Celebrating women, two-spirit people in Waawiiatanong through portraits

Women and two-spirit people are the ones being celebrated and featured in a special Indigenous community project on at Art Windsor-Essex. It's called Waawiiatanong Forever. Waawiiatanong is the name given to the area around Detroit and Windsor, Ont., meaning "where the river bends."

"We've been thinking about how to fight erasure of Indigenous people in this land. I think you can only do that through re-presencing," said curator Julie Rae Tucker, who is Munsee-Delaware and Turtle Clan, based in Windsor.

"[The] women and two-spirit people in Windsor-Essex are really the people who do the heavy lifting in our community. [We] wanted to honour the contributions that they've made to make this a better place to live for everybody."

Afternoon Drive6:40Portrait exhibit celebrates Indigenous women and two-spirit people in Windsor

'Waawiiantanong Forever' is the name of an exhibit at Art Windsor-Essex. It's an Indigenous community project that highlights the women and two-spirit people who live in the Detroit and Windsor areas. Afternoon Drive's Josiah Sinanan speaks to curator Julie Rae Tucker and photographer Shayenna Nolan, to hear more.

The exhibit, which launched in March and runs through September, is colourful. Braided sweetgrass frames the ceiling, the walls are adorned a bright pink and faces from many walks of life, ages and expressions, all fill the room with presence. 

Shanyenna Nolan is the Anishinaabe photographer behind the portraits. She explained an even deeper meaning to each face she captured for the project.

"Most of [the participants] are paired with a street sign. Street signs in this region will have names of different nations on them, so we put a person who would be of that nation for every photo."

"If you come to see this and look at all of the street signs, you can actually start to place the people that live in Waawiiatanong to those nations and get a greater appreciation for the diversity of Indigenous people that live here." 

Nolan and Rae-Tucker both point to the collective that brought this project together, including project co-ordinator Shane Lyon, who helped bring together all of the participants for the photos.

As visitors walk into the exhibition room, they will take notice of a street sign crossing which reads "We Are Still Here," mirrored elsewhere in the museum in Anishnaabemowin.

"That's what this is all about: representation," said Nolan. 

"[The project] brought so much beautiful, joyous energy. That was the beautiful thing about getting to spend time with everyone. Getting to know a little about them and then representing them in these portraits."

Waawiiatanong Forever is on display at Art Windsor-Essex in downtown Windsor until Sept. 22. Rae-Tucker says they are continuing to work on ways for more projects like this to continue telling the story.