Love Letter To My Ancestors: An Immersive Sound Journey
New work by Carla Rae Taylor
Artist talk: February 25
5:30pm – 6:30pm
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Exhibition February 23 – March 6
Sound Studies Gallery, 3-47 Arts Building
10:00 – 5:00 Monday – Friday
Rooted in Indigenous ways of knowing, this immersive sound journey includes samples from
land-based fireside storytelling circles, interviews with Indigenous Elders and Knowledge
Keepers, layered over an intuitive drumming, vocals and spoken word piece.
The work highlights the importance of relationship building with one another and the land.
Together participants engage in a collective sharing on the topics of traditional teachings, art,
origin stories, legends, land-based practices and Indigenous or pre-colonial languages. Leaning
into the emergent aspects of the process, participants from established kinship networks
engage in knowledge translation of diverse stories, and as a result, a knowledge synthesis
occurs that informs future writings, collaborations and artwork. The main question posed
during the fireside gatherings is:
“What can we do to wake up our relationship to land through language, storytelling and art?”.
Led by an Indigenous methodological framework, this work champions the spirit of
reconciliation in Canada by encouraging a diversity of people to share wisdom from their own
lineages and reflect upon how our stories interweave and overlap.
Mahsi cho for the stories, wisdom and knowledge shared by:
Ethel Lamothe – Dene Elder and Knowledge Keeper
François Paulette – Dene Elder and Knowledge Keeper
Alsena White – Plains Cree Elder and Knowledge Keeper
Anita Daniels Black – Dene Knowledge Keeper
Sound Studies Institute 