We invite friends, lovers, family, and all who had the privilege of knowing Warren to attend and contribute to his Celebration of Life, in ways that speak to them and their relationship to Warren. If you’d like to share words (spoken or written), art, photographs, videos, or to perform in his honour, and in a format of your choice, please let us know (
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Warren Ralph Nathan Arcand (Oct. 31 1966 - Mar. 7 2025)
Originating from Muskeg Lake and Big River Cree Nations in Saskatchewan, Warren lived in many places from Vancouver to Toronto, Peterborough, Prince Albert, Victoria and with many stops in between, but considered Galiano his home, on and off, for over 25 years since relocating to the island to join the crew of the Gulf Islands Film and Television School. Many will remember him from working at local businesses such as The Hummingbird Pub, The Galiano Inn and Spa, Galiano Recycling, and lastly at Babes in the Woods where his wit and kindness left an imprint on locals and tourists alike. But Warren was more than a local staple riding his bike to go grab a beer, or stop at a bench to read (likely the work of Jacques Derrida). Warren Arcand was a performance artist, writer, educator, and musician. His practice focused on performance art, film and video, theatre, and text-based work. He previously taught performance art at the Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design, and was the artistic director of the Centre for Indigenous Theatre, Toronto. Warren also ran a video post production company, where he worked on or was associated with dozens of projects, from loops for installations to feature length documentaries; and has worked in broadcast television. Some of his past performance pieces include Six Gun Sufi (cowboy ballads and sexdeath mysticism); Surgery (hermaphrodism as a metaphor for Abo identity); Flamingo Killer (a ‘based-on-a-true-story’ performance featuring a suburban kid and his grisly abreaction to behaviour modifying drugs); and Superchannel (audience members received wireless headsets giving them access to 7 channels of selectable audio where they could mix their own ‘soundtrack’ for Warren’s simple performance task of ‘making eye contact’). An important formative influence on his life and work had been his association with the artistic communities surrounding the Western Front and Grunt Gallery, in Vancouver. In the last 5 years, he wrote a few short books revisiting and dissecting some of his performance art pieces, one of which centered the piece Nosferanook (2008). On Galiano, Warren took part in many open mics, loved to participate at karaoke, and made people dance to wild mixes of unfinished songs under his moniker OCDJ at various parties during this last decade.
Warren was a father to Shane Weston Abbott Arcan, who tragically passed away at the age of 24, 8 days prior to his own passing. Warren passed away Friday, March 7th 2025 at 7:15am in Victoria after a short but intense battle with metastatic pancreatic cancer, at the age of 58. He will be forever remembered as an incredibly intelligent, witty, thoughtful, insightful, gentle man who could also crack the worst of dad jokes, and jump from topic to topic without warning.
Also check out other Arts events in Galiano Island, Entertainment events in Galiano Island, Music events in Galiano Island.
