THE BUNLI RESIDENCY

The Bunli Residency, presented in partnership with Sans-atelier and led by visual artist Michéle Mackasey, encouraged communication between Indigenous and Francophone youth from the communities of Beauval, Île-à-la-Crosse, Patuanak, and Saskatoon. Throughout the residency, participating youth were guided by local elders skilled in the dialects of their community including Michif, Dene, Cree, and French. Together, they reflected on the distinct impacts of colonization in Northern Saskatchewan, including a discussion on language retention and the history of French residential schools in the region. Michéle worked with youth to develop pastel landscapes, which led to the design of a collaborative landscape made of many tiny bottles of coloured water containing small plexiglass notes written by the youth participants in the languages of their communities. When placed side by side, these bottles formed a translucent pixelated landscape, with the messages articulated within refracted in the water.

This residency was not without its challenges. When ongoing pandemic conditions cut in person workshops short, Michéle moved the completion of the bottle landscape to her Saskatoon studio. She invited participants and other members of the English River First Nation, one or two at a time in order to observe social distancing, to work on portions of the piece with her. Among the most exciting outcomes of the residency was the inclusion of finished work in the borderLINE: 2020 Biennial of Contemporary Art exhibition at Remai Modern. As the residency came to a close, Michéle brought a number of participants to the gallery to view the final product of their work. Participant Besskkai Paul remarked: “Working with my hands, filling bottles, engraving things — it’s a slow process, and it got me thinking about colour more than ever. The bottles look like different sorts of gemstones. The end result, when I saw it in the Remai, was a special way of seeing where I’m from.” The program is significant, both because it touches at the heart of the colonial history of Northern Saskatchewan and because it resulted in stunning work, the first work emerging from a Common Weal program to be independently curated into a significant contemporary art exhibition.