Mekinawewin: to give a gift, Remediation Room Edition

Image: Tamara Lee-Anne Cardinal, Mekinawewin: to give a gift, Remediation Room edition, 2021. Photo: Alana Bartol.

Mekinawewin, to give a gift is rooted in a circular process of remediation. This multi-day papermaking workshop was an invitation to guests on Treaty 7 territory to enter into a relationship that recognizes the role of reciprocity in processes of repair, healing, and restoration. Tamara Lee-Anne Cardinal offered the fifth installment of this generative project as part of Remediation Room.

The workshop unfolded over three days with online and in-person participation. Participants in Otôskwanihk/Mohkinstsis (Calgary) were invited to choose personally relevant materials that they would like to remediate by transforming them into handmade paper. Materials could be paper or plant-based. Paper documents related to health, family heritage, culture, education, work, and/or political spheres. As the global pandemic continues to take lives and widen income and wealth inequalities, they were also invited to bring records, reflections, stories, or documents related to the last year and a half related to COVID-19.

Throughout several iterations of this project, Cardinal’s focus has been on hosting multiple workshops with various community organizations, families, and individuals. Conversations revolve around Indigenous histories and ways of knowing. In keeping with Nêhiyaw tradition, the artist requested the first paper sheet that an individual pulled to stay with the project.

Images: Alana Bartol. View more documentation in Artwork or click here.

Day One: Breaking down materials

Over the course of a day, Cardinal broke each participant’s materials (plants and paper) down into paper-pulp. Diary and journal entries, art, poetry, medical records, email correspondence, news articles, drawings, stories, letters, backyard leaves, prints, invasive weeds, Newton’s second law of motion (force), and oil and gas company documents were among the materials. Entrusted to the artist (and the project), the participant’s original materials were not opened or read but treated as material to be pulped. Participants could share as much or as little as they wanted to about the materials they chose to remediate and why.

Paper materials were torn into strips and blended in kitchen blenders. Plant materials were boiled in soda ash and then blended in an industrial-strength papermaking Hollander blender. Cardinal carefully packaged and labeled each participant’s materials for Day Two of the workshop. The process was documented and live-streamed on Zoom, allowing participants to virtually drop in throughout the day, observe, learn, and ask questions (see the edited recording below). In preparation for Day Two, Cardinal prepared papermaking kits for all of the participants, complete with moulds and deckles. Each participant’s pulp was carefully packaged and labeled for Day 2 of the workshop. In advance of the workshop, Cardinal also prepared cotton pulp for participants to add to their pulped materials if needed.

Tamara Lee-Anne Cardinal, Mekinawewin: to give a gift, Remediation Room Edition, 2021. Day One: Breaking Down Materials. Over six hours of live-streamed video condensed and edited into 14-minutes. Edited by Alana Bartol.

Day One of the workshop took place at Brian Queen’s papermaking studio located in Otôskwanihk/Mohkínstsis. With over 30 years of experience making paper by hand, Queen has worked with a range of materials and techniques. As one of Cardinal’s papermaking mentors, he assisted Cardinal in preparing the pulp for the workshop. He also lent Cardinal equipment (a press and a box dryer) for Day Two of the workshop.

Part of the aim of Remediation Room is to support artists with opportunities to develop their research and practice, take risks, and experiment with new ways of working. Cardinal’s long-term goal is to create a mobile handmade papermaking studio to bring her work to communities and make papermaking more accessible. She is currently raising funds to purchase a portable Oracle Beater - the Educational Model, a piece of equipment for papermaking that would allow her to continue her work and build her own studio. Learn more and support her fundraiser here.