Project Nishin is creating a space for connection and sharing of ideas among Indigenous creatives during a global health pandemic. Connection, community and storytelling are the heart of theatre creation. The artists involved are all brilliant innovators in their diverse fields of creation within the theatre world and no doubt will produce profound works on video, but those works are secondary to Project Nishin’s vision, which is to create a safe enough space for artists to reach back and stretch forward towards healing, while we all stand together in the centre of this storm.
To offer feedback or ask a question about Project Nishin, please connect with us at [email protected]
To offer feedback or ask a question about Project Nishin, please connect with us at [email protected]
THE ARTISTS
Vanessa Ominika
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Vanessa Ominika (she/her) is a Theatre Artist, Writer and a long time advocate for Youth Empowerment. She is a proud Ojibwe/Potawatomi from Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory. She’s been involved in Theatre for many years off and on starting when she was 19 years old. Her passion is writing and being a helper, particularly to the youth. She wants to be able to help our youth find their voice, to tell their truths and to help them gain confidence through theatre. When Vanessa is not being a part of the theatre world, you can now find her learning about Indigenous Politics working with the Chiefs of Ontario in the Political Office, working as an EA in the Office of the Ontario Regional Chief. |
The Project
Being in a pandemic and feeling locked up in our own homes and communities/cities for months was really mentally draining for many. When the provinces started opening up, my family talked about going on a road trip and camping. These videos were my end result. It was right before the long weekend where I was able to have a nice long weekend by the waters on my home community before heading back to the city. I am a writer for as long as I can remember, starting with poetry when I was a little girl and I put the two together and this was what I got. Water always brings me home. Whenever I am by water it’s the only place I can allow myself to just be. With the sounds of the waves, which is so soothing, that is my peaceful place. Anywhere I am as long as there is water, I am home.
Thank you Sarah Gartshore for asking me to participate in this wonderful project! I look forward to seeing everyone’s work.
Thank you Sarah Gartshore for asking me to participate in this wonderful project! I look forward to seeing everyone’s work.
Jasmine Manning
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Jasmine Manning (she/her) is an Ojibway Kwe and band member of Cape Croker First Nation with paternal roots in Stoney Point. A jingle dress dancer with Medicine Warrior Dance Troupe In California, she has trained at the Centre for Indigenous Theatre In Toronto and worked in community arts organizations such as Red Pepper Spectacle Arts in Toronto and Myths and Mirrors in Sudbury. Jasmine incorporates puppetry, clown and pow wow into the land based home-schooling of her seven year old daughter. |
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The Project
Edzhi-mino-biimadizing
This film holds the internal thoughts and emotions that I was experiencing, as a Mom, while trying to create positive experiences for my child throughout the pandemic. It illustrates how by looking at the world through my daughter’s innocent eyes, I was able to break free from living in survival mode and move toward minobimaadziwin (living a good life).
This film holds the internal thoughts and emotions that I was experiencing, as a Mom, while trying to create positive experiences for my child throughout the pandemic. It illustrates how by looking at the world through my daughter’s innocent eyes, I was able to break free from living in survival mode and move toward minobimaadziwin (living a good life).
Thomas-Dylan Cook
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Thomas-Dylan Cook (he/him) is an actor and artist of Ojibway and Caucasian descent. He was born in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, but also grew up on the Batchewana and Garden River First Nations. He has worked in various positions in film and television including scenic artist and production assistant. He studied Fine Arts at Algoma University in Sault Ste. Marie, then Graphic Design at George Brown College in Toronto, Ontario, before leaving to pursue a career in film and television. Several roles followed in the following years, leading to his latest work as Slash in the hit Canadian television series “Letterkenny”. |
The Project
Gwiinawi Giizhig | Not Knowing Sky
I have created a timelapse painting, inspired by the words of a song written by a close friend.
This song and painting describes the struggles of depression, growing older, loneliness and substance abuse.
I wanted to create the feeling of change and transformation. I used the music to represent the pressures of everyday life and painted a sunset to represent the fact that everything in life is temporary including our best moments and our darkest times. I used vibrant colors and depth to create a scenic landscape.
I wanted to show that beauty can be conceived by great pain. Just like the sky and landscape, our lives are constantly transforming and shifting into an unknown future. Nothing lasts forever.
(Music written and performed by Ben Saunders.)
I have created a timelapse painting, inspired by the words of a song written by a close friend.
This song and painting describes the struggles of depression, growing older, loneliness and substance abuse.
I wanted to create the feeling of change and transformation. I used the music to represent the pressures of everyday life and painted a sunset to represent the fact that everything in life is temporary including our best moments and our darkest times. I used vibrant colors and depth to create a scenic landscape.
I wanted to show that beauty can be conceived by great pain. Just like the sky and landscape, our lives are constantly transforming and shifting into an unknown future. Nothing lasts forever.
(Music written and performed by Ben Saunders.)
Eli Chilton
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Eli Chilton (he/him) resides on the island of Moose Factory Ontario in the James Bay lowlands, and is a member of the Mushkego Cree, or Swampy Cree. Eli has been a radio DJ and producer for the community radio station, CJFI 107.1 The Island Youth Radio, that resides in the John R. Delaney Youth Centre, for seven years. Married to his wife, Leona, for six years, they live on the island with their young adult kids, two dogs, and a cat. Eli has been an amateur writer since he was a kid, writing stories, poetry, and plays, through school and into his adult years. His play, “The Sandcastle”, was workshopped and given a live reading during Pat The Dog Theatre’s PlaySmelter in Sudbury, Ontario. Eli has also had a couple of poems selected to be published in an anthology for the Poetry Institute of Canada. |
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The Project
Moose Factory – The Island
This project that I have created with the help of Wapakoni Mobile is a video in the style of a non-fiction documentary. It is titled “Moose Factory – The Island.” It was shot in the winter of 2013 with the help of members of Wapakoni Mobile, Marie-Genevieve Chabot and Sheldon McGregor, youth members of the Mushkegwuk Regional Youth Leadership Conference, and an elder, the late Jack Wynne. I wrote it in assistance with Wapakoni, as resident worker for the youth centre. Wapakoni Mobile is a traveling video workshop company that visit First Nations and aid the youth in creating video media and help with self esteem and skills through the creative process. They were visiting our community to find out if they could have a more expansive visit in the future, and video was needed to take back to their headquarters to show from the tour. There are portraiture shots of the youth from the conference, as well as shots of various locations in the community of Moose Factory. It is largely a silent video, with the exception of the ending. We met an elder, Jack, on the road during the morning shoot to capture the winter sunrise. He approached us and spoke to us and even addressed the camera directly. It was a delightful surprise and I am pleased and thankful to Jack that we were able to capture the moment on video, which is all the more touching, for he passed away a few years later in our community. I was given copies of the work that we did, and I am thankful to Wapakoni for asking me to assist in their visit to Moose Factory.
This project that I have created with the help of Wapakoni Mobile is a video in the style of a non-fiction documentary. It is titled “Moose Factory – The Island.” It was shot in the winter of 2013 with the help of members of Wapakoni Mobile, Marie-Genevieve Chabot and Sheldon McGregor, youth members of the Mushkegwuk Regional Youth Leadership Conference, and an elder, the late Jack Wynne. I wrote it in assistance with Wapakoni, as resident worker for the youth centre. Wapakoni Mobile is a traveling video workshop company that visit First Nations and aid the youth in creating video media and help with self esteem and skills through the creative process. They were visiting our community to find out if they could have a more expansive visit in the future, and video was needed to take back to their headquarters to show from the tour. There are portraiture shots of the youth from the conference, as well as shots of various locations in the community of Moose Factory. It is largely a silent video, with the exception of the ending. We met an elder, Jack, on the road during the morning shoot to capture the winter sunrise. He approached us and spoke to us and even addressed the camera directly. It was a delightful surprise and I am pleased and thankful to Jack that we were able to capture the moment on video, which is all the more touching, for he passed away a few years later in our community. I was given copies of the work that we did, and I am thankful to Wapakoni for asking me to assist in their visit to Moose Factory.
Aria Evans
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Aria Evans (she/they/he) is a queer, Toronto-based, award winning interdisciplinary artist whose practice spans dance, creation, performance, and film. Aria draws on their experiences with Afro-Indigenous + settler heritage as well as their BFA (2012) to capture meaningful social and cultural themes through their interactive art. With a large-scale vision, collaboration is the departure point to the work that Aria creates under their company POLITICAL MOVEMENT. Advocating for inclusion and the representation of diversity, Aria uses their artistic practice to question the ways we can coexist together. www.politicalmovement.ca |
The Project
A Body of Water
Collaging footage from bodies of water that link where I grew up to where my Indigenous ancestors are from, a body of water considers the concept of home. From the West Coast to Nova Scotia and poetry translated into Anishinaabemowin, connecting Ontario (where I am currently living), this short film is a love letter to my body and to the places where I feel a sense of belonging.
Collaging footage from bodies of water that link where I grew up to where my Indigenous ancestors are from, a body of water considers the concept of home. From the West Coast to Nova Scotia and poetry translated into Anishinaabemowin, connecting Ontario (where I am currently living), this short film is a love letter to my body and to the places where I feel a sense of belonging.