Five Saskatchewan Artists Build Community During the Pandemic

Concerns over social, racial and environmental justice fuel creative projects.

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Many people in Saskatchewan have felt unprotected during the pandemic as provincial public health regulations have often lagged behind measures in other parts of Canada. That, combined with a growing worldwide focus on social and racial justice, has led to more community organizing and support. The trend is reflected within the Saskatchewan arts community through various social justice projects that have been launched – or are gaining momentum – as people cope with the harsh realities of COVID-19.

Janelle Pewapsconias

This month, artist and spoken word poet Janelle Pewapsconias is holding her second annual online campaign to encourage people to strengthen their relationship to water. She calls her initiative the “30 for the Water” art challenge. Each day, she provides an Instagram prompt on the account @30ForTheWater – such as “What have I done for water today?” or “Boil Water Advisory” – to encourage people to create art around different themes relating to water. She also curates a daily Instagram post that combines a short text or poem with an image of water. For Pewapsconias, who is nehīyaw (Cree), water is political. Her community, Little Pine First Nation, northwest of Saskatoon on Treaty 6 territory, has been under a boil water advisory for years, a complex problem rooted in multiple issues related to colonialism and environmental racism. “My water system is a well for now,” she says. The pandemic has heightened the challenges of coping without clean water for some 33 Indigenous communities across the country, where more than 50 long-term drinking water advisories are in effect. Pewapsconias, whose culture understands that everything has a spirit, hopes her project will help people develop a stronger relationship with nipiy, or water.

Ryan Moccasin

Stand-up comedian Ryan Moccasin has missed the energy of live performances during the pandemic. But he is using the time to focus on an online project, The Feather, which he produces with fellow comedians Shawn Cuthand and Danny Knight, as well as technician Muskwa Lerat. Started in 2018, The Feather shares incisive social and political commentary “with an Indigenous slant” via satirical videos and articles. The show’s second season was released during the pandemic and The Feather’s first gallery exhibition, Confessions of a Clown Society, is on view at PAVED Arts, an artist-run centre in Saskatoon, until April 24. The exhibition satirizes media institutions and government, while paying homage to traditional Indigenous clown societies. For Saskatoon-based Moccasin, from the Saulteaux First Nation, on Treaty 6 territory northwest of Saskatoon, opinions easily become truth on the Internet. The Feather is a way to get people to question what’s fake and what’s real, especially with portrayals of Indigenous people. For instance, in the short video, Plague 2020, Knight’s character sends up the pandemic through an Indigenous lens: “States of emergency are a regular occurrence on reserves due to high suicide rates in remote communities. So, when everyone was all scared and terrified about a state of emergency, Indigenous people were like, ‘Huh, first time, hurts, doesn’t it?’” As Moccasin explains, the video’s goal is “to highlight the inequality that some Indigenous people on reserves face.” 

Karli Jessup

As for many of us, the early days of the pandemic were stressful for Karli Jessup. Typically, she produces her work at Articulate Ink, a printmaking studio she co-runs in Regina. For a few months, she didn’t go to the studio and shifted her focus from screenprints to woodcuts, which she could do at home. She continues to sell screenprinted occult-inspired clothing, art and accessories through her online shop, Jessup’s General Store, which she opened in 2017. Regina residents have been making a push to shop local during the pandemic, so Jessup decided two months ago to open her first storefront, sharing space with a friend, Donna Kruger, who runs The Broom Closet Witchcraft Supply Shop. “Opening shop a year into the pandemic was a bit nerve-wracking, but the timing just worked out,” says Jessup. “So much of our existence is spent online right now. I think people like having a physical place to go and look at neat things.” 

Sandee Moore

Sandee Moore, who works as a curator at the Art Gallery of Regina, has been busier than ever during the pandemic. Along with her full-time day job, she has completed a stop-motion animation project she had been working on for several years, and also continues to exchange performance videos with collaborator Blair Fornwald, now based in Winnipeg, preparing for when it's safe to perform together again. Moore was also part of the MacKenzie Art Gallery’s first digital artist in residence program, where she created the video game Nowhere/Anywhere. Her project, which can be viewed on the MacKenzie’s website, removes many of the controls and goals normally associated with video games. Instead, viewers are blown aimlessly like a plastic bag through a prairie landscape – they can control where they look but their direction depends on the wind. The landscape, which Moore created in watercolours, combines featureless big-box stores with patches of grassland that are almost indistinguishable from one another. The project offers an eerie echo of the early days of the pandemic, when people in lockdown felt buffeted by global events, unsure if it was safe to venture outside. 

Brooklyn Carriere

Métis artist Brooklyn Carriere helped found Future Artistic Minds, a grassroots youth art collective, while she was still in high school at Saskatoon’s Mount Royal Collegiate. In 2020, as classes were held online for the last few months of Carriere's senior year, Future Artistic Minds – or FAM as it’s known by those involved – continued. At first, it moved online through Zoom and then, last summer, when it was safe to meet outside, the collective began holding weekly meetups in a park. Since November, they have been getting together at the Core Neighbourhood Youth Co-op, another youth-focused community organization. Being part of FAM has helped Carriere extend the reach of her art through collaborations with different organizations, including Prairie Harm Reduction, Saskatchewan’s first safe-consumption site. For a fundraiser, that organization commissioned local artists, including Carriere, to remake tarot card imagery with prairie iconography. Carriere reimagined Justice with an Indigenous braid and angel wings, juxtaposed against a red handprint, a symbol for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. Crewneck sweaters and throw blankets printed with her design sold out shortly after they went on sale. Carriere is now preparing for FAM’s first gallery exhibition at Bridges Art Movement, an artist collective in Saskatoon. ■ 

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