Ice Follies 2018
February 9th - 20th, 2018
Theme: Exposing to Strengthen
The creation of ice roads requires the clearing of snow to expose the ice to the cold. The snow is cleared well beyond the used roadway to ensure safe ice thickness from the center to the edges of the used portion of the ice road. What do we bring to light, allow or expose so a strengthening can occur?
Aanmitaagzi, Serpent People (Installations and Performance), 2018
For Ice Follies 2018, Aanmitaagzi presented a series of installations from their ongoing multi-year Serpent People project, exploring the serpent tale legend of Lake Nipissing.
Grounded in historic Anishinaabe stories of the Black Sturgeon from Nipissing First Nation as told by one of Aanmitaagzi’s founding artists, Perry Mcleod-Shabogeesic, Serpent People gathers, reflects, and expresses stories and imaginings about the human condition. What are we consuming that gives us power? What are we consuming that is toxic? What has taken us away from ourselves and the essence of who we are? What would it take to transform us, and what transformations have we already undergone in our lives? Serpent People investigates these questions and explores our ability for self-reclamation and to transform for the positive.
Springing forth from the Nipissing Anishinaabe cultural mandate of a critical self, familial and nation reflection, Serpent People provides a platform to investigate what is on our hearts and minds as we prepare to continue forward. This three-year project provides an engaging, meaningful, and timely forum to investigate our past to chart our individual and collective way forward.
Learn more about Serpent People HERE
Images from Serpent People at Nuit Blanche, Toronto, 2017
A Beautiful Transformation
A Beautiful Transformation examines our wants and needs through engaging with lodges, birch bark and spruce roots. A Beautiful Transformation asks ‘What are you hungry for?’ and ‘What needs or wants are you consumed by?’
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Architecture for Transformation – Tamarack Archways
Architecture for Transformation explores the architecture of historic Anishinabe places of transformation and change. The installation invites responses to ‘What is a transformation you’ve gone through?’ and ‘What is a transformation you hope to go through?’
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Feast Now, Pay Later
Through a gas station motif structure the Feast Now, Pay Later investigates consumption and needs. This multi-layered inquiry explores a number of questions: ‘What do we consume that changes the nature of who we are?’, ‘What do we need?’ and ‘What do we need to let go of?’
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Reaching for the Light
Reaching for the Light explores ‘the self’ and ‘the other’ within the context of both Serpents and Tipis. When have you seen yourself? When have you seen the other? What is essence of who we are? What do we want to give life to? These are some of the sources of exploration within this installation.
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