I am an artist focused on creating opportunities for high quality disobedience. In recent years I have become immersed in social projects related to decolonization in my city, which is always also a land based project. I currently live in the racism and murder capital of Canada, where I’m a part of an Indigenous-led feminist patrol in my city called Wiindo Debwe Mosewin (walks in truth) for four years. In our city we care for people and the land using direct action support work. I’m also a co-founder of an organization called Not One More Death, and we publicly mourn the premature deaths that take place in our city due to systemic racism. I’m a long term abolitionist, having supported people inside and in their transition out of incarceration. I’ve also participated in large scale anti-debt organizing, which connects directly to land movements in places like Puerto Rico. As an artist I have worked with transformation as my medium for a long time– and have spent the past few years with a fixation on the transition from body to land that we label death. I’m currently the steward of a large liberatory peer to peer feminist health project called The Hologram.

I’ve had a long (15 yr) relationship with meditation through Kundalini Yoga, which led me to learn many ways to sit, breathe, and chant until my nervous system felt regulated. I’m transitioning out of that now. Most recently I have been cared for by Two-Spirit Elder Ma-Nee Chacaby, who has led me and the Indigenous-led organizations I am a part of in talking circles, ceremony, harvesting, and to build sacred structures for personal and social transformation. I’ve also been a part of traditional basket making circles, and have learned how to lead them with Cree women. I’ve tried to construct a political form of yoga called Feminist Economics Yoga where we pair nervous system repair work with wishes for collective liberation from oppressive systems and toxic power. I am now fully focused on developing The Hologram to be a new type of peer support that allows people to build long term trust and cultures of care that don’t get stuck in cycles of exchange that we learned from capitalism. The goal is to make care more valuable than money, so more people are cared for and more people to play the role of carers because it is one of the most important parts of being human.

It is a long term dream of mine to be a part of a spiritual practice that involves direct action. I have tried to invent ways to do this with my art practice, but it wasn’t quite right. I want to dive deeper into non-violent direct action. I have been a part of so much direct action lately, and I feel that it fell flat because there wasn’t a common spiritual thread held between the actors. I have also felt very lonely in my activism of late– that we are working very hard but not spending enough time connecting to each other and to our wishes. And so I am very burnt out from doing tons of organizing, mutual aid, direct action support work, and continuing to see so much death, neglect, devastation and violence in my city. I am looking for new ways to continue to keep my energy up by feeling like I am with people in a different way.

Hologram Community: Peer to peer feminist health network
Wiindo Debwe Mosewin members (Feminist Indigenous Patrol in Thunder Bay)
Not One More Death (Direct Action in Thunder Bay)

So far so good!

I think so!

I’m kind of the glue person in the group. I’ve known Ann for a long time as a friend and collaborator. Aly Su began as my yoga teacher and personal spiritual guide. Candace joined one of the recent Hologram courses that I facilitated, which are very intimate, so I have a closeness with her but we haven’t known each other for ever. Candace brought Ben into the group, so I do not feel close to him yet. Darcey has been a collaborator on an art project, and she is very involved with the Hologram too. I think the group came together in such a focused and intense way, with so much good communication and planning and teamwork pouring in, and I have confidence because of that.