Ice Follies 2023

Caroline Kajorinne Krievin and ElizaBeth Hill, Roof of Reprieve, 2023

What are we building, if it’s not to house future generations?

More akin to a tent than a home built with strong foundations and walls, this structure resonates somewhere in the middle, providing temporary relief from the elements. This structure may provide a roof as a reprieve from the elements, and in those moments the interior will offer a glimpse into further reflections through photographic art and soundscape design.  Everything in our environment emits a frequency of sound which are either audible or inaudible.  Hearing footsteps within the soundscape represent travelling through the seasons, and the banjo of spring thaw. Approaching the exterior, you’ll witness reflections of your surroundings. While inside the structure, you have a moment to appreciate the beauty of the cold.

The artists, as members of Mindful Makers Collective, would like to acknowledge their participation in this festival is possible due to the travel and exhibition assistance being offered by Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.

Artist Bio:

Caroline Kajorinne Krievin (HBFA) is a multidisciplinary artist and facilitative arts administrator who, since 2018, has been developing an arts collective known as “mindful makers.”  She is from Tarmola, a Finnish settler community located 25 km north of Thunder Bay | Animikii Wekwedong, in Northwest Ontario. In addition to heritage and preservation, Kajorinne explores themes of life cycles, the collapse of time and memory – how we are all comprised of the same elements and are vulnerable to the currents of change and new beginnings.

In 2019, Kajorinne travelled to Kristinestad | Kristiinankaupunki, Finland with collaborator Tuija Hansen to participate in the White Nights artist residency and two exhibitions. Together, they wove “Home to the River,” an artwork that combines tapestry with Finnish rug weaving techniques, while celebrating the place their grandfathers migrated from. To accompany the work, Kajorinne created “Water Soundscape,” projecting sounds harvested from the region.  Presently she is exploring the changing Finnish migrant soundscape and her dis/re/connection to the Finnish language through Minä puhun suomea | I speak Finnish, which combines craft-based practices of blacksmithing and embroidery with soundscaping and media arts. This (OAC funded) project pairs 1,000 year old metalsmith tooling techniques with new media as she learns to write python scripts that command a micro computer (Raspberry Pi) and motion sensors.

Social Media

• www.pikelakeforge.com
• www.mindfulmakers.org

ElizaBeth Hill is a singer-songwriter who has built her craft through years spent in Nashville’s toughest song writing circles, and with the help of elders and fluent speakers, taught herself to compose in the Mohawk language as well.

She is Mohawk from the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory, Canada and the roots of her music have grown in traditional country, been schooled on the Nashville song writing scene and are steeped for a lifetime in her Iroquoian culture.  She has worked with many traditional and contemporary Indigenous artists and performers such as Oscar-Winning Composer Buffy Sainte Marie, Grammy Award Winner Bill Miller, and multiple award winner Sadie Buck. ElizaBeth was involved in coaching the very first “Aboriginal Dance Opera – Bones” in Canada created by Sadie Buck in 2001 at the Banff Centre for the Arts; and in 2007, produced “Where We Rest Our Feet”, a live performance presented at the Sanderson Centre for the Arts in Brantford, Ontario. Her passion for Peace through music has taken her to exploring Indigenous voices around the world, exchanging songs, ideas and the power of sound—of the voice to create beauty upon the Earth. An extremely powerful and dedicated performing artist, songwriter, composer, producer, writer, and visual artist.

A member of the Iroquois Arts Collective, ElizaBeth has been working with world-renowned visual artist and filmmaker Shelley Niro, bead artist Samuel Thomas and other members in historical research for the development of new work in music and film.  As a multi-disciplined artist ElizaBeth has presented works in soundscapes, visual art and photography.  She is published in non-fiction and is currently working on a series of short stories.