exploration of language and storytelling.

Currently pursuing an MFA in Visual Arts at Columbia University, Darylina focuses on Moving Images. This fall, she was selected for Barnard College’s Movement Lab Artist-in-Residence program, where she will explore embodied blood memory through performance, film, and projection. Her research seeks to reveal the connections between memory, movement, and place/space, reframing colonial histories and uncovering layers of identity shaped by colonization.