EXPLORING FOUR LANDS
Interactive art project here
Ruth Howard has travelled across Canada with the Four Lands project to bring art to the people. She’s found that, just as every community is different, every workshop has been different, too.
“If the people didn’t come, there would be no art,” said Howard, the founder and artistic director of Toronto-based Jumblies Theatre.
“It needs the different perspective and the different hands, and it actually needs the bodies of different people to play with performance and sound and speak words and so on. It’s different every time.”
This week, Regina residents will have the chance to participate in Four Lands, which is co-presented by the Heritage Community Association and Common Weal Community Arts.
Using a variety of materials — including paper, toothpicks, found objects and leaves — people will build dollhouse-sized objects to fit into four miniature lands, called Goodland, Badland, Lost land and Dreamland.
“It’s focused on the land, and land is very important here especially, and all that it means from First Nations people to settlers, farmers and people living here,” said Gerry Ruecker, Common Weal artistic director.
“When we’re making art, we’re asking questions about where we are, what the place is that we’re sharing, how we came to be there, what we don’t know, what we do know,” said Howard, who spent last week in southwest Saskatchewan, bringing Four Lands to Val Marie, Ponteix, Swift Current and Shaunavon.
She previously took Four Lands to Thunder Bay, Ottawa, Sioux Lookout, Kenora, Vancouver and Halifax.
“She’s taking a good temperature of the entire country with this project. It’s quite phenomenal,” said Ruecker.
Howard and eight other artists from Ontario and Saskatchewan will host workshops for “anybody who’s interested, who’s curious.”
Small children should come with a grown-up.
“The more people we get, and the more variety of people we get, the better what we make in the course of the week,” she said.
The whimsical miniature figurines can make it easier for people to address difficult questions, as “you can sometimes hinge things that are troubling or disturbing with a kind of pleasure and delight,” said Howard.
“We get things about lost territory and land and displacement and people who have died. The subject matter, it has its difficult questions.”
The artmaking takes place at the Heritage Community Association office, located at 100-1654 11th Ave.
Drop-in hours are Tuesday through Friday from 2-5 p.m. Evening hours are 6:30-8:30 p.m. on Tuesday and Friday.
The final presentation takes place Saturday.
Assisting Howard are Ontario artists Adrienne Marcus Raja, Julia Hune-Brown and Jamie Oshkabewisens, and Saskatchewan artists Clinton Ackerman, Joely Big Eagle-Kequahtooway, Laura Hale, Ashley Johnson and Karlie King.
As Four Lands is unlike the usual touring art program, Howard says she’s especially grateful for support from Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.
She’s taking a good temperature of the entire country with this project. It’s quite phenomenal.