Artists Sebastian De Line and JP Longboat and a playgroup of local artists enter into collaboration with the rivers and lakes, and with Queen’s University Biological Station and Cultural Services, City of Kingston, to uncover Indigenous stories of the waterways.
This “playgroup” format is inspired by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing’s The Mushroom at the End of the World in which she proposes to shift away from professionalization and privatization in research toward more open “collaborative clusters.”
This winter, collaborators connect with Haudenosaunee ways such as “preparing a bundle” (Longboat) when readying to go out on the land; artists and mentors steward a relational process for collective thinking-making informed by stories of the land. It draws upon Indigenous teachings of using the present season’s dynamics to prepare for the next, using up and renewing what’s in the bundles we carry.
Initiated by Emelie Chhangur and Sunny Kerr