The Forgiveness Project Workshop

A workshop, facilitated by the artist Loretta Faveri, will take place at the hub giving residents of the surrounding community and the general public the opportunity to contribute to the piece. Through guided art-making activities, they will express their own experiences of the past. Upon finishing, they will ceremoniously tear their work into strips and then stitch and/or tie them into the netted panel for display.

HOME (LAND) is a multimedia exhibition that examines how concepts of land intersect and dialogue with the fluid, and shifting characteristics of identity, belonging, and home across and between races, regions, cultures and nations.

Throughout a series of three exhibitions, HOME(LAND) investigates the complex issues that surround contemporary cultural discourses on global migration, site, and identity. Artists from diverse backgrounds whose practices are influenced by unique interracial complexities, examine questions around kinship, ancestry, memory, and racialization.

The third exhibition, Lighting Souls, explores the elements of air and fire and their connections to the land while delving into concepts of identity, home
and belonging. From a physical, mental and spiritual level, these elements are capable of creating a vital energy that constantly fuels our bodies and souls and renews natural systems, making them healthier, more resilient, and a wonder to behold. Through their artwork, the artists in this exhibition explore mental health issues, magical and mystical visions of these natural elements and the power of forgiveness from a perspective of resilience, transformation and reconciliation. 

LORETTA FAVERI

For Loretta the concept of forgiveness comes from a deep and personal understanding of compassion, empathy and resilience. In this iteration of The Forgiveness ProjectTO, she invites visitors to engage and reflect on feelings of pride, belonging, attachment, detachment, displacement, or generational trauma often triggered by the complexities of the term “homeland”.

“This community art project allows participants to explore these complex feelings through writing and mark-making on sheets of Japanese paper. They will then ceremoniously tear through their creations and stitch them into a grid, thus meshing them with the experiences of others. The process creates a space for healing, connection and transformation.”

As a performative action, the textile piece will be burned towards the end of the exhibition and the ashes will be displayed in the gallery space alongside video documentation. After the exhibition, ashes will be spread in the Grey County area and the Saugeen Ojibway Nation (SON) territory in a symbolic gesture of circling back to the land.