Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists collaborate in reconciliation art project Call to Action #83
By Kelly Anne Smith
SIMCOE COUNTY— The reconciliation art project called Call to Action #83 has begun to enter the Northern Door.
After the 2015 presentation of the Truth and Reconciliation report, educator and multi-mode artist Mary-Lou Meiers and 15 other artists responded to Call to Action #83. Call #83 requests Canada Council for the Arts to support Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists coming together to create works that inspire reconciliation in Canada.
The group did not receive funding but still moved forward with the reconciliation art project. Meiers listened to former senator Murray Sinclair as he discussed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Canada’s 94 Calls to Action as chairman.
Meiers says the question, “As an individual artist, where are you now in your personal reconciliation process?”, was posed and recalls Murray Sinclair’s words.
“This has to be done in an equal way. We need to elevate the worldview to an equal status of the European.”
Eight Indigenous and eight non-Indigenous Simcoe County artists shared stories and learned through teachings to work together on a linked series of artworks. Meiers chose a method by Austin Clarkson and the Milkweed Collective. A non-Indigenous artist would create an image that would be passed to an Indigenous artist to contemplate before creating their own art.
“As the curator and also one of the artists, I decided we would start out with a non-Indigenous person because it was the settler arrival that created the great disturbance to that which was already present and thriving on Turtle Island.”
Meiers says artists had 14 days to create their image.
“You didn’t have to have it completely finished but you had to have enough to show it to the recipient, have a conservation with them, talk about what you learned, and where you are at. And of course, that’s how people begin friendships.”
The process is very important with Knowledge Keepers and/or Elders taking part says Meiers.
“To supervise us, so that when we come to creative blocks or spirit blocks, we’ll have someone we can sit and chat with either from our own cultural view or from the opposite.”
Meiers explains that Project Elder Jeff Monague of Beausoleil First Nation gifted a white tail feather of the last resident eagle of Springwater Park to be the Truth and Reconciliation Call to Action 83 Eagle Feather.
“The Eagle Feather was the first part of the medicine bundle that moved from artist to artist to artist; every time the artwork changed hands, the bundle also changed. They could add something small but not take anything out, unless it was returned. They could use the Eagle Feather for inspiration. And there was cedar from the park. There was smudge offered in a smudge bowl. That Eagle Feather witnessed the entire process.”
Meiers says in the past three rounds when starting off, all the artists were asked to have a common understanding of knowledge.
“They were all invited to read the (Truth and Reconciliation Commission) summary report and the Calls to Action; to read the Mishomis Book; to read Eddie Banai’s Anishinaabe Almanac; to read UNDRIP; as well, there was a little publication put out by Georgian College, Indigenous Studies Program called Anishinabae Spirituality 101.”
The sweatlodge ceremony was embraced to elevate the Indigenous worldview and begin the process says Meiers.
“We all gathered at Paul’s (Shilling) house on the night of the Blood Moon. Ernistine and Paul taught us about the sweat lodge ceremony. We went in with the request that the kind spirit grant each artist an image of reconciliation. What does it look like and sound like in Simcoe County? And an image that would touch the hearts of all that engaged with or viewed the works, the personal and social acts of reconciliation,” says Meiers. “Incredible things happened in that sweat. We came out and we feasted. And we had two baskets of names. One basket had all the Indigenous names and the other had all the non-Indigenous names. At the Eastern Doorway, the first artist Xavier Fernandas began the process. The last name was Indigenous artist Paul Shilling.”
A year-long process began, continues Meiers.
“Every time an art piece was handed off, the bundle was handed off. And every time the bundle was handed off, the Elders were notified and they would offer tobacco and kind of hold the fire.”
At the end of the year, the artists came together at Paul’s house again and had another sweat and thanked the Creator.
“Then we feasted and then we unveiled it, one by one, and everybody told their story. Each individual artwork is like a book in and of itself – each image, each story of what they went through, how they experienced the process, what they learned, what that image meant to them, inspired, and segued to the next art piece.”
Meiers says stepping back to look at the 16 stories creating one long storyline was the kind spirit asking in the first work to wake up and come out of the darkness and start learning facts.
“Then, there was the process of learning those facts and how it affected us. And the very last work was Paul Shillings’ work that said, ‘Now that you know these facts, you can choose to close your eyes and deny them and walk back into darkness and we have to start all over again, or we’ll come together in our humanity and change the story because no one is expendable and we’re all here together on Turtle Island.”
The 16 artworks travelled to galleries in Ontario for a year and now have a permanent home with round two and three art pieces at St. Paul’s Centre at the St. Paul’s United Church in Orillia. Meiers calls the church an extremely socially conscience and active organization.
“I remember asking Lorraine McRae, one of the Elders of Chippewas of Rama First Nation who was very supportive of the project, ‘What’s your feeling about St. Paul’s?’ She said, ‘If I were to choose one church to step into in Orillia, it would be that one.'”
When the artists were offered the gallery space, Meiers says that caused some discomfort with some of the artists.
“The entire process of truth and reconciliation is messy and everybody is there at a different level and different understanding and different trauma. So, some artists stepped aside after the first round. They had to process that. Then Paul Shilling asked all the artists, ‘Would you be willing to do a second round to see how you’ve changed from this experience? Those who felt comfortable enough came back. Most of them did. Two didn’t. Two Indigenous artists stepped in.”
Round Two and Three was managed the same way with St. Paul’s United offering to support the process.
“The board of directors for the non-profit as well as the faith-based came together and wrote us a letter of support and offered to continue the gallery space and to support the process anyway possible. Because they were seeking, what does it mean? What does it look like to walk in truth and reconciliation in Simcoe County?”
Now the fourth and final round, or the Northern Doorway, is being coordinated by Wanda Monague with settler ally, Allison Bradshaw. Participating artist Monague is from Beausoleil First Nation.
Monague says she became interested in Call to Action #83 because of the possibilities.
“The ability to breach the gaps as an artist, between other artists. And not only that, but have our works breach those gaps as well, in what we know. Talking to the other artists, because of the way it happens. A settler artist hands off to me, who is Indigenous, and just by the meeting of our minds, we learn where our knowledge has shortcomings,” she says. “I know speaking with the artist that passed to me, he is Indigenous in his own country, but a settler here. He had a lot of the same experiences growing up that we did. So, it was enlightening to be able to share with him the fact that even though he came from a different country, our experiences of the world growing up were the same.”
Artist Xavier Fernandes says each round has been different; each adding to the previous one with lots of learning and growth. He talks about his painting from the third round of this process.
“The concept for my image is to show the tree of life – a history, the present, and the possible future. The roots have the seven teachings, which flow together into the trunk where you have an Elder person. From there, the tree branches out where some branches have been cut short, never being able to grow and flourish. There are some leaves that have been buried in shallow hollows. So much potential lays below the surface. The figure in the bottom is made up of two people. There is a white half and a brown half. These two arms move in opposite directions. Eventually, the hands meet and join. Moving forward together they are able to see the love, harmony, and potential of past lives cut short, but also for a way to move forward in a positive manner.”
Fernandes say that when you see the work as a group and then read the stories behind each piece, you can see a common thread that ties them all together.
“I feel this is a project which has taken on a life of its own. We have taken our feelings and thoughts and placed them on canvas for everyone to see. As a viewer, your first step is to see the pieces and learn from them. What is your next step? You have a choice. You have the power to end this with you, or move it forward, making it grow and be bigger than just a hope of truth and reconciliation.”
Monague passed her artwork and stories to artist Peter Adams, in turn inspiring his work Celestial Witness during the third round.
“Wanda told me about a dream that had inspired her piece, and of the story of the Star People and the Ojibwe belief that their people fell from sky to earth. She explained that the Milky Way is considered the spirit road and that when we pass away, our spirits travel that spirit road to return to their ancestors. The Elder in her dream had said, ‘See the lights? That’s those kids going home.'”
Adams says his piece was inspired by her painting and her dream.
“She had interpreted the lights in her dream as representing the children discovered in unmarked graves travelling the spirit road. Wanda also talked about how the northern lights are believed to represent ancestors dancing and she wondered if brighter northern lights in the last year were a result of all those souls being finally released,” he says. “I represented those children rising from the unmarked graves with dots of light in the darkness. And of course, the northern lights represent the ancestors, but also, they added an element of hopefulness to this dark time. The dark figure represents me as witness to these times, and simultaneously, it represents anyone looking at the painting. I feel that we all are grappling with this history, and that attempting to process that history is a necessary step toward reconciliation.”
Adams recalls Wanda telling him the unsettling details of her mother’s experience in Indian Residential School, as well as Wanda’s own traumatic school experience. He clearly remembers her words.
“Reconciliation will mean finding ourselves again so that we may walk that spirit road back to our ancestors again; balancing who we are in our hearts with who we need to be in greater colonized society.”
As an artist, Monague says the reconciliation art project is important to get the word out that people aren’t really all that different.
“We have different conceptions of the world we live in but when it comes down to it, we all have the same types of experiences in this world. I think that’s why it’s important for me to get involved to have my art speak to people.”
Monague foresees the artists and ideas about the order of artists will be established during the spring season. Then, in the fall and into the spring of 2025 will be the creation process. She says curating will take place in the fall with the workshops surrounding the art that’s created.
“We’ll have to hand off the process of the educational materials and we’ll have the artists conceptualizing their process,” she explains. “I think we are moving from the pain of colonization into more of a reconciliatory active forward hope. Hope, I think, is going to be the theme through the process next year.”