Aboriginal Gathering Place Creates Material Practice Wellness Kits for Indigenous Students
Posted on | Updated
Bringing together an extraordinary diversity of materials, the kits will help sustain cultural connection and creativity during the pandemic and beyond.
With pandemic restrictions only gradually beginning to lift in B.C., the Aboriginal Gathering Place at Emily Carr University has been assembling Material Practice Wellness kits to send to Indigenous community members.
Led by Brenda Crabtree, Director of the AGP and Special Advisor to the President on Indigenous Initiatives, and AGP Associate Director Connie Watts, the project is a way to engage remotely with community members, and sustain connection during the first phase of provincial reopening.
鈥淲e are targeting the kits for the Aboriginal students first, and depending on how many are left we will be including Aboriginal staff and faculty,鈥 says Connie.
鈥淭he kits are a cultural connection to the materials and to the land.鈥
Materials on hand at the AGP include a selection of beads, natural and dyed caribou hair for tufting, hide rattle kits (cut rattle shaped hide, sinew for the seam and wooden dowel for the handle), interfacing and felt for beading, porcupine quills, leather and beading needles, scissors, tanned fish skins, tanned beaver tails, smoke tanned moose hide, seal skin, tanned hide, earring and necklace clasps, key ring, larger glass beads, horse hair, feathers, shimmering abalone buttons and thread.
Many of these will make their way into the wellness kits; others will be used to support other projects, such as the Decolonizing the Healthcare System through Cultural Connections initiative, which is temporarily on hold due to COVID-related health risks.
