wasakamon (2019)

Ink on paper installed on whiteboard, audio component.

Syllabics are read according to directionality; this way of organizing them around a center point

emphasizes that nature of the symbols. The creation of this work was a practice of spending

time with each character found in Nêhiyawêwin, learning its lines more intimately. Together

with the audio, the chart speaks to a slow process of learning, unlearning, reconnection and

labour. Learning; Unlearning, the whiteboard makes reference to colonial education systems,

and the root of the loss of indigenous languages. Reflected is the journey to reclaim ancestral

languages, slow and clumsy at times and yet powerful. The language comes alive through the

voice, my slow repetitions of each syllabic pronunciation accompanied later by full words, then

phrases, the sounds of beadwork, my bird relatives nesting for the spring, street noise, and the

breath to create a soundscape which begins to reconnect the language into my daily existence

and efforts.