Through my capstone project for the Poo’miikapii: Niitsitapii Approaches to Wellness program, I worked with a few amazing teachers at Calgary Girls Charter School in the mode of artistic inquiry. We made a culture and worldview inquiry resource that will likely be shared on this site eventually. I have also worked in artistic inquiry for the last four years through the recurring youth and community project I support, called From the Heart. I realized that I wanted to take up this method in my own learning, not just hold space for others. The above invitation was shared with various individuals I know who are also focused on decolonization. Below is the starting point I offered to see if anyone would come forward to join in this collective pursuit.

This invitation is being sent to a varied group who I have had conversations with over the last couple months about the possibility of embarking upon deeper learning relative to place, land, culture and personal history. I am thinking of it as an open-ended forum for individual and collective strength-building that will help us navigate decolonization and address complexity as thinkers, leaders or decision-makers. 

For the moment, this is what I am picturing: over the coming year, I will offer monthly reflection prompts, an online space for resources and connection, and one monthly zoom. All of this will be optional, and which will hopefully integrate with in-person or side-channel partner collaborations to deepen the witnessing that is possible.

It’s about discovering and speaking the stories that bring forward our “precolonized consciousness” from our “jagged worldviews” as articulated by Dr. Leroy Little Bear in his well-known chapter in the book Reclaiming Indigenous Voice and Vision (Ed. M. Battiste, 2000). It is also an extension of collaborative work with Christy Anderson since 2021 building the lifelong learning model most of you will have seen – which can be viewed and downloaded from this link. 

In Blackfoot territory, this process could look like developing your own winter count, which I am happy to support from my own experiences last fall. As other examples, one member of the group will likely compile and catalogue recordings of her grandmother’s storytelling, and I am planning to begin working in the medium of embroidery, as my ancestors from Jämtland might have. Several people in the group are deeply invested in Indigenous language learning, so I wonder if that will be their focus. The concrete approach is up to each of you, whatever connections you want to work through, and the medium that resonates for making your exploration tangible in some way if you are called to.