COLLECTIVE MEMORY WORKSHOPS
Gibideweshinimin: We are heard walking here (2014-2015)
Imagined and developed by artists Emilie Monnet and Pohanna Pyne Feinberg, Gibideweshinimin: We are heard walking here proposes a reflection on coexistence process by taking the the Great Peace of Montreal of 1701, which was signed by thirty-one First Nations (many of whom travelled great distances for the event) and the French settlers, as a point of departure.
During eight months, the artists co-created a sound and performative walk on the theme of Peace or what it means to peacefully coexist with peoples who share the same land. They collaborated with students from Louis Joseph Papineau High School in the neighbourhood of St-Michel.
Many questions were asked during the research-creation process: Whose stories are being told by the museums and schools? How is our collective memory impacted by the silences or omissions that are perpetuated by the mainstream education system? How do these silences impact our relationship to the land and to each other? What form of coexistence are we living today if Indigenous languages, perspectives and histories are not accessible through the education system?
This project was developed with OBORO and made possible with generous financial support from Libres comme l’art, a program for professional artists of creation residencies in schools, funded by the Conseil des arts de Montréal (CAM).
Gibideweshinimin is a word in Anishinaabemowin, kindly translated by Wilfred Abigosis.