Metis artist Tracey-Mae Chambers hopes art will spark a conversation about decolonization | CBC News

“I started to think of it in a literal sense, that we’re all connected and we share certain things like, veins and blood,” Chambers told CBC News.

“All of what that encompasses to me is represented in red yarn. How can I illustrate my needs or wants to connect with my family, my friends, my community in a larger scale.”

When news of the discovery of the remains of Indigenous children at a former Kamloops residential school surfaced, the Metis artist decided to change direction and incorporate that event into the work she was doing.

“I started to look at the string as a racial slur, as a representation of courage, passion, but also of hate,” she said.

Her piece, now called Hope and Healing Canada, is the latest interior and exterior exhibit at the Guelph Civic Museum. 

Chambers said she’s used over 12,000 metres of red yarn for this installation and makes a point to reuse the same yarn from previous installations because it carries the stories form the people she met and their community.

She weaves and intersects the yarn to create complex geometric designs with the goal, she said, of her artwork starting a conversation about decolonization. 

“The complicated designs came out of that because the issue is so complicated and the de-structuring of colonization is so complicated,” she said.

“I want to be able to start an uncomfortable conversation with settler Canadians about decolonization, which is such a scary word and such a heavy word.”

Chambers’ artwork will be on display at the Guelph Civic Museum until Oct. 24 and will then continue on tour throughout Canada.

As her work makes its way across the country, each installation will look different depending on where its hosted, but the message will remain the same.

For this particular installation, Chambers said she used the window facing the Basilica of Our Lady Immaculate to make her own stained glass window, which she noted is often associated with Catholic churches.

She said she tried to illustrate the pain and frustration she feels toward the institution through this part of the installation.

“I want [people] to look at that church through an Indigenous lens,” she said.

“It felt to me the right thing to do and then looking through these complicated structures that I made at something even more complicated.”

Once the tour is complete, Chambers said the photographs and stories she’s documented along the way will eventually be made into a book.