ARTIST HOPEFUL
Project highlights MMIW issue.
Eagleclaw Thom knows he has a daunting task ahead of him.
But he’s looking forward to the challenge of honouring the legacy of women through art.
He was one of two artists selected for the University of Regina’s new Michele Sereda artistin-residence position.
Thom hopes his project, which pays tribute to missing and murdered indigenous women (MMIW), will not only honour the families, but his former colleague as well.
Sereda, an alumnus of the theatre department, was one of five people killed in a multi-vehicle crash north of Regina in February.
“Michele cared very deeply for the community, so that’s why I proposed a project that includes community involvement, and she cared a lot of social justice issues,” he said.
“I hope it will be responsive to the ways she was involved in the community and contribute in some way that she would be proud of.”
The issue of MMIW is something that has affected his own life.
“One of my cousins is one of the missing or murdered women,” said Thom. “I went to school with another one and I wasn’t a big fan of how they were portrayed in the media. They were kind of dehumanized, talked about like statistics and not as people who people cared about.”
His project, once complete, will be a set of eight- by 10-foot images on buffalo hide.
“When I started thinking about the project, I thought about how to make these women human again,” said Thom.
He decided the best way to do that was to speak to the families and find out more about each of the women through stories and recollections.
“I plan to use those stories to show what people miss about them,” said Thom. “Stories like, ‘I miss how my mom used to braid my hair.’ Or things like, ‘I miss my sister walking me to school.’ Just stories that show they were human in addition to the other things.”
Thom can envision the final project, but he is still working out the logistics.
He plans on working with the U of R’s theatre department to recreate tableaus of the stories that will then be photographed. The images will then be printed onto the buffalo hide.
Thom is currently working out how he may be able to project the photographs onto hide on a much smaller scale.
“I’m in the testing phase of displaying the photos that will be taken,” he said.
Through a series of intricate stencils, Thom is spray-painting various coloured layers of an image of a rabbit onto a rabbit hide to see how the paint reacts.
He wanted to use buffalo hide for his project for a couple of reasons: he has yet to see photographs displayed on hide and he wants to create the biggest impact possible.
Although he is still in the early phases of the project, he’s excited about seeing it complete.
“I look forward to hopefully changing the story (of the women),” said Thom, who hopes it may help add to the call for a MMIW national inquiry.
“I THOUGHT ABOUT HOW TO MAKE THESE WOMEN HUMAN AGAIN.” EAGLE CLAW THOM