Art[4] Change: Indigenous Women Speak is a collaborative animated video by artists Monique Aura Bedard, Tia Cavanagh and Alex Jacobs-Blum that seeks to re-interpret a garment through different visual aesthetics; movement, photography, beadwork and will be projected onto a building during Supercrawl. This project aims to reclaim the past through story and truth connecting to the residential school legacy, in the belief that multigenerational healing is a pathway to empowerment and resiliency for all generations.
This project is made possible by the Canada Council for the Arts.
Monique Aura Bedard is an Onyota’a:ka (Oneida) artist, currently based in Tkaronto. She graduated from the University of Lethbridge with a BFA (Studio Art) and is a DTATI Candidate. Through her art practice, Aura uses murals, art as healing workshops, mixed media, and digital illustrations to discuss intergenerational healing, identity, empowerment, and mothering. She looks to community to collectively explore personal storytelling and truth-sharing.
Originally from the northern shores of Lake Huron in Ontario, Tia Cavanagh has lived and studied in Havelock, Norwood, Peterborough, Montreal and Toronto. Achieving her BFA at OCAD university she now studies at Trent University working on her Masters degree in Canadian and Indigenous Studies. Cavanagh is a multi-disciplinary artist using materials such as paint, wood, fabrics, sculpture and projection. For her, storytelling, process, discovery and new meaning are at the core of art making. With these aspects at the root, she continues to explore approaches and understanding through the creative lens of an Indigenous woman drawing upon Indigenous research methodologies.
Alex Jacobs-Blum is a band member of Six Nations of the Grand River Territory of the Lower Cayuga Nation and Euro-Canadian. Navigating the Indigenous-colonizer hyphen of her identity through transformative experiential learning and critical self-reflective storytelling. Nationally Jacobs-Blum’s work has been exhibited at Gallery 115 at the University of Ottawa, the Woodland Cultural Centre, Brantford and Critical Distance, Toronto. Internationally has shown at Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea. She is also the recipient of the Canon Award of Excellence for Narrative. Alex holds a Bachelor of Photography from the Sheridan Institute of Technology (2015).
