Motherland

Abstract

Motherland is a series of stories and works which pay tribute to my mother’s Métis lineage. I am using a personal lens of lived experience, my own and that of my family, to address historical realities of Métis disconnection, dislocation and enforced assimilation. I have drawn from Indigenous/Métis methodologies and epistemologies such as visiting Elders, establishing relationships, acknowledging visions, and embracing stories as medicine. To develop this story, I interviewed my family members and asked them questions about what their lives as Métis women and girls has been like. The responses to these queries are woven into the fabric of the exhibit Motherland, which is comprised of Nia Mamaa Awaa, Monuments, Northwest and In My Blood I Stand. These interconnected works use textiles, sculpture, fur, beads, deer hide, and embroidery to take the viewer on a journey through concerns about land and belonging, identity and loss, and meditations on absence/presence. These themes and questions punctuate the entirety of the exhibit and are the threads which connect one piece to the other.