By Derek Cornet

Creative dialogue part of reconciliation efforts

Feb 14, 2018 | 11:00 AM

Sparking creative dialogue is the goal of a workshop series in La Ronge, titled Reconciliation Through Art.

The first class in the five-part series was held last night at the Alex Robertson Public Library by mother-daughter duo Anne and Jennifer Cook. They led a handful of participants through an art exercise called a squilt, which involved reflecting their images of reconciliation on a small felt square.

“Part of our activity tonight is exploring different venues and mixed media, which opens the door for broadening one’s perceptions and achieving a new understanding,” Anne Cook said. “That’s why we have a variety of media. We have porcupine quills, birch bark, leather, burlap, fur, paper, feathers, everything.”

Attendees weren’t told specifically how to utilize the materials, Anne said, and designed their projects based on their own creative ideas. She said the directions were open-ended because all participants had their own idea of reconciliation.

“Each individual has it within themselves to pursue their own paths,” she said. “Everybody’s way is right, and they are free to pursue it to the best they can.”

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While the Cooks said they began their reconciliation efforts in the 1990s, there was a particularly important moment for them in 2012. They played about 700 honour songs when the Truth and Reconciliation hearing where held in La Ronge, Anne said, and both made statements at the hearing as well.

“The drumming is our reconciliation. It’s our way of doing this,” she said. “I was a former teacher at Prince Albert Indian Student Education Centre and I witnessed some events that occurred, which I’ve had to come to terms with and make atonement for. That’s part of the documents that came out of the hearings.”

Jennifer Cook said attendees at the workshops should leave feeling like a weight had been lifted of their shoulders. She said art allows the freedom to express pain and it can also heal it.

“A lot of us are afraid of our hurt and we don’t like to expose it,” Jennifer Cook said. “Through art, if we can reconcile with ourselves, then we can reconcile with everyone else.”

She said a hurdle in the way of reconciliation was created when Saskatchewan rancher Gerald Stanley was acquitted last week of second-degree murder in the death of First Nations man Colten Boushie, but noted reconciliation is still possible.

“It can still be achieved after the setback,” Jennifer Cook said. “We can still move forward from it, maybe on a different path.” 

derek.cornet@jpbg.ca

Twitter: @saskjourno