Tiohtià:ke honours the visions and ideals of Native Immigrant. This organization has based its work on community arts to bridge native peoples and immigrants through various cultural events in the last eight years. The illustration celebrates the re-launch of the art collective that works within the organization.

​

The land in green and yellow represents Tiohtià:ke, the Mohawk name for what today is now as Montreal. It represents the native members of the Native Immigrant Art Collective. A route goes from the shore to the border of the forest inside, the edge of the woods. At the "Edge of the Woods," visitors to a Haudenosaunee community are greeted, ritually cleansed and healed, and escorted from the "forest" (the space of warfare, hunting, spirits, and danger) to the "village" (the space of residence, agriculture, security, and peace councils).

​

The boats represent the immigrant members of the Native Immigrant Art Collective. Using origami made from the pages of my old passport with visas to Canada and the United States, I wanted to illustrate the journey of each one of us to arrive here. I choose boats because that was the original way everyone else came here, and it is a good reminder that this was not an empty land. Many other nations were here first.

​

As immigrants, we are constantly reminded that it is an honour to be greeted by Canada. Here I remind us that the nation of immigrants was once also greeted first by the residents of this land.

​

We came to the forest's edge from a long journey in the waters of the river of life. As of last immigrants, we have not been participants in the horrible acts that First Nations have suffered at the hands of their first guests. Despise that, we are responsible for ensuring this nation treats each one of its residents in a fair, equitable, and respectful way.

​

So much has been dismissed in the name of progress and capital to the point of dangerously no return from environmental catastrophe.
There is much to be learned from other ways of knowing, much to learn from the original custodians of this land and waters.

See the finish poster using the illustration here