CATA-ACAT 2022 Virtual Symposium: Relationship & Reciprocity
Gallery: ReMatriation for heARTivists
On October 22, a full day of immersive learning, witnessing, and arts-making experience was facilitated by LIFE as Medicine: Circle of Indigenous Healing Arts collaborators, including Dr. Fyre Jean Graveline, Jean Tait, Jennifer Vivian, Chris Larsen, and Dr. Lana Whiskeyjack.
Symposium participants were invited to share their artwork in a gallery with CATA-ACAT and LIFE as Medicine. Much gratitude to participants who have shared their creations and words.
Art response by Francesca Bernardi
Response from Rachel Robbins:
I'm grateful to have witnessed teachings from LIFE as Medicine leadership at the CATA conference. It's impossible to summarize how transformative it was to be welcomed as a student and also a settler visiting this community to learn about rematriation, decolonization, and art as medicine. This was truly the most generous sharing I've ever witnessed and it opened my eyes to new ways of connecting to the land and how art is being used as medicine to heal grief and intergenerational trauma.
I loved the Ancient Symbols presentation and workshop led by Jean Tait. We were invited to think of our own personal symbols and create paint from natural pigments (I mixed shortening with powdered chalk, turmeric, blueberries, charcoal, and coffee) and then played with this paint on cardboard. I took so much with me to continue digesting and am grateful for the experience.
Gratitude response from April Penny:
I sit in a place of such gratitude for the experience, being invited into this sacred and connecting circle of strong indigenous women sharing their stories and wisdom. This generosity of sharing moves me beyond words. I also position myself (as I need to), as a white settler of privilege who now bears witness to the intensity of these life stories, that express unimaginable harm, horrors and loss, multi-generational trauma scars, with deep and embodied wounds both opened and now slowly healing. All of it - the light and shadows, sit hard and heavy on the heart as one bears witness. Inspiration and awe are woven into the threads of this experience, as my gaze rests on these powerful women. I respond to their individual stories, their challenging life journeys as daughters, mothers and grandmothers authentically told, with such poignant imagery and words (expressed within this collective art therapy space of hope, healing and learning).
A special thank you to the heARTivists and contributors for an amazing day, with a special thanks to Fyre, Jean, Lana, Louisa, Bonnie, Luella, Leanna whose generous story offerings inspired each of my 7 response-art doodles shared below. Miigwech.
We were encouraged to create with eco-art materials that included paints made from natural pigments, materials harvested respectfully from nature, and/or found objects and items from our home, office and recycling. Attendees were also invited to make art throughout the entire day so that is exactly what I did!
As doodling is often my personal go-to way to focus on and process information and learning, I found that the rhythmic nature of doodling (with simple lines and images), became a meaningful way to capture themes and emerging symbols while listening and viewing each presenter’s powerful and heartfelt stories and artwork. I share above a few of my small art creations through photo collages that reveal the simple initial pencil drawing, captured in the moment, playfully layered with natural pigment washes and then mindfully and leisurely drawn back into with pencil crayons during, and post workshop.
I began in my sketchbook as if I was going to create a mindful scribble drawing, methodically forming a loop. This initial loop became the head of a female figure and as my pencil wandered back upwards the lines created the suggestion of a body-like form. Continuous lines, loops and mark making, created heart images, energy spirals and far-reaching root systems (representing for me the heARTivists, their stories and their sacred rooted connection to the land).
Imagery and symbols emerged and flowed, inspired by each of the presenters powerful stories, some imagery universal from their shared collective way of living as caretakers of the land and other images more specific to the individual narratives shared. Throughout the day I added washes of colours from my natural pigments, playfully layered and splattered (with paintbrushes and toothbrushes). I allowed the washes to dry and then layered again and scratched into the paper as it dried with a stick to create subtle texture …
Over the next few days I spent time with each of the 7 sketches and drew back into them with pencil crayons to intensify colour and define line, and the mindful and reflective process continued onward. Each stylized doodle shared a central female figurative form, heart, energy spirals and connecting root system. In many the moon is featured. Powerful phrases within the storytelling prompted the individual images (feather, raven, shield, music, footprints, scales, skirt, stitching, scars etc.)…
Image and words from Patricia Ki:
holding
lifeblood
tears
loves
shadows
lifelines
by the light of the moon
together
flowing
from one another
to one another
moss
roots ever-reaching
river ever-flowing
earthly beings
spirit ones
carrying stories
across the land
in the light of the moon
washing over
all of us
tenacious stories not seen
persistent voices not heard
must be felt
by all of us
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Moon holding all of us
4”x6”. Watercolour, ashes from sage + olive oil, salvaged thread on paper.
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I’m grateful for the space for learning, reflecting and connecting offered by LIFE as Medicine collaborators and students. Significant parts of my life as a colonized racialized subject transplanted to another colonial state were shaped by experiences of displacement, disconnection and unbelonging. LIFE as Medicine has generously offered the space to slow, exhale, and cultivate relationships – not only with one another within the Circle but also with the land, with where I am at in the present, with the ancestral and life stories and responsibilities that I carry with my presence. To me, LIFE as Medicine’s work as life sustaining work, with which relations of domination can be dislodged through the tenacious cultivation of respectful, reciprocal, interdependent relationships.