a collective blog by indigenous women photographers
"My mind will take me on new adventures through big city sex shops, into secret underground clubs, delving into the pages of new readings that will make me blush, but my body will always want to return from where it first came, understanding that a love born of the north is a story you never forget."
When you experience an upmost connection to these elements, you do not want to disrupt or conquer. There is an interrelationship between the land and us: we should not see ourselves as greater than the land, and we should not have a desire or intend to dominate the land. This experience was wâhkôhtowin.
As a second language learner of Cree, there is so much to work through in terms of shame, anger and trauma due to the violent interruption colonization had on our languages. The camp provided a safe and nourishing environment to reconnect with the language with likeminded friends who are now family.
I have learned that is important to hold yourself accountable and responsible for your own life. I have learned new ways of thinking and evaluating situations that are so much broader than the walls of my own mind. I have learned that it is okay to be compassionate, and humble and to feel everything so deeply – rather than trying to mask those feelings or act like they simply aren’t there.
My Indigenous identity continues to be at the core of my practice and includes concepts involving land, memory and history with the majority of my work being produced on Six Nations Territory.
It wasn’t until I was camping in Jean Marie River that it hit me, why not share the beauty of this community? The land, water and sky.
Yet it's not "wild." It's not "untamed." This land, this land is alive. It is breathing.
tea&bannock 