As is true for humans and all other living beings, Indigenous Expressive Arts (such as story/history-telling, sewing, carving, weaving) are dependent upon a healthy ecosystem in order to thrive. First Nations peoples have always understood their/our HomeLand bioregions by knowing names for plants, animals, insects, elements, and their personal traits, behaviors, personalities, and characteristics. Knowing is part of a relationship. If we all learned to know the names and faces of the living Beings of our place, what would change in this modern time, to ensure a healthy and sustainable lifestyle?
To Love Mother Earth is to know and to be in relationship.
Love Mother Earth is the practice of craft and of relationship, to think and make expressive arts that are rooted in HomeLand. First Nations environmental logic is the knowledge of place; one we learn from in our practice of place.
Who we are: First Nations artists/mentors, students at Simon Fraser University, community members.
Thank you to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, SFU School for the Contemporary Arts, First Nations Studies, and all living beings.
* annie ross