HOME(LAND) is a multimedia exhibition project examining how concepts of land intersect and dialogue with the fluid, and shifting characteristics of identity, belonging, and home across and between races, regions, cultures and nations.
The third exhibition Lighting Souls, explores the elements of air and fire and their connections to the land while delving into concepts of identity, home and belonging. From a physical, mental and spiritual level, these elements are capable of creating a vital energy that constantly fuels our bodies and souls and renews natural systems, making them healthier, more resilient, and a wonder to behold. Through their artwork, the artists in this exhibition explore mental health issues, magical and mystical visions of these natural elements and the power of forgiveness from a perspective of resilience, transformation and reconciliation.
Loretta Faveri, The Forgiveness ProjectTO, 2022. Interactive textile installation.
For Loretta the concept of forgiveness comes from a deep and personal understanding of notions of compassion, empathy and resilience. In this iteration of The Forgiveness ProjectTO, she invites once again visitors to engage and reflect on feelings of pride, belonging, attachment, detachment, displacement, or generational trauma often triggered by the complexities of the term “homeland”.
“This community art project allows participants to explore these complex feelings through writing and mark-making on sheets of Japanese paper. They will then ceremoniously tear through their creations and stitch them into a grid, thus meshing them with the experiences of others. The process creates a space for healing, connection and transformation.”
As a performative action, the textile piece will be burned towards the end of the exhibition and the ashes will be displayed in the gallery space along a documentation video. After the exhibition, ashes will be spread in the Grey County area and the Saugeen Ojibway Nation (SON) territory in a symbolic gesture of circling back to the land.
Jacquie Comrie, Ring of Fire, Mural on vinyl, 2022.
Jacquie’s artistic practice is about colour and mental health. For her, colour is the universal language of emotions, a science of light and energy, known to possess healing properties and the ability to inspire our thoughts and the way we feel. In this work she explores the concept of fire as a threshold and a passage to life, a moment and state in which the spirit and the fantastic miracle of creation find its way to a new home.
“Crowning is often referred to as the “Ring of fire” in the birthing process. That moment when the baby’s head becomes visible
in the birth canal after fully dilated. The very portal of the divine and the ethereal, the intersection of the physical world and the spiritual. It is the continuation of our bloodline and the point of origin for every human being. Through energy we live, grow, nurture our bodies, and sustain ourselvesto continue the cycle of life handed by our ancestors. What an honour, and a privilege to be a mother and a creator of human life. This is a homage to birthing, to creation and to transformation.”
Nyle Johnston,The Fool, The Magician and The Emperor, 2021. Mixed media on paper. 30 x 22" each.
Speaking to the concept of the First Family, Nyle's Tarot Card Series encompasses Anishinabe pictography and Egyptian symbolism to bring forward traditional teachings and stories about the wind and fire and all natural elements in a magical and mystical way: from physical to spiritual.
“I've always been fascinated by the Tarot Cards since I was really young. My mother is a librarian upon my First Nations. So I spent a lot of time in the libraries growing up and always drawn to different mythologies and different creation stories from around the world. I was always very fascinated by Egyptian history and mythology and iconography because within Egyptian iconography, I see a lot of my own culture represented within that, that being Anishinaabe pictographs, so it was a wonderful opportunity to revisit that passion and infuse my own Anishinaabe iconography into it.
(..) One of the things that I really love to bring forward is the concept of the First Family being creation all around us. First Family being that air, that wind, that fire, that rock, that water and the stories and the teachings and the history that they have and bringing those forward in a nice, gentle way, and creating a sense of awareness, it’s our duty to steward the land and to protect and preserve it and to share their stories so the next generation can benefit from that as well, there’s so many different teachings and representations of what that fire does for us and and how sacred that fire is.”
David Chinyama, Of Homeland, Perceptions and Memories, Mix media installation, painting and sound, 2022.
David’s practice can best be described as an interpretation of cultural memory through the intervention and manipulation of familiar materials and objects placed within new contexts. The use of these quotidian materials become a form of adaptation and reaction to the circular economy and consumer society system where collective memory and identity often reside.
“This project explores different views, perceptions and the memories we have as a people towards various elements, objects, materials as well as different personal experiences based on our identities, religion and cultural backgrounds. Is a dissection of Toronto, a melting pot of various identities, a platform for diverse cultural communities, and a metropolitan city where more than 180 languages are spoken. A place adopted and now called home by many. As both old or new immigrants to the city, what are our memories of wind and fire whenever that warm breeze blows past the environs of this beloved city?”
