Titiesg Wîcinímintôwak Bluejays Dancing Together Collective
Get Inspired
Past Projects
Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em: Hide Tanning
with Jodi Lynn Maracle (Mohawk) and Hannah Dez (Dene)
Friday, September 27, 1:00 – 4:00pm
Friday, October 4, 1:00 – 4:00pm
Regent Park Community Gardens, west of the community oven. Sackville St @ Oak St.
Free. Everyone welcome.
In partnership with the Toronto Birth Centre. Funded by Ontario Arts Council.
Two-Spirit Social: Restor(y)ing Identity
writing workshop and hangout, with Jennifer Alicia Murrin
Saturday, September 14, 2019
2:00 – 4:00pm
Centre for Indigenous Theatre, 180 Shaw St, Suite 209
We all come from story.
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In this workshop, we will focus on storytelling as a means of knowledge transmission.
Stories inform us of who we are and where we come from. Through discussion and creative writing exercises, we will reach within ourselves to find the stories that need to be told.
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We’ll have paper and pens if you need them, ttc tokens, and of course snacks!
Funded by the Indigenous Culture Fund – Ontario Arts Council.
Maldewin Weskijinu / Blood Soaked Soil
Gardiner Museum
Museum Intervention
Co-presented with Akin Collective, Titiesg Wîcinímintôwak // Bluejays Dancing Together Collective
Maldewin Weskijinu / Blood Soaked Soil
August 23 – September 3, 2018
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Artist, writer, and illustrator Louis Esmé (Mi’kmaq, Acadian, Irish) is a Two-Spirit, non-binary person, and co-founder of Titiesg Wîcinímintôwak // Bluejays Dancing Together, which gathers knowledge, stories, and desires for re-urbanized Two-Spirit people and their relations. They have created eight distinct clay areas in the Gardiner to represent the eight Mi’kmaqi districts. Made during a six-month residency at Akin Collective’s studios, these districts feature conical vessels that reference ancestral Wabanaki forms. They are activated by visitors and through an audio installation by musician Christa Couture. Additionally, artists Ashley Bomberry, Shane H. Camastro, Seeds & Stardust, Jodi Lynn Maracle, JL Whitecrow, Jeremy Dutcher and others will respond to Maldewin Weskijinu through the exhibition of their own works.
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For Esmé, Maldewin Weskijinu is a reminder that the land hemorrhages with the blood of their People. They tip the pot of colonial niceties towards the earth / water / sky, making something new from very old elements in the ever looming shadow of institutional collecting. Esmé works to highlight the brilliance of local Indigenous artists from the Dish With One Spoon; their Mi’kmaw pots intend to hold the complexities of being here and home at the same time.
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Friday August 24, 6 – 8 pm
Maldewin Weskijinu / Blood Soaked Soil Public Launch
Wednesday, August 29, 5 – 7 pm
Maldewin Weskijinu / Blood Soaked Soil Community Conversation
Living Legacies: Two-Spirit Stories
Living Legacies: Two-Spirit Stories is an art-based workshop series that centres the stories of Two-Spirit communities in Tkaronto. We are creating safer space that reflects who we are, where we are coming from and how we relate to this vibrant city. Come develop an idea, feeling, story or something else, to share with others if you choose. This project will leave a legacy showing the abundant, textured and nuanced lives of Indigenous LGBTQQAI and/or Two-Spirit people to our families, friends and community members that lives beyond this current moment.
Living Legacies: Two-Spirit Stories, season one. A three part workshop series in partnership with Native Women in the Arts, funded by Community One Foundation. Multiple locations around Toronto.
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November 2016 – October 2017
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Plant Knowledges, facilitated by Joce Tremblay, Melisse Watson and Shane H. Camastro. Mashkiki:aki’ing and The Stop Wychwood Barns
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Fortifications for Self-Actualization, facilitated by Ange Loft, Kiley May. Jumblies Theatre
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Clay Reverberations, facilitated by Krysta Williams, Emma Allan and Louis Esmé. SKETCH and Toronto Birth Centre.​
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Living Legacies: Two-Spirit Stories, season two, funded by Animating Historic Sites, Toronto Arts Council. Spadina House Museum.
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The Interstellar Spadina House Tour, performance art piece by JL Whitecrow and Gein Wong, with Treaty Talk by Shane H. Camastro.
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Plant Knowledges, facilitated by Joce Tremblay, Melisse Watson and Shane H. Camastro. Tollkeeper’s Cottage.
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Navigating Spaces/Selves, by Kiley May. Spadina Museum and CSI Annex
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Clay Reverberations, by Krysta Williams, Emma Allan, and Louis Esmé. SKETCH Working Arts
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Writing Resistance, by Nicole Tanguay and Zephyr McKenna. CSI Annex
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Banner Making, by Shane H. Camastro. Diane Frankling Housing Coop
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Living Legacies: Two-Spirit Stories A collective exhibition, funded by Animating Historic Sites – Toronto Arts Council, and Trillium Foundation. Whippersnapper Gallery, Toronto.
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Matriarchs, Muffins & Art Forms
A dialogue between Terri Monture and M. Carmen Lane around themes of Onkwehonwe governance, matriarchy, two-spirit leadership and how these relate to ceremony, art making and life (which are sometimes all the same thing at the same time).
Two-Spirit Medicine Garden
The niizh manidoowag mashkiki gitigaan is an ongoing land and art stewardship project supporting Two-Spirit urban peoples to rebuild and rekindle cultural responsibilities and plant knowledge through earth work. The gardens currently reside behind the Tollkeeper’s Cottage at the northwest corner of Davenport and Bathurst St. in Tkaronto on the historic route, gete-onigaming. This garden is one of a handful of areas in the city stewarded by Two-Spirit people and one of three on our ancestral gete-onigaming. The project seeks to support Two-Spirit people and our families to learn about and revitalize traditions of honourable harvest, seed storing, medicine making, clay work, and song reclamation.