Location: Allan Gardens, Toronto, ON
Budget: $60,000
Status: Completed, 2019
The Red Embers Team, partnered with The Native Women’s Resource Centre of Toronto (NWRCT), is the proud recipient of the 2018 Park People’s Public Space Incubator competition. Our installation showcases 13 large-scale red banners suspended from charred wooden gates sited along the pathways of Allan Gardens, each banner designed and decorated by local Indigenous women.
The 13 installations honour the 13 Grandmother Moons within the Lunar System, as the Grandmother Moon is the leader of Feminine life. For a woman who has experienced domestic violence or sexual assault, it is the Grandmother Moon that provides healing and a re-balancing of energy. All 13 installations create a bigger civic platform for artists to share their work and collaboratively design banners that symbolize an intervention into the MMIW inquiry.
While Allan Gardens is an important gathering place for Indigenous peoples, it has also struggled with issues of vandalism and violence. By creating a beautiful intervention that celebrates the design brilliance of Indigenous artists while also memorializing the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW), the hope is that the park would open up to new positive relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. A smudging ceremony led by Elder Jacqui Lavalley opened the installation June 08, 2019 and it will be displayed throughout the summer and into the autumn to serve as a backdrop for the (MMIW) Sisters in Spirit Vigil held annually on October 4th.
The Red Embers design symbolizes an intervention into the MMIW inquiry storyline. We are still here, we are healing, and we are fighting as a community towards increased inclusion in the land stewardship narrative. The 13 banners symbolize the strength of our matriarchs, and the resilience of Indigenous women that continues to be held together by our matriarchs.
The Red Embers Design Team includes:
Tiffany Creyke (left), Indigenous Designer for Aboriginal Health at Vancouver Coastal Health and a member of the Tahltan First Nation near Dease Lake.
Larissa Roque (middle), intern architect for Smoke Architecture Inc., and Anishinaabekwe of Wahnapitae First Nation near Sudbury.
Lisa Rochon (right), principal of Citylab, design director of the new Canadian Canoe Museum to be sited on a National Historic Site, and former architecture critic for The Globe and Mail.
Charitable Status Partner for Red Embers: the Native Women’s Resource Centre of Toronto (NWRCT). NWRCT designed 2 of the 13 banners and continues to provide further programming around the installations.
The NWRCT is a community-based organization dedicated to providing resources and support to urban Indigenous women and their families. NWRCT delivers culturally relevant programs and services that empower and build the collective capacity and self-sufficiency of Indigenous women.
Banner by Smoke Architecture Inc.
Eladia Smoke and Larissa Roque designed 1 of the 13 banners titled Animkii -Binese-Kanenh/ag | Bone Thunderbird . This banner displays two thunderbirds, back-to-back, made of bones from roadkill deer.
Each bone is sewn to its partner on the opposing side with copper wire. The blue side of the banner represents the female, while the red side represents the male. If one of the bones falls off the banner, its partner bone will also fall, indicating a weakening of society.
For more information and updates please visit the official Red Embers website www.redembers.ca
We have also been published in Canadian Architect!
https://www.canadianarchitect.com/red-embers-public-art-installation-transforms-torontos-allan-gardens/