It is imperative that we work towards sustainability for future generations, and for all beings that surround us. The seen and the unseen, the animate and the inanimate.
This can be achieved through facilitating and encouraging conversations that aim to build and strengthen relationships, while also sharing culture, ideas, and creative practices. Through my artistic practice as an Indigenous designer, my goal is to initiate constructive dialogue in order to extend my outreach beyond the walls of institutional confinement and build community engagement. I aspire to make Indigenous knowledge accessible to each and every community at large, in and out of the institutions.
Maintaining strong relations and ties to the community, helps me to open discussions and ways of conversing outside the parameters of institutions. My preference is always rooted in “doing” rather than “talking.”
I wish to bring light to a future that seems not to have the capacity to be fruitful without a community. We are now at a time where a reflection outside of ourselves needs to be relevant to the community that surrounds us, that being the earth, people, animals, or any man-made devices that make-up or daily lives.
I believe that differences can unite us and I acknowledge that it is only when we think and work collectively that a community has the opportunity to grow stronger. Based on my personal, professional and artistic experience, opening pathways of communication between elders, youth and everyone in between, strengthens understanding of our relationships with one another.
It is important to include the voices of academics, artists, technicians, traditionalists, knowledge keepers, and students into our collective dialogue.
During the course of the residency, I intend to bring this philosophy of the community to my work by creating a new series of site-specific installations that will speak directly to how we communicate through different mediums and it’s impact on the world/nature that surrounds us.
Sébastien Aubin