The bannock was mouth-watering and the art eye-popping at a unique cultural/artistic event Sunday at The Bookshelf in downtown Guelph.
For several months, students at different schools in the Upper Grand District School Board system heard aboriginal stories, learned about aboriginal teachings, received mentoring from aboriginal artists, and made aboriginal inspired art.
They found in the process a deeper appreciation for this land’s First People, educators said during the Biindigen Summer Gathering Sunday afternoon.
In response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s call to action, The Bookshelf owner Barb Minett was quick to offer space for the gathering, giving a place on her walls to the art, and a setting for a prayerful ceremony and a program of storytelling in the Quebec Street business’ theatre.
The artistic outcome of the process was on display on those walls over the weekend, including two large, vibrant, and intricately detailed works that were described as a “most beautiful example of collaboration,” by Victory Public School teacher Monique Cadieux.
Well-known Canadian artist Christi Belcourt, in collaboration with storyteller Isaac Murdoch, and Guelph artist Daniel Durocher worked with students on the two large pieces. Cadieux was part of the team on the Durocher-guided work, which was supported by the ArtsSmarts program. Durocher, she said, visited Victory Public weekly from January to April to work with the students.
The project began with an inquiry into Canadian identity, and the role indigenous people play in it.
“The central motif for the piece was looking at how can we consider Canadian identity without the land and the people that occupied the land prior to Europeans arriving,” she said.
With a mind to being sensitive to the land in the making of the piece, students engaged in some recycling and reusing of their old t-shirts, which were torn or cut into strips. Other recycled materials were used. Nothing was purchased in the making of the piece.
The strips were rolled up to make a series of circles symbolic of the birth rings of a tree and the Canadian mosaic, with the many people that came later forming small circles around the larger, central circle. There are several other symbolic layers to the piece.
The project’s impact on the students, Cadieux said, was enormous. It culminated in the study of the calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and an ongoing exploration of ways to educate the world about these issues.
“I don’t think they’ll ever consider their role as Canadians without thinking about the First Peoples,” she said. “It has changed the way they understand the impact of Europeans. I feel that they have deeply, deeply connected with the issues.”
Colinda Clyne is Upper Grand’s curriculum leader for First Nations, Metis and Inuit education. She said when it comes to huge issues like reconciliation with Aboriginal Peoples the challenge is how to make it accessible for young people.
“I think by doing it through the arts it makes it easier for kids to take part in their own way,” she said.
There is a significant difference between appreciation and appropriation of aboriginal art and culture, Clyne added. The sensitivity around that difference can make teachers hesitant to delve into aboriginal themes and motifs, afraid of appropriating someone else’s culture.
“But we make sure that it’s not appropriation if you are celebrating and talking about how you were inspired by the teachings,” Clyne said.
The Christi Belcourt and Isaac Murdoch guided painting depicts the legend of the trickster spirit Nanabush, in rabbit form, riding across a river on the back of a great walleye. Steeped in traditional aboriginal storytelling, the painting was a collaboration involving many hands at Dufferin District High School in Shelburne.
Aboriginal storyteller and drummer Jan Sherman said circles and cycles are integral to the aboriginal understanding of the world.
“We are all part of creation together,” she said. “In the circle we all have a voice.”
The idea for the Biindigen Summer Gathering, and the art it celebrated, was planted in the spring with a celebration of First Nations, Inuit and Metis storytelling in all their many forms, Sherman said. Those stories spawn powerful art.
The project, Clyne said, contributes to the broader process of “moving forward together in a good way.”