Métis artist Tracey-Mae Chambers didn’t want to use red string for the Hope and Healing Canada temporary installations she has created at sites across Canada over the past year.
She’s scheduled to begin work in the coming days on an installation in Sarnia stretching over three floors of the Judith and Norman Alix Art Gallery as part of the ongoing body of work illustrating connections between Indigenous, Inuit and Métis peoples with Canadian, while also broaching the subject of decolonization, the gallery said in a news release.
“I went through all the colors because I really didn’t want to have to use red,” Chambers said. “But there’s no other color that illustrates the feelings the same as red. And it’s a racial slur so it was the right color for illustrating anger and power and passion.”
The gallery said the installations invite viewers to engage with “the idea of connection, and how communities can move forward to heal and support one another through traumatic and life-altering events.”
Chambers, who lives in Hamilton, said that when unmarked graves of children who died at a residential school in Kamloops, BC, were found more than a year ago, she had already been thinking about the idea of connection and missing family because of pandemic restrictions .
Chambers said she was both confused and heartened by the reaction of non-Indigenous Canadians to the discovery of the graves Indigenous people always knew were there.
She wanted to “explore those feelings of whether there was a connection between Indigenous, Inuit, Métis communities and settler communities” and how that could be illustrated.
She thought of images of children playing with cans attached by string, “and that’s how I started really.”
Since beginning, she has installed the work in communities across Canada, including London, Stratford, Waterloo and Huron County.
“They’re meant to provide a vehicle for discussion about decolonizing these spaces that they are within,” Chambers said.
“That’s a tough conversation,” she said. “Some communities are completely fired up and ready to go. . . and some places are much less so.”
Chambers reuse parts of the installations after they are taken down but each one is unique.
Venues typically send her photos of the spaces she will be installing the work in but “things change,” she said.
“It’s always modified once I arrive.”
The Sarnia gallery, located at 147 Lochiel St., said the public is invited to visit Chambers as she installs the work Thursday, 1 pm to 3 pm and 5 pm to 7 pm, and Friday, 2 pm to 6 pm
It will remain at the gallery through Oct. 1.
Chambers said she plans to begin taking the installations to locations in the US next year and will eventually release a book about the project.
Also coming up at the gallery is the exhibition Feels Like Home: Larry Towell and Inspired Teens, running Aug. 12 to Oct. 8.
It includes photos from the gallery’s permanent collection taken by Towell, an award-winning photographer from Lambton County. They will be shown alongside a juried selection of photos from the Take Your Shot Teen Photo Contest held in partnership with the Lambton County Library.