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This is part two of Cheryl L’Hirondelle’s visit to the Artengine Studio. You can watch Part 1, an artist alk on her work Nipawiwin Akikodjiwan: Pimizi ohci, here.
In our conversation, we follow up on a number of interesting threads from her artist talk. We discuss the reality and challenges of making work in the time of climate crisis as we hope that we have laid out enough pathways for people to follow toward change, but that she never really knows what be the tipping point for work of this nature but dialogue, of the type we have recorded here, is essential to sharing the stories and ideas driving the work.
We dig deeper on the concept of interspecies communication and the role her Cree worldview plays here. We discuss the act of listening as being tuned to the energies of various things, and this is an essential part of communication. In this conversation, L’Hirondelle discusses her PhD research on language and the concept of ‘sound shapes’ and their connection to the land and earth.
This conversation was followed by an excellent Q&A. We are currently working on an edited transcript of the entire conversation. Please get in touch if you are interested in the larger document.
MORE ABOUT CHERYL L’HIRONDELLE
Cheryl L’Hirondelle (Cree/Halfbreed; German/Polish) is an interdisciplinary, community-engaged artist, a singer/songwriter and a critical thinker whose family roots are from Papaschase First Nation, amiskwaciy wâskahikan (Edmonton, Alberta) and Kikino Metis Settlement, Alberta. Her work critically investigates and articulates a dynamism of nêhiyawin (Cree worldview) in contemporary time-place with a practice that incorporates Indigenous language(s), audio, video, virtual reality, the olfactory, music and audience/user participation to create immersive environments towards ‘radical inclusion.’
As a songwriter, L’Hirondelle’s focus is on both sharing nêhiyawêwin (Cree language) and Indigenous and contemporary song-forms and personal narrative songwriting as methodologies toward survivance. She has exhibited and performed widely, both nationally and internationally.
L’Hirondelle is the recipient of two imagineNATIVE New Media Awards (2005, 2006), and two Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards (2006, 2007) and most recently a Governor General’s Award for Visual and Media Arts (. She holds a master’s degree in Design from OCAD University’s Inclusive Design program (2015) and is a member of the University’s Indigenous Education Council. She is currently completing a practice-based PhD with SMARTlab/University College Dublin, Ireland. Cheryl is also the CEO of Miyoh Music Inc., an Indigenous niche music publishing company and record label.This is part two of Cheryl L’Hirondelle’s visit to the Artengine Studio. You can watch Part 1, an artist alk on her work Nipawiwin Akikodjiwan: Pimizi ohci, here.
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0:12
thank you
0:16
hi uh I’m Ryan Stack I’m the artistic
0:20
director at Art engine I’m here with uh
0:24
Cheryl Lauren Dell today to talk about
0:27
her project in the entanglements
0:30
exhibition which is currently on uh well
0:33
maybe by the time you watch this it
0:35
won’t be on anymore but it’s on at the
0:37
carsh misson gallery here in Ottawa and
0:41
so we have uh Cheryl here to talk about
0:45
this piece which is the
0:48
um
0:50
really a world premiere uh first time
0:52
it’s being shown anywhere it was I think
0:55
we put finishing touches on it just
0:58
before the the people walked in the door
1:01
at the gallery so uh it is uh really a
1:05
pleasure to to be showing it here uh and
1:08
to have you here in Ottawa uh down to
1:11
talk about the the project
1:14
um
1:15
so I have a few questions for you and
1:17
then maybe we’ll get some questions from
1:19
some of our uh our friends who’ve joined
1:21
us here uh it was really great to hear
1:24
about
1:26
um the story of how this this piece
1:29
evolved
1:30
um and I think one of the things
1:33
um you know one of the things we set out
1:35
to do in this uh in the project with my
1:39
curator uh Selena Jeffrey my co-curator
1:41
she’s not curating me
1:44
although that sometimes
1:47
but one of the things that we talked a
1:49
lot about and what we set out to do was
1:52
to think about the role of uh art and
1:56
politics together particularly in the
1:59
current climate crisis uh and one of
2:02
those uh you know the the evolving
2:05
dialogue we have are the challenges is
2:07
what is the audience experience of these
2:10
things there’s the the the artists
2:13
consideration the is our consideration
2:16
in all of these sets of ideas
2:18
but for you what do you hope that the
2:23
audience gets from the experience of it
2:25
because there’s a lot of the story
2:26
there’s an incredible backstory and I
2:28
wonder how you think about
2:30
what a person coming into the
2:33
installation
2:34
is meant to have access to or how you
2:37
how you understand their experience and
2:39
think about that
2:40
and it’s a good it’s a good question I I
2:44
I think that um people will always read
2:48
and into work and take away what they
2:50
take away
2:52
but one of the things that I notice
2:54
about being in the installation even you
2:58
know even though I’m the Creator the
3:00
artist who made the work is that
3:03
um and we’ve discussed this is that
3:05
there’s
3:06
being inside the Falls As You Are
3:11
it’s it’s almost it would be like an
3:13
impossible place you can’t actually be
3:15
there you the way the Falls are
3:18
constructed and the way the barriers are
3:20
you know you’re up much up much higher
3:22
you know so all of a sudden it off
3:24
forwards you this ability to be immersed
3:26
you know in the Falls and I think that’s
3:29
really important
3:30
because we’re all was immersed in the
3:33
fall the fact that all of the
3:35
electricity that we’ve got going on is
3:38
thank you to the falls
3:40
but in this ability to be in the space
3:43
in the gallery and to have the falls all
3:46
around you
3:48
um
3:49
hopefully it’s just another way to
3:51
remind people
3:53
that those Falls are even a being unto
3:56
themselves you know and you’re with a
3:59
being you’re with a water being a very
4:01
great water being and as you
4:04
um so uh
4:05
importantly reminded me this summer when
4:08
I was visiting was that the Falls were
4:11
the second loudest Falls in North
4:13
America
4:14
so even the sound that we have in the
4:16
gallery is is much muted compared to
4:18
what they would have normally been and
4:20
we probably hear cars honking and
4:22
engines revving and much more than we
4:25
actually hear those Falls and that
4:27
wouldn’t have been the case 100 or 200
4:29
years ago we would have heard those
4:30
Falls so I’m hoping that it’s an
4:33
immersive experience I’m also hoping
4:35
that in some way that the eel wall is is
4:38
a bit of an enigma it’s a bit of a
4:40
mystery and
4:42
um uh uh I it could have been much more
4:46
didactic it could have been much more
4:48
prescriptive
4:50
um
4:52
but I hopefully I don’t know I think
4:54
sometimes art has that ability to kind
4:56
of make people dream and to ponder and
4:58
to wonder and to make one’s own
5:01
connections and
5:03
um I think it’s just the beginning as
5:05
well in some way yeah do you think is
5:08
that is that a way of working for you or
5:12
uh is it something in this particular
5:14
case like because these these stories
5:17
are are absolutely fascinating and
5:19
compelling and certainly from
5:23
um even my perspective as a as as
5:25
experiencing it or as a co-curator in
5:28
the show like wanting to offer the
5:31
public to be able to follow these
5:33
threads to pull them off uh is it
5:36
something that you felt it just feels
5:38
right for this piece or is that
5:39
something for you that these threads of
5:43
politics that maybe come off of your
5:45
work are you sort of they’re like uh
5:48
little Easter eggs or nuggets to for for
5:50
some to follow but it’s not always as
5:52
important as the experience of the work
5:54
itself well I think there’s a there is
5:56
that notion of a narrative thread and
5:58
there’s always dangling threads and
6:01
there’s always uh you know in any
6:03
artist’s practice just looking at your
6:05
Journal if you’re writing you’re going
6:07
to choose one and you’re going to go on
6:09
that and you’re going to make a work
6:10
about that but there’s still those other
6:12
dangling threads that you didn’t choose
6:15
right so the same thing would work for
6:17
somebody experiencing an artwork that
6:20
they’re going to take what they take out
6:21
of it but it might if you’re an artist
6:25
inspire you to make work it might if you
6:28
you know uh you know have another role
6:31
in society or in life that you might
6:33
also follow that thread and so I think
6:35
trying to leave it open so that people
6:37
can follow those threads as they need to
6:41
and you never know how they come back
6:43
it’s quite interesting how things yeah
6:46
loop back you know do you think do you
6:48
find that more challenging these days I
6:51
know that Again part of the direction we
6:54
were undertaking in the in in this was
6:58
thinking about what’s the artist’s role
7:00
in the climate crisis and this crisis is
7:03
like it has become so much more critical
7:08
um for sort of uh human survival on the
7:11
planet as well as many many uh other
7:14
species and ecosystems entangled with us
7:16
yeah I think I think
7:19
I think
7:20
you and Selena were right and sort of
7:22
you know having that be one of the
7:25
questions that’s being asked of this
7:27
work because
7:28
you know we’re all implicated it doesn’t
7:30
matter if we’re a painter or a drawer or
7:33
a printmaker or somebody who works in
7:35
technology we’re all part of
7:39
what’s in essentially going wrong with
7:42
the planet you know
7:44
um I’m reminded of one of my mentors uh
7:50
the late uh Elder uh and artist Shirley
7:54
bear who just passed away I think a week
7:56
ago and it was surely used to always
7:58
remind me
8:00
um and this is really it was
8:02
foundational in in work that I made for
8:05
decades afterwards and she would say to
8:07
do things for the healing of Mother
8:09
Earth and all her beings you know and it
8:13
gave me a different ammo you know and in
8:16
fact this was this x this piece was
8:18
quite excruciating because the amount of
8:20
Technology the amount of electricity
8:22
it’s using to tell a story about how
8:26
we’re we’re creating lives for beings so
8:29
that we can use more technology and more
8:32
electricity so it’s this very uh
8:36
it’s it’s a tough one I really
8:38
appreciate it though in in the talk you
8:40
use the word implicated and you said it
8:42
again there and I think we’ve been
8:43
struggling I think to find different
8:45
ways to say entanglement and I I think
8:49
that’s one that uh actually does almost
8:52
turn it up even a little bit more that
8:54
it’s a little less passive and thinking
8:56
that it’s just a matter of you know us
8:58
being woven together but we are uh
9:01
implicated in sort of the safety or the
9:04
future or you know we are implicated in
9:06
both harm and good there’s a there’s a
9:09
there’s quite a quite a lot in in
9:11
thinking about how are you implicated in
9:13
these in these things I wonder if we
9:15
could uh talk a bit more about uh the
9:19
idea of the the that you’ve you know
9:22
sort of discussed in your in your artist
9:24
statement I touched a bit on it here in
9:27
terms of a sort of pre-World View and
9:29
how that sort of shapes this piece or
9:31
maybe also your your your practice so
9:35
as I mentioned during the talk when the
9:37
when the eels very rightly said words
9:39
within words you know that we know that
9:41
even these small Sound Shapes
9:44
um are indicative of other other
9:48
uh understandings of how we’re all
9:50
related and there’s a good word there’s
9:52
a good phrase in uh Korea
9:57
um you know um
9:59
and it means tied together like being
10:02
tied together and it’s sort of
10:04
helps us to understand that we’re all
10:07
tied together and we’re tied together to
10:10
um through like um
10:14
for a good life for a healthy good life
10:17
life affirming you know and and what are
10:20
we tied together to and how and with
10:23
it’s
10:25
or Mother Earth you know so that’s kind
10:27
of a basic free understanding is that
10:30
there’s this intrinsic interrelationship
10:32
between us and if we don’t recognize
10:35
that we’re actually all tied together it
10:38
doesn’t matter that there’s no word in
10:40
my language for eel
10:42
you know it doesn’t matter that there’s
10:45
no word in my language for a bug that
10:47
lives in the Amazon rainforest we all
10:50
are intrinsically tied together and and
10:52
it is that sort of um
10:54
I know that there’s some
10:58
some issues with the notion of sort of a
11:00
natural order in some philosophies
11:02
around the world but from within a Cree
11:04
world view that’s kind of a really
11:07
tenuous balance that needs to be really
11:11
maintained and that’s why in in you know
11:14
in Northern Saskatchewan where I live
11:16
now the ceremonies still happen because
11:18
it’s it’s it’s uh that recognition that
11:22
there’s things that we need to kind of
11:23
do seasonally and annually because
11:26
they’re part of helping the Earth to
11:28
keep turning in the same way that in a
11:30
in a contemporary City Urban sense you
11:34
know protest is important and speaking
11:37
up and understanding that uh our voices
11:40
on mass have the ability to make change
11:43
you know so these are all things that
11:46
are implicit in
11:49
in that sort of dynamism you know so
11:51
that would be from a crew wrote view
11:53
that motion interrelatedness do you feel
11:55
like in works like this there is a sense
11:57
of uh for you not only
12:01
um say receiving a worldview from a
12:03
Heritage but also that the art making is
12:06
an active part of shaping
12:08
um and and handing off a worldview to
12:11
others I I certainly hope so I certainly
12:15
hope that
12:16
um uh I think it’s probably much more
12:20
poignant in some ways that work doesn’t
12:22
just become an object of a commodity but
12:25
it becomes an uh an object or an event
12:28
that actually propels discussion
12:33
um new work new activism and and future
12:36
work I think you know that’s that’s a
12:39
success as an artist if you know that
12:41
you know that the work actually does
12:44
something more than just become a
12:46
commodity in someone’s wall on their own
12:48
do you think also there’s something is
12:52
there I don’t want to divide it up as if
12:54
there’s like a part of your brain that
12:56
is free and there’s a part that’s it but
12:59
you know how how in terms of the
13:02
interspecies communication uh do you
13:04
think there’s something within the
13:06
language a Cree language that is lending
13:09
itself to to be able to listen in a
13:12
different way
13:14
um than say like the sort of anglophone
13:16
side of your brain well you know I I
13:19
always tell the story of a colleague
13:23
um who uh
13:26
whose Lebanese
13:28
um
13:30
whose family emigrated to Canada
13:32
and without saying their name because if
13:34
I tell their story wrong that’s a that’s
13:36
a problem but but they told me once they
13:38
were in Lebanon and they were listening
13:40
to somebody uh speak on the phone and
13:42
that person was speaking in three
13:44
languages in the course of one short
13:45
conversation they were speaking French
13:47
English and Arabic in one short
13:50
conversation on the phone and they were
13:51
listening and they said afterwards they
13:53
said why did you speak in three
13:55
languages and the person said I speak
13:58
French when I want to be descriptive I
14:02
speak Arabic when I want to kind of
14:04
really give the feeling of what it is
14:06
I’m saying and I’m using English to just
14:08
for the data just to say the time and
14:10
the date and the place and so I think
14:13
that’s something that we’re starting to
14:15
realize all languages etymologically
14:17
have those sound shapes that are deeply
14:19
connected to the Earth but sadly some of
14:22
the languages and most notably probably
14:24
the European languages and English is
14:27
because it was a great Imperial power
14:28
for so long became a language of
14:31
commodity a language of ownership a
14:33
language of and so it became it’s become
14:36
that I mean even in US speaking right
14:38
now in this language so I think the
14:41
thing about indigenous World Views is
14:43
that there still is that deep deep
14:45
connection you know and those Sound
14:47
Shapes actually are very very connected
14:50
like in for example
14:56
word for the eel be in my language means
14:59
to cut across it’s sort of a direction
15:01
of cutting across and so when you think
15:03
about those eels you know they’re kind
15:05
of doing that beautiful little
15:07
Switchback as they so for me I would go
15:09
oh that’s that’s part of the Fe of what
15:11
they’re doing they’re kind of doing that
15:13
you know
15:14
so um I think I hope that answered your
15:16
question I I to go there you talked
15:19
about go a little further on to the sort
15:21
of let’s say the opposite side of this
15:24
act of speaking and and communicating
15:26
but you talked about listening you know
15:29
can you talk a little bit more about
15:31
listening as it relates to language for
15:34
you and then art making as well well I
15:36
think there’s a that uh
15:39
Attunement component and that’s what I
15:42
experienced with the inter-species
15:43
communicators is that they were very
15:46
attuned to to everything you know that
15:48
it was more than just the words and it
15:51
was more than the Sound Shapes it was
15:53
also how they reverberated against the
15:55
walls and how they sort of impacted the
15:57
body and how they made us feel you know
16:01
um so I think that’s an important part
16:04
um
16:04
you know we can we could very easily
16:07
sort of become attuned to sounds and
16:10
then go make work about it but then you
16:11
have to ask
16:13
how is it making change in the world or
16:15
how is it contributing to to regaining
16:18
that balance you know so I think that’s
16:20
kind of a responsibility then it’s not
16:22
it’s not the ability to listen in and of
16:24
itself it’s the ability to listen and
16:27
then make that be some sort of
16:30
meaningful contribution that makes
16:32
you know mix that balance less tenuous
16:36
I I wanted to move a bit to talk about
16:38
uh the sort of regionalism of the work
16:41
in the site specificity and how that I
16:44
mean how was that experience for you in
16:47
terms of uh I think you captured a lot
16:50
of different complexities around this uh
16:54
the the region and site itself but how
16:58
is it to work on on the site was this a
17:01
very different sort of process for you
17:02
being so far away and especially travel
17:04
being what it is during the coveted
17:06
times that we’re in uh you know how how
17:09
has that sort of understanding of region
17:12
and and site and space
17:15
I was really happy I came here this
17:17
summer and we spent some time there in
17:20
this in the space itself that really
17:22
helped because if you’ve you know those
17:24
of you that live here and and never walk
17:26
across that bridge uh and if you go in
17:29
there’s lovely places to sit right at
17:31
the Falls and just that booming booming
17:34
sound of the falls really did help to
17:38
to
17:39
allow me to be there to be very present
17:42
with the Falls
17:43
um
17:44
I normally would uh outside of the last
17:49
couple years in this pandemic I normally
17:50
would have just come for a week or two
17:52
and and just actually been that had this
17:55
daily uh visitation I also um I mean the
18:01
work if it had gone another way I would
18:03
have spent been spending a lot more time
18:04
in the Indigenous community and having
18:07
sort of those stories become the stories
18:10
that the work was about so this was a
18:11
very different uh way to work for me but
18:15
I think it was almost serendipitous in a
18:17
really interesting way that it was you
18:19
know the the custodians of that river
18:21
that I needed to actually speak with was
18:23
the eels you know and uh so yeah it
18:27
worked out in a very
18:31
atypical way but good way well uh thanks
18:36
for sharing uh the work and all the
18:39
stories that came to bring the work to
18:41
be I’m like a very very uh delighted to
18:44
have it uh here in our city and I hope
18:47
it has a life that keeps going from
18:49
Beyond here uh I think what we’ll do now
18:52
is we do have some uh guests joining us
18:55
and we have maybe some questions from
18:57
from people here uh so we’ll do that
19:01
that part now and uh
19:03
yeah I anything I didn’t ask you no I I
19:07
I I I might just add that I think that
19:11
um
19:12
already when the eels told me to you
19:15
know sort of take a risk and go outside
19:17
of my scope I I’ve made it sort of um
19:21
heart now that whenever I’m speaking and
19:23
I’ve had a couple opportunities uh that
19:26
I sort of do these interventions where I
19:28
just start speaking on behalf of the
19:29
eels
19:30
I know that sounds wrong maybe we’ll
19:32
have to edit that
19:34
um so delete that from your brain I’m
19:35
not speaking on behalf of the eels I
19:37
think what I’m trying to do now is make
19:39
create these small interventions where
19:42
I’m discussing the plight of the eels in
19:45
places where I normally wouldn’t
19:46
normally and so that’s for me something
19:49
new and I’m glad that the eels told me
19:51
you know so I would also then maybe say
19:54
in that sort of notion please make a
19:57
comment or say something or let’s have a
19:58
discussion because that’s what the eels
20:01
are asking of us they’re asking us to
20:03
consider consider them they did uh say
20:07
and they didn’t say it verbatim in the
20:09
communication but essentially the
20:11
sentiment was that and this is kind of a
20:14
mic drop they said if we go you go
20:18
so that’s something we really need to
20:20
take into consideration that as there
20:22
are these mass extinctions happening now
20:24
and the eels are like right on the
20:26
precipice you know that we need to
20:28
really start to understand how we’re
20:30
really implicated in this that you know
20:33
our our Waters aren’t clean anymore you
20:36
know
20:36
and upstream and downstream you know
20:40
what’s happening
20:42
what’s going to happen to us
20:44
so please let’s talk about eels or art
20:48
or anything
20:50
I want to thank you uh uh so much for
20:54
your generosity this afternoon uh it’s
20:56
been lovely to hear uh all of all about
21:00
this obviously I could just keep talking
21:02
um but uh we’ll wrap it up here and and
21:07
conversation into
21:09
it thanks a lot thank you so much for
21:11
having me I really really appreciate
21:13
getting to visit and spend a bit of time
21:15
here
21:18
thanks everybody
21:20
[Applause]
21:22
[Music]
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