Connection and collaboration

Karen Werner (Undergraduate Program faculty) is collaborating with Kristi Leora Gansworth (MFAW Port Townsend ‘12) to develop an audio and digital storytelling project titled “I Have Been Born at the Waterfall Many Times.” The piece is about colonization and water as a living relative, focusing on a sacred waterfall, Akikodjiwan (Chaudiere Falls), that is part of a proposed real estate development in the center of Ottawa, Ontario.

“We were commissioned by an academic journal called Rethinking Marxism for their issue on Marxism and spirituality, due out in the winter 2016 issue,” says Karen.
“Leora is Anishinabee (First Nation) and we are basing the piece on a particular treaty between Haudenosaunee and Dutch settlers called the ‘two row’ and weaving our voices together following this pattern,” she says.
 

Note: an abridgment of this story appears in the article, “Is Activism Dead?” in the Clockworks Fall/Winter 2015 issue on page 9.