Handmade Paper: Orange Shirts & Red Dresses

With the recent uncovering of many mass grave sites surrounding former residential schools, the confirmed cases of genocide have rocked many to the core. Although for years, Indigenous tribal nations and community members have known this to be true, Canada as a whole can no longer deny the true atrocities placed onto First Nation, Metis and Inuit communities.

 

In upcoming workshops planned for the Loop Project headed by Antyx Community Youth Arts Action, partnered with Diamond Willow Youth Lodge, as well as the Remediation Room led by Alana Bartol, Tamara invites community members to consider these shared histories while creating art. Throughout the month of October, Tamara Cardinal will lead a series of gatherings to learn about the land and it's medicines in partnership with Kiyooka Ohe Arts Centre (KOAC) founders, Harry Kiyooka and Katie Ohe, Leonard Novak, Ricardo Arguello, Pablo and Rio Russel, and Darryl Brass Jr. 

Loop Project (https://www.closetheloop.art/):
October 23rd, 30th, & November 6th, 2021

Loop is a four-season, hands-on research project rooted in the land we live on. Experimentation and expression guides our thoughtful art-making using natural materials and processes while connecting through storytelling and art across cultures and across generations. It is an arts-based social engagement project for youth and community members of Calgary’s North East Communities, with the long term goal of new Public Art at the Genesis Centre. The  Fall Season Sessions will be led by Artist Tamara Lee-Anne Cardinal.

During this Fall Season's Session, a few select native plants which can be found on the site of KOAC will be shared, harvested, and pulped for a workshop in which the group of 14 youth leaders and their facilitators will respectfully create an artist installation with. From this paper pulp, on the second weekend of our meeting, the youth will have the option to form little red and/or orange dresses and/or shirts from the corresponding paper pulp made from the materials of the area.

 

As the orange shirt represents residential school survivors, and the little red dress symbolizes MMIWG, there is still a portion of our community who go unrecognized from within these two groups - the LGBTQ2SIA+ community, or in some cases are known as Indiqueer or Two-Spirit. By allowing for the artistic blending of the two coloured pulps on both forms, Cardinal encourages the youth to express all the gender identities represented in those who are missing, murdered, and buried.

On the third week of our meeting, when the paper sheets have dried, the little shirts and dresses will be hung in the natural forest that surrounds KOAC. These artistic forms will await to be taken back by the land when through a natural process, the Mother Earth will gladly welcome them in. This is symbolic of the children being found, taken back into their home communities and given ceremony for their return.

Remediation Room (https://www.remediationroom.ca/):
October 17th, 2021 - October 24th, 2021

Mekinawewin, to give a gift is rooted in a circular process of remediation. It is an invitation into relationship, as a guest to Treaty 7, and a recognition of the role of reciprocity and transformation in processes of repair and restoration. Tamara Lee-Anne Cardinal offers her fifth instalment of this generative project as part of Remediation Room.   
 
For the fifth edition of Mekinawewin: to give a gift, Cardinal invites participants in Otôskwanihk/Mohkinstsis to bring their own materials to break down into pulp and pull sheets of paper from. These materials can be but are not limited to family heritage, nationalities, and/or political spheres.
 
The purpose of these workshops are to begin a healing process, to right the wrongs imposed on groups of people and individuals, offering a space to enter into a cathartic process by taking one’s own power back through creativity.

Request for Funds:

Tamara is requesting the aid and support in obtaining the funds to purchase a large piece of equipment (an Oracle Beater - the Educational Model https://www.toolsforpaper.com/) for paper making that would allow for workshops such as these to continue. Over the last year, Tamara has steadily been building her knowledge of paper as a medium, to better understand how the materials she incorporates into her work can become the catalyst for decolonization through art.  By working with her papermaking mentors, Brian Queen and Emily Cook (Paperhouse Studios), she is on her way to creating a portable handmade paper making studio for future workshops to come.

Being led by her traditional knowledge holders and Elders, Tamara has continued to explore the true history of this land, while situating herself within the traditional teachings and sharing this historical understanding throughout her workshops. 

Artist Biography:

Tamara Lee-Anne Cardinal (she/her/they) is a mixed-media artist, community activist, and perpetual learner. Born in Treaty 6 Territory, she has been a visitor to Otôskwanihk/Mohkinstsis (Calgary) for the past ten years. Cardinal traces her ancestral roots back to both Nêhiyaw and Deutsch descent. Graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture from the Alberta University of the Arts in 2015, Cardinal is currently attending Mount Royal University for her second bachelor’s degree in Psychology. She has been a recipient of the National BMO 1st Art! Award in 2015, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts Young Artist Award in 2017, and the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Award in 2020. 

Cardinal has been an active member in the urban Indigenous community in Treaty 7 Territory, activating roles through Awo Taan Healing Lodge Society, Native Counselling Services of Alberta, the Midewiwin Teaching Lodge Society of Alberta and currently through Miskanawah’s Diamond Willow Youth Lodge. Cardinal’s work continues to be a reflection of the teachings she receives along her journey; it is an invitation for others to become a part of the process, to partake in its making.

Tamara shares her research in natural and found materials through paper making. For Tamara, her practice around paper-making has been a form of decolonization, previously breaking down westernized ideals of working by physically deconstructing several documents printed on office paper. The resulting pulp was re-worked though a hands on molding approach, integrating native plants and medicine into the process. She began exploring this process in depth through the Untitled Arts Society (now called The Bows) 2019, where she hosted several paper making workshops as part of the process, including one for Antyx Community Arts Youth and Community members, Lifelong Learners Association, and Prospect Human Services to name a few. Tamara has more recently begun harvesting local native and medicinal plants from the territories she visits to explore Indigenous ways of knowing through the incorporation of these materials in paper-making. Through this process, she aims to enrich our relationship with Mother Earth through continual learning about the sustainable use of traditional plants and medicines, alongside re-utilizing materials destined for the landfill or looked at as weeds.