Terroir

"Terroir" was a year-long collaborative project that explored urban cloth production by intertwining First Nation gathering traditions, early settler agricultural methods, and contemporary environmental art practices. The project encompassed growing, harvesting, processing, and creating at Means of Production Garden, Hastings Urban Farm, and Trillium North Park.

Through movement, spinning, flax harvesting and processing, and weaving explorations, the work examined the relationship between labour and ritual through the lens of intention, concentration, and repetition. Indigenous and introduced materials were gathered, and community members assisted, witnessed, and transformed these labours into a choreographed dance. Participants wove their own dancing shoes from daylily, stinging nettle, New Zealand flax, and willow bark.

The resulting local, urban cloth and site-specific installations were created through studied and practiced movement and were displayed upon the landscape from which the fibres grew.

The final celebration of the project took place in Trillium Park, Unceded Coast Salish Territory (Vancouver, BC) on June 14, 2015.

“Terroir” was co-created by Sharon Kallis (textile artist & community engagement), Tracy Williams (fifth-generation cedar weaver and member of the Squamish Nation), Mireille Rosner (contemporary dance), Rebecca Duncan (Squamish language teacher/translation specialist & song: Trillium Park Slulem), Dan Gaucher (percussionist), Hailey McCloskey, Peggy Leung, and Meghan Rosner (dancers & shoemakers), and Ash Tanasiychuk (video).