Performance artist and academic, Praba Pilar, brings her mapping identity project to Winnipeg’s North End youth.
When I first heard well known performance artist and academic, Praba Pilar would be working with North End youth at Ndinawe Youth Resource Centre around the topic of decolonization, I was impressed with Pilar’s courage to step into that circle and her boldness to work with urban Aboriginal youth in an politically charged way.
One sunny afternoon, I had the opportunity to sit down at her kitchen table to discuss the process, the challenges and the rewards of setting up this intimate and creative space and walking with the youth for six weeks.
Pilar describes herself as a Colombian Mestiza interdisciplinary artist, technologist and cultural worker. During her lifetime, her eyes have seen many things. She has made her way north from lands colonized by the Spanish in South America and later migrated throughout the United States.
It was over a year ago Pilar told of her experience with mapping identity projects with refugees and youth in California and in other locations to Becca Taylor. Taylor, Canada Council Aboriginal Curator in Residence at Urban Shaman Artist Run Centre, really wanted to do this with urban Aboriginal Youth.
Pilar would bring her knowledge of the decolonization movements of the south to the youth of North End Winnipeg. Urban Shaman gallery director, Daina Warren supported the idea and together they applied for and received funding from the Thomas Sill Foundation.
Taylor and Warren have an ongoing relationship with Ndinawe Youth Resource Centre. In the past, Taylor was the art program coordinator.
After the initial meetings with Ndinawe, it was decided that the mapping identity project would be designed in partnership with Ndinawe’s Transition School, a drop in education program for Grades 9, 10 and 11. Throughout the project, Pilar worked closely with Taylor and the Transition School Teacher, Sandra Costa.
“Praba is great with youth! I can not express this enough,” says Taylor.
“As someone who has worked with various types of youth, with different background and needs, facilitators need to have a understanding on how to create a safe environment for the youth to create in. The facilitator needs to know how to respond and work within the needs of the youth, which is different for every group,” explains Taylor.
“Praba did great, all the youth seem receptive and were happy to participate.”
I wondered how Pilar used the concepts of mapping to bridge notions of decolonization to high school students’ lived experience. She insists the work was about giving youth a sense of agency in determining their own identity and sense of self. In that sense, it is a decolonization process.
Pilar knows from her own experience as a youth, the light shed by adults is sometimes understood in a very gradual way.
In her own life journey, Pilar undoubtedly possessed the resiliency to survive and she recognized that quality within her collaborators.
She, however, in the spirit of personal agency, gently orients creating their own maps of identity from the centre of each of their lives.
Here is the link to a video called, Amazing!, made by Cecilia Martinez. This is the kind of video Pilar shared with the youth – made by youth – to inspire them.
To create the work, eight youth participants explored artistic concepts of mapping of identity, working through mind maps, land maps, conceptual maps, collage and digital media to construct maps of their histories, their current lives, their family and friends, their community and their migration.
Their work will hang beautifully at the Urban Shaman gallery at a magnificent scale, 36 by 48 inches. Below are two of the works created by students, Marcus (left) and Michelle (right):
Mapping Identity: A Decolonizing Arts Practices Project
Exhibition Opening
Fri. Mar. 18, 2016 from 6:30 – 8:30 p.m.
Show runs Mar. 18 to Apr. 16, 2016
URBAN SHAMAN CONTEMPORARY ABORIGINAL ART
203 – 290 McDermot Ave.
Tue. – Sat. Noon – 5 p.m.
Closed Sundays & Mondays
Mapping Identity: A Decolonizing Arts Practices Project
Mentoring Artist: Praba Pilar
In partnership with Ndinawe Youth Resource Centre
Youth participants: Tanis, Creelyn, Marcus, Michelle, Veronica, Ivania, Darian, Royce
Curated by: Becca Taylor, Canada Council Aboriginal Curator in Residence
Additional engagement and support from Transitional School Teacher: Sandra Costa
Support from Educational Assistants: Elsie Edwards Gagné and Rogerio Andrade
