Zoe Cire: Berrypicker

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Zoe Cire, "Morgan Horse," 2019

oil on Tarp. 68" x 90"

Foraging has a legacy in her culture. Zoe Cire is ​Métis ​and in her people’s language, she is Berrypicke​r.

Injamsus was a name gifted to Cire by her Mushoom and Kookum, grandfather and grandmother. Injamsus translates to ​Berrypicker​.  

As time passes, the seasons shift and invite reactions in the natural world. Within these conflicts and resolutions, all that is, coexists. For ​Berrypicker​, she was made known to these relationships through what is colloquially known as the ​Bush​. In this place as guests, her family established livelihood surviving directly from the land. Cire was made familiar to this duality of man and land in Northern Alberta and found her own way within this relationship.

The exhibition ​Berrypicker exudes culture, experience, and a deep fondness that Cire possesses within the​ Bush, ​therefore her work.

Cire includes materials and visual narratives that are reminiscent of the ​Bushand Indigeneity. The essence of utility, and what is needed, reverberates throughout Cire’s work - taking place in forms of tarps and pragmatic imagery. Cire uses beadwork and floral imagery to express ​Métis culture. These pieces seek to be a light into the open prairies, and the Indigenous peoples that inhabit it.

As ​Berrypicker​, her name enacts an accountability to share and elevate these stories and lived histories surrounding the prairies, the trapline, kinship and culture. As a berrypicker, Cire gathers and forages her experiences, offering these stories through community to sustain her culture.