Water = Life: Workshop at Kitigan Zibi Kikinamadinan School

Last Friday, November 4th, the InterconnectedWatershed project headed to Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation (confluence of the Désert + Gatineau Rivers). I was grateful to be able to spend time with Water and Youth from the area I consider to be my home region.

What an honour to hear the Youth’s water stories, to offer creative space for their voices and to the Water through drawing and dialogue.

My Mary Poppins car was loaded with hydrological maps of the region, cyanotype (sun print) supplies; dried aquatic plants of the Gatineaus; window paints; cedar tiles and a burning kit to mark upon the wood the memory lines of the rivers we know and love.

The tiles will be brought along with me over the next year throughout the region as nomadic workshop and commemorative art installation made to acknowledge the waters and their influence in our lives; to raise awareness of issues that affect water quality and its future; and to create an opportunity for broad community-based dialogue on issues affecting water.

This is an on-growing project that will culminate in a water-based interdisciplinary art show at the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum in March 2018. Soon, I’ll be heading South to Ottawa and West to Almonte.

A breath of this beauty before the workshop…w/ Gatineau/Te-nagàdino-zìbi

Postscript:

As I was preparing this post last night, the sounds of US election results and the smell of cedar smoke filled my room as I burned drawings into the wooden tiles, committing memory line to wood. As I woke this morning to discover Trump had won, I did not have many words, mostly just questions. In the face of such a racist, misogynist, and xenophobic world leader, what else is possible except to return to what’s in my own face (or what’s not in my face) on a daily basis? Can I continue to renew my focus on dismantling racism, ignorance and apathy in my own backyard (and region)….every day? It can be easy to forget when not the minority. What’s in front of each one of us varies. For me, it’s art, and teaching. But we’re all in this together. I think that needs to be remembered.