ENCRYPTED IDENTITIES DECODED HISTORIES

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In Encrypted Identities, Decoded History, Heidi Bergstrom, in collaboration with her eldest daughter Adryan Bergstrom-Borins, create an installation comprised of thematic works in textiles, beading, multimedia video projections, audio, photography, and texts that reflect and attempt to reconcile the artists’ intersecting histories of their Icelandic and Red River Métis ancestry. The underlying narrative of the work seeks to understand and respect, acknowledge past wrongs, contradictions, and conflicts, and to honour and recognize the people, conditions, and histories in a colonial context.

The work is one installation comprised of several parts, in a variety of media from textiles to traditional beading to video mapping, which were created in Iceland, Spain, Netherlands, and in Canada in Dinosaur Provincial Park (Alberta), Manitoba (Gimli), and British Columbia (Metchosin). The creation of this installation has required extensive research, collaboration, experimentation, and learning.