We learned about two different artists who are on display right now at Esker. The first was Jeffrey Gibson, a New York-based Indigenous artist. The t-shirts were really pretty but you weren't allowed to touch them. They said words on them. The messages expressed feelings about his culture, like "I'm me," "She chooses their family," "She played with fire," "She makes music as magick," "They fight for clean water," "She growls like a lion." They each had a matching drum that had the same words as the t-shirt. On Saturday, October 19 at 3:00, there will be a performance art piece using these garments and the corresponding drums.
Chantal is a Metis musician. She told us to sit in a circle. She sang to us. Then, she gave us a drum and we followed the pattern. She made the drums herself out of hides: buffalo, elk, deer, moose. One of the songs was about the bear and how we can learn from the bear (like not eating fish that will make us sick). One song was about a chickadee. We can learn to slow down and listen when we're talking. The chickadees have conversations where one sings, then there's a pause, then the other responds. The last song was about finding our voice. If we make our own noise, people will know that it's us so it's about finding who you are. We got to yell at the end in our own way. She told us a story about her Kookum (Grandma in Cree).
The second artist we learned about was Nep Sidhu, a Toronto-based Indian artist. This sculputre is a gravestone because in the Golden Temple in India, a riot started and many people were hurt and killed. He is honouring them through this memorial. The artist brought a bag of soil from the temple, and a bag of soil from Toronto, where he's from, and mixed it with dirt from Calgary to represent his story.
