U of S Indigenous artist in residence chips away at barriers between people
For Indigenous Achievement Week, U of S Indigenous Artist in Residence Lyndon Tootoosis is carving Cree syllabics into 100-year-old stone steps.
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For 100 years, the stairs leading up to the Thorvaldson Building on the University of Saskatchewan campus have been gradually shaped by footsteps.
Although the 13 Cambrian slate steps have been replaced by renovations, U of S Indigenous Artist in Residence Lyndon Tootoosis is working to ensure they continue to bring people together.
Tootoosis, along with university staff Vanessa Hyggen and Sandy Bonny, is overseeing anohc kipasikônaw/we rise/niipawi (Cree, English, Michif), an art project at the Gordon Snelgrove Gallery.
As part of Indigenous Achievement Week, people on campus are invited to collaborate on the project until Friday afternoon.
On Tuesday, Tootoosis was diligently chipping Cree syllabics into the steps, each representing one of the 13 moons in the lunar cycle some Indigenous communities used to dictate changes and movement.
The ultimate vision for the steps is to have them installed on the building face of the gallery, continuing the stairs leading up to the entrance and broadening their ability to connect people.
Tootoosis, a member of Poundmaker Cree Nation, has been wanting to do this for years.
In the context of his cultural background as part of the Battle River Cree, the connection between lunar cycles and menstrual cycles relates to the importance of pre-contact matriarchal societies, he said.
Following lunar cycles is not limited to Indigenous communities. In that way, regardless of language, expressing experience through art can connect people, Tootoosis said.
“Art is very cross-cultural. It’s all too often that people focus on the differences between everybody. I see this as an opportunity for them to bring forward their similarities, embracing them, celebrating them.”
Tootoosis, 56, said the stone he’s worked with since 1993 has served to reconnect him with his culture.
He first learned to carve at 11, when elders in his home community taught him how to craft ceremonial pipes. After losing both of his parents as a teen, he left home behind — and with it, all of the practices he’d been taught.
Tootoosis re-enrolled in high school in his 20s, immediately finding solace in the art room. When his teacher put a stone in his hand to try carving, something clicked back into place, he said.
“When I first picked up that rock, the words of my elders came back to me inside in my heart, in my soul, in my mind. I heard that elder from when I was 11 years old learning to make pipes just as clear as if he was sitting beside me.”
With their teachings propelling him, he stepped out for a moment to conduct a ceremony before setting to work, putting some tobacco from a cigarette into the earth, then lighting it to pray and smudge with. It was the first time he’d prayed in more than a decade.
“For myself, rock is healing. Working with it is an opportunity for me to further heal and to share something different about Aboriginal people,” Tootoosis said. “And it’s something that will create an opportunity for further understanding.”
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