“Fostering connections to the land.”

Mikenna Sutherland, whose experience inspired the project, is still on her own journey of connecting with her heritage and has a deep passion for photography, which is reflected in the work.

This project explores my personal journey of reconnecting with my Indigenous identity through the process of creating programming with youth. The project with the youth is called Ando-bineshiiwedaa, which means “let’s find birds” in Ojibwe. 

I am creating two art collages that visually represent this experience. The first collage reflects a time when my connection to my Indigenous identity was not strong—it will be entirely in greyscale, except for a single figure in color, representing my other heritages. As the project progresses, a video of my work with the youth will play, leading to a transformation of the collage. In the second version, parts of the image will now be in color, symbolizing a growing connection to my Indigenous identity.