Indigenous youth reconnect to culture and land through artist residency

By Jolene Banning

FORT WILLIAM FIRST NATION—Quill Peters, Anishinaabe-kwe from Lac des Mille Lacs First Nation, Ontario, is getting ready to embark on her fourth artist in residency program. She is a self-taught emerging artist that comes from a long line of artists including her father, Ron Peters, a painter and carver.

Quill’s medium is acrylic paint. Her work reflects how the body is a site of our homelands and our ancestors.  She is a recent graduate of the Indigenous Governance Program from the University of Victoria British Columbia, and has taught at Confederation College.

Quill recently relocated to Thunder Bay from the west coast to connect with family. The people of Lac des Mille Lacs First Nation have been forced to abandon their homelands due to flooding. The last flooding occurred in the 1950’s with the building of a dam. This flooding has made it difficult for community members to have a sense of place and belonging because they are removed and displaced from their homelands. They have since situated themselves in other communities throughout Canada and the United States.

Quill’s upcoming residency program will be about six weeks in length, and will engage six Indigenous youth. The first three residencies with the Art Gallery of Ontario were with urban Indigenous youth. The program looked at the barriers and struggles urban Indigenous youth faced from not feeling Indigenous enough because of surroundings, to teachings that your body is your homeland and nation, to self-love. What makes this next residency different from her last three is that this one will be land-based.

When asked what the fourth residency means to her personally, Quill said, “To have the residents come to recognize themselves as valuable, worthy and loved, not just as artists but as future community leaders”.

The goal is for the residence to learn art is governance. Dr. Kiera Ladner, a Cree political scientist, has defined governance as “how best to live together”. In this sense, honorable governance is in part about making good decisions, based on accountability to community, land, and nation. In our Anishinaabe governance systems, everyone is equal and everyone contributes. And when I say everyone, I’m not just speaking about the people; I’m also talking about the land, the air, the water, and the animals. This is what makes Quill’s program unique. She is creating a safe space dedicated directly to youth to learn and talk about the world they live in.

Her programming will look at how each artist is connected to each other, how they see each other through a colonial view, how that view has impacted their lives, their land, their art. It will be done by having real, frank discussions where they can choose to share or not. Usually, by the end of the program, everyone is sharing and thinking critically about the world in which they live in and how they will leave their imprint.

Alesha Solomon, from Fort Albany, was both excited and nervous when she got word that she was one of the few selected for the residency program. As luck would have it, another student dropped out at the last minute and Alesha filled her spot. She was home in Fort Albany at the time – a two-day trip from Toronto – but the whole community came together to get her back to the city to take part in the residency program.

“I loved art before applying,” said Solomon. “I didn’t believe I was that good, but I put myself out there. I had a gut feeling it was all going to work out.”

While in the program, she felt supported by Quill and it motivated the entire group to come together.

Alesha plans to attend the Ontario College of Art and Design University.

A few highlights of the land-based activities include ricing, collecting spruce root, and water ceremony.

The artists will travel to Couchiching First Nation to learn about harvesting manoomin, wild rice, how food connects the people to the land and their history, and the power relationships with food access. Another activity will be collecting spruce root from the traditional territory of Fort William First Nation. It’s a beautiful place with a mossy floor, and tall spruce all around. The roots are used for their strength and they hold up well even when wet. Roots are used in baskets, birch bark canoes, smokehouses and fish traps. Traditionally, women collected the roots. All activities will have a ceremony and connection to the land. The water ceremony will be led by Quill’s family in Treaty 3 area. Women are the keepers of water knowledge. They are leading the way to bring about change, to break the unequal power relationships over water. Our view of the water is that it is life. The need for water is universal. It needs to be respected and used in a way for sustainability for future generations.

The program ends with a road trip to Guelph, Ontario, where the artists will display their finished pieces at the Art Gallery of Guelph. While there, the artists will learn what goes into putting on an exhibit, yet also maintain autonomy in the institute. They may also get an additional showing at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery.

Quill will meet with various potential partners to seek out youth. She will visit places like Dennis Franklin Cromarty High School, Dilico Child and Family Services, and the Regional Multicultural Youth Council in Thunder Bay. She will also reach out to youth directly through social media.

“A successful residency means that Indigenous youth have more tools to understand and resist settler colonialism, have reclaimed land-based creative practices that they can pass on to their communities,” says Quill.

When we know we come from a resilient past, with the strength of our ancestors within us, the future is ours.