Season 3, Ep. 3: Artful connections – Challenging narratives of migration and belonging using arts-based methods
Show notes
Below, you will find links to all of the research referenced by our guests, as well as other resources you may find useful.
Funded Projects
Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration program
Migrant Integration in the Mid-21st Century: Bridging Divides
Project Page
Migrant Lives in Pandemic Times (external link)
Donate or Get Involved!
Woodland Cultural Centre (external link)
Media & Blogs
Art about Migration (external link) . The Art Assignment. YouTube.
Chang, A. (7 October 2024). Winnipeggers wonder how to find common ground 1 year since start of Israel-Hamas war. (external link) CBC News ·
Migration and art: Explore how artists reflect on moving to new places (external link) . Tate Modern.
Migration and movement. (external link) MOMA.
Singh, C. S., Sarwan, S., Lee, N., Min, S. K., Zhang, J., Phillips, T., & Wang, E. (2022). i am: circular questions of identity. (external link) Canada Watch.
Smarthistory.org (external link)
Books & Book Chapters
Nikielska-Sekula, K., & Desille, A. (2021). Visual methodology in migration studies: New (external link) possibilities, theoretical implications, and ethical questions (external link) (p. 343). Springer Nature.
Singh, C. S. (2023). Brothers in the kitchen: A multidisciplinary look at migration through live-documentary. (external link) In India Migration Report 2023 (pp. 208-230). Routledge India.
Sundar Singh, C. (2021). Floating to the Lure of the Promised Land: Tamil Refugees in Canada. (external link) In G. Melnyk & C. Parker (Ed.), Finding Refuge in Canada: Narratives of Dislocation (pp. 151-166). Athabasca University Press.
Wente, J. (2021). Unreconciled: Family, truth, and Indigenous resistance (external link) . Penguin.
Scholarly Articles
Aladro-Vico, E., Jivkova-Semova, D., & Bailey, O. (2018). Artivism: A new educative language for transformative social action. (external link) Comunicar: Media Education Research Journal, 26(57), 9-18.
Askins, K. (2009). ‘That's just what I do’: Placing emotion in academic activism (external link) . Emotion, Space and Society, 2(1), 4-13.
Choudry, A. (2020). Reflections on academia, activism, and the politics of knowledge and learning. (external link) The International Journal of Human Rights, 24(1), 28-45.
do Mar Pereira, M. (2016). Struggling within and beyond the Performative University: Articulating activism and work in an “academia without walls”. (external link) Women's Studies International Forum 54, 100-110.
Flood, M., Martin, B., & Dreher, T. (2013). Combining academia and activism: Common obstacles and useful tools. (external link) TheAustralian Universities' Review, 55(1), 17-26.
George, H. (2023). Cataloguing culture: Legacies of colonialism in museum documentation by Hannah Turner. (external link) Ontario History, 115(1), 1-155.
George, H. (2022). This is not a land acknowledgement (external link) . Collections, 18(1), 3-4.
Lenette, C. (2019). Arts-based methods in refugee research (external link) . Springer.
Nossel, S. (2016). Introduction: On" artivism," or art's utility in activism (external link) . Social Research: An International Quarterly, 83(1), 103-105.
O’Neill, M., Erel, U., Kaptani, E., & Reynolds, T. (2019). Borders, risk and belonging: Challenges for arts-based research in understanding the lives of women asylum seekers and migrants ‘at the borders of humanity’ (external link) . Crossings: Journal of Migration & Culture, 10(1), 129-147.
Jeffery, L., Palladino, M., Rotter, R., & Woolley, A. (2019). Creative engagement with migration (external link) . Crossings: Journal of Migration & Culture, 10(1), 3-17.
Sundar Singh, C. (2024). (PDF file) Messages to ancestors: Following the notes from Africville to emancipation to the door of no return. ScienceOpen Preprints.
Transcript
Maggie Perzyna
Maggie, welcome to Borders & Belonging, a podcast that explores innovative migration research and connects the dots to real world impacts. This series is produced by CERC Migration in collaboration with Lead Podcasting. I'm Maggie Perzyna, a researcher with the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration program at Toronto Metropolitan University. Today, we're taking a closer look at the powerful intersection of art and migration studies. We'll explore how creative expression can challenge dominant narratives and help reshape the way we think about migration. In a moment, two experts will join us to discuss the transformative potential of arts-based methods for academia. We'll discuss how storytelling and visual and performance art can highlight migrant voices and experiences in ways traditional research often overlooks. But first, let's explore a recent example of an arts-based project in action. In May 2023 CERC Migration, in collaboration with the Bridging Divides research program, launched WhereWeStand, a powerful multimedia storytelling project that pairs Indigenous and newcomer voices to reimagine their relationships to the land some call Turtle Island and others know as Canada. Meet Izzeddin Hawamda, one of the newcomer voices participating in the project.
Izzeddin Hawamda
I'm Palestinian, from the land of Palestine, from the land of olives and apricots. My mother is the olive tree. I am always trying to find a home here in Canada as I exist between two worlds. I'm a writer. I write poetry, particularly in short stories, detailing and highlighting the human face of the Palestinian cause as it has a beautiful face.
Maggie Perzyna
Izzeddin is the co-founder of a group called Gaser, which means ‘bridge’ in Arabic and Hebrew. It's an interfaith dialog group that works to promote awareness, dialog, and empathy building regarding Israel and Palestine. When he saw the call for stories for the WhereWeStand project, he made a submission right away.
Izzeddin Hawamda
The work I do is always trying to find what it means to be a Palestinian here on Indigenous land. I said, for me to come and be part of this with my heart, soul and body and mind, I'd like to invite an Indigenous friend of mine because I would love for those stories, mine and theirs, to meet one another and for you and your stories to come and be part of the stories we tell.
Maggie Perzyna
Enter Aaron McKay.
Aaron McKay
Hello, bonjour. My name is Aaron McKay. My Anishinaabemowin name is Mashikaydun. That name itself has a story and what it loosely translates to is the sound of a storm in the distance and that storm is coming towards you. I come from Rolling River First Nation and Swan Lake First Nation. And right now I'm working to discover my homeland in Riding Mountain National Park.
Maggie Perzyna
Aaron is a photographer and the founder of Giiwe, an Anishinaabe-owned multimedia and tourism business dedicated to supporting and elevating Indigenous voices and history across Canada. He was someone Izzeddin had collaborated with in the past, who had a way of storytelling that Izzeddin deeply admired.
Izzeddin Hawamda
The one thing that caught my tension with Aaron's art is the way he captures pictures. His pictures tell a story that sometimes my writing doesn't get to, or I'm maybe afraid of getting to. Aaron was able to break through that fear with his photography and so it caught me. And I invited Aaron and I was thankful when he accepted.
Maggie Perzyna
Their mission seemed simple enough: work together to create a story that shares expressions of identity on the colonial construct of Canada. They could use any form of expression, including dance music, film, theater or installation, to produce their creative work.
Izzeddin Hawamda
We met throughout the first few months, and we found ways to collaborate and until the very last moments, I would say we had a story or two in mind, which we agreed on sharing. But it kept changing. It kept changing until we were able to finally sit together in a circle in front of a crowd, and the stories that were meant to guide us came.
Maggie Perzyna
In its final iteration, Izzeddin and Aaron’s presentation was called We Are Here, But We Are Also There. It combined their crafts, featuring the written word, Aaron's photography, and a ceremonial healing song taught to Aaron by his late grandfather. Throughout the presentation, you can hear the steady beat of the hand drum, a gift from Aaron's father, and a central element in Anishinaabemowin traditions and spirituality.
Izzeddin Hawamda,
Before I came here, I thought about everything that I've seen for past few days and as someone who writes all the time, the word ‘ghurba’ came to me, the word ghurba in Arabic means the diaspora.
Aaron McKay
There's a piece of me that goes into my artwork and in my storytelling, and it's a gift. It's a gift for me, to the listener and so being part of this project, that's how I took it is. I'm sharing my energy with other people and sharing what I've seen, what I've heard, what I've smelled, the places that I've been.
Izzeddin Hawamda
What drove me so closely to this project is I'm offered an opportunity here to navigate my own story for one and then tell my story next to an Indigenous brother or sister and see how those two stories can amalgamate and become the wild sage. In Palestine the sage grows everywhere in the mountains and if you look close, you'll realize that that mountain and the sage are one. And so, when we do our stories, when we share our stories, they become the mountain and the stage. They become weaved within each other's fabrics, giving birth to a new story.
Maggie Perzyna
A new story and a new way to understand one another. Both Izzeddin and Aaron say that the project not only taught them about each other's culture, it helped them to think about themselves differently.
Aaron McKay
It felt like I was listening to someone who understood and had seen the results of, you know, occupation, colonization and had spent time with it and reflecting on it and had also come out on the other side. That landscape, that identity, we had seen pieces of what it was like before. We experienced that loss and we were able to sit together and to just reflect and share. It opened my eyes to the many different stories that are out there, and it makes me think about other people.
Izzeddin Hawamda
As a Palestinian, indigenous Palestinian, I carry so many pieces of the same story, or stories that Indigenous folks here carry. Aaron just talked about walking on his landscape, seeing it but not recognizing parts of it. That's a very similar feeling for a Palestinian due to occupation, due to settlements being built on your land, and you being pushed out of your land. And therefore, I wanted to use stories as a vehicle to bring us closer and to allow me to touch my own story and the story of those who I share my story.
Maggie Perzyna
Izzeddin and Aaron draw inspiration for their project, We Are Here, But We Are Also The, from feelings of being pushed out of their land and no longer recognizing what was once home. For both of them, the title holds multiple layers of meaning, capturing the complex experience of displacement.
Izzeddin Hawamda
As a Palestinian, I am the reflection of the harvest season. I am the language of the olives. If you come to Palestine and you sit under an olive tree, you understand that the olive tree actually tells you it has been longing for you. It misses you, it wants and awaits your return. But at the same time, I'm in Canada, here and on this land, eight or nine months of the year, it's cold and snowy. The relationships in this country are different than the relationships I have back home. I'm always in this constant search of a homeland, a place, an identity here. Who am I here? How do I bring the stories of the roman, the pomegranate and the fig tree and the olives to this land? And so, for me, it's been an opportunity to reflect about Indigenous brothers sisters, who are also in some way, in the same space and the same place on their journeys, talking about what their families and communities have gone through and continue to go through in terms of oppression and systemic racism and you know racism. And so those stories met each other and ignited further feelings to navigate the big question, Who am I?
Maggie Perzyna
For Aaron, the title is a nod to his upbringing.
Aaron McKay
For me, We are here, but we're also there, I think about where I lived experiences and I think about the experiences of my family members. I think about the duality of life that I was introduced to as a child. I can remember being a kid and sitting around the kitchen table as my kokum, my aunties, my mom and my grandparents. And so, there are times that I'm there, and then there's other times where I'm scared. I'm living fearful because of the things that were essentially passed down to me that I inherited as a result of residential schools, intergenerational trauma, and so growing up, I'd always kind of weaved in between the two. It wasn't until I was in my mid 20s that I found my way home and I found it in darkness. What do I mean by that? Well, I found it in our ceremony, in our sweat lodge. I found the land, I found the language, I found our songs. I found that spirit that ahcâhk (ᐊᐦᒑᕁ). And it came to me and it showed itself, and it told me, there's more out there than what you see. This life is a beautiful thing. There's so much more out there for you to find. And that encouraged me to go about on this journey of discovering, I started asking myself, who am I? Where do I belong, what's my name, what's my language, what's the story of this land? And so, I'd say that sometimes I think I'm just a sort of ghost. I'm not really there or here, but I can be everywhere, because that's where I'm from.
Maggie Perzyna
The opportunity to share their history in their own way, on their own terms, is a powerful tool that both Aaron and Izzeddin believe is capable of creating real change.
Izzeddin Hawamda
When I was listening to Aaron sing so beautifully, so passionately, for the first time, I have finally found my soul, heart and body, aligning in the same place. I've been trying to hold on to that for the last little while, actually. I didn't want it to leave. I think more art-based stories or art based initiatives or collaborations will allow people who very often don't know each other, to have a real opportunity of getting to know each other. And I started working with Aaron and learning about Aaron's life stories. I started to go back and unpack all of the stereotypes and all the negative things that I've heard and encountered when I arrived here, about Indigenous folks. And I started sharing those things with my with my family. community and friends and the Muslim communities, and I insist on continuing to work with Aaron and people from the Indigenous community and the Indigenous world and bringing them into my world so, we can create those bridges.
Maggie Perzyna
Aaron says projects that use different forms of art have the power to make a greater impact than something that's written down.
Aaron McKay
You lose so much in, like with the written language. I love it, don't get me wrong. But there's an additional layer to that that you get when you're actually combining those senses, you're meeting with a person, and it gets to that spiritual level too, I find there's that energy that we exchange with each other when we're telling our stories that makes it last so much longer. And so in that project, I carry some of those people's stories, and I hold them closely to my heart and to my spirit. I think it has the potential to break down barriers, to make people vulnerable, and to really see that humanity in each other. We all have a place. We all have life. We all have a spirit. We have belonging. We have being. It's in that togetherness, and it's in coming home and maybe even encouraging us to embark on that journey to finding our own way home, wherever that may be.
Maggie Perzyna
Izzedan Hawamda is a Palestinian teacher, writer and co-founder of the interfaith dialog group Bridge. Aaron McKay is an Anishinaabemowin photographer and the founder of Giiwe platform. Many thanks to both for sharing their insights on the transformative power of art in shaping perspectives on migration and identity.
Today, we have two inspiring guests who bring a unique blend of art to academia, Heather George and Cyrus Sundar Singh. Heather is an Indigenous curator, artist and educator. She's also the Executive Director of the Woodland Cultural Center in Brantford, Ontario. Her work centers around preserving Indigenous histories and exploring the transformative power of art in supporting cultural resilience and justice. Cyrus is a research fellow at Toronto Metropolitan University and an award-winning filmmaker, musician and storyteller. He uses the power of film and music to challenge conventional narrative. Thank you both for joining me today.
Cyrus Sundar Singh
Thank you for having us.
Heather George
Yeah, thanks so much,
Maggie Perzyna
Heather, can you tell us a little bit about WhereWeStand and how you got involved in the project?
Heather George
For sure. So, the way that Woodland Cultural Center got involved in the project and myself, Cyrus, reached out to us after a previous gathering and event that we had to see if we would be interested in hosting one of the community gatherings and sort of releases of this project. All these beautiful conversations through art. And it's very much in line with our mandate at Woodland Cultural Center. And I didn't know a lot about what I was getting into, but Cyrus was so enthusiastic and passionate about the work, and it was so positive that I said yes, and we went from there and just built a really, not just sort of a one-off event, but this beautiful opportunity for relationship building over multiple days on Six Nations of the Grand River territory. And so, it was really about not just sort of folks participating and viewing and responding to the sort of final artistic projects, but also that relationality of the work and building and strengthening those relationships.
Maggie Perzyna
Cyrus, what was your role?
Cyrus Sundar Singh
My role in WhereWeStand was actually as a producer, together with Anna Triandafyllidou, who's the Chair of CERC Migration, for which I am a research fellow. Anna and I've been working together for the last four years on cross-Canada, multimedia projects that bring together ideas of migration and movement and land and identity over various projects. And so, this was one of the projects that we had conceived together, and then I got to kind of put a bow around it creatively. But it's been in the works for about, I would say, three years prior to that, before we launched it. And one of the things that I wanted to kind of talk about is that when we launched the first cross-Canada project back in 2021, 2020/2021 in the midst of the pandemic, since then, I've been kind of finding ways to connect and draw participants from all communities. And one of the ones that I really wanted to draw from was the Indigenous communities in Canada, across Canada. But there's always been a difficulty in either not necessarily reaching, but also reaching and disseminating, and to also get feedback that comes back to us and to kind of open cracks. I'm not trying to open doors, but just open, find some cracks. And I'll give you what I'm talking about as a bit of history. So, I arrived in Toronto as a young immigrant from India, born and raised there. So, when we arrived at that time, there were a lot of small pockets of different communities of people. So, one of the things that I learned to do and we all learned to do, was to navigate each other. Now, fast forward, decades later, we're in a city of multi-million people, and then there are many of each of us. So, what happens is these small pockets that we had to navigate, we no longer need to navigate. So, the larger the communities, the less that we are needing to connect with people outside of that community. So, part of that is also what has happened, and because of that, there's been less and less connection to the Indigenous communities, or less and less action from the non-Indigenous communities to the Indigenous communities. So, therefore everybody's kind of in their own tents per se. My work all along, whether it's the creative work and the scholarship work, has always been about finding ways into us working together, and so that was part of the impetus behind WhereWeStand, was to look for a way in which we're not changing history. We're not trying to find solutions, major solutions to historical inequities, but to find ways to say hello, whether that's baking bread, playing some music, drawing something together, but it was always finding this little thing, a little window, a little crack, to say hello. And that is what the impetus of WhereWeStand came from. It's like, what if we found a way to work together?
Maggie Perzyna
Heather, your PhD research looks at the historical and philosophical underpinnings of contemporary museum practices across Haudenosaunee communities. Traditionally, the museum has occupied a very colonial space. What is the potential for arts-based methods to challenge the dominant representation of Indigenous people on the one hand and migration on the other?
Heather George
Yeah, I think art-based methods, and especially community based methods, I would say, within the Indigenous community, and I think also many other communities, the sort of element of art is always there. It's in our representation of our culture, through our regalia, through our songs, through our dances, you know, in the way that we see the world around us. And I think what has happened over time with the formalization of sort of the arts and the museum discipline is that we've created these institutions or organizations that separate that out from daily life, and in an attempt to make a space that is, you know, devoted to that pursuit, which is, in itself, sort of a lovely idea, except that for the majority of the history of the museum and art gallery sector, these things were sort of seen as this quite highbrow, elitist world that many people were not part of or weren't included in, or their expressions of their intangible heritage and culture weren't included in those spaces. Woodland Cultural Center opened in 1972 and it was really essentially an attempt to create a space that was at the same level as those other galleries and museums, but was done in a way that was really informed by community needs and community values. We're still, of course, beholden to a lot of the sort of, I guess, rules or standards of museum and gallery practice, but we have more, I would say, flexibility and space to challenge those rules in ways that really help us to assert, I would say our sovereignty, actually as Indigenous people. So, in that way, art and museology moves beyond being a representation of sort of what the majority should aspire to be, and rather is about celebrating the uniqueness of our identity as Indigenous people, celebrating our sovereignty, but then also looking at, especially through projects like this, how that is created for other communities as well, and how we can build solidarities around that. So, in some ways, we are still very much like a mainstream museum or gallery, but in other ways, we're sort of the, we're the place where you can find what Cyrus was talking about, that little gap in the door that you can kind of sneak through and create, you know, these magical spaces and magical interactions that are focused on the need of community, in terms of relationship building and healing being sort of that underlying philosophy.
Maggie Perzyna
Yeah, so important. It's finding art as a common language and reclaiming that. There's many academics who think that activism undermines the objectivity of researchers. Cyrus, your email signature has your title as 'AcademiCreActivist'. Can you elaborate on what artivism means to you?
Cyrus Sundar Singh
Yes, artivism. Okay, so the idea of the moniker, 'AcademiCreActivist', is that I am an academic. I'm also a creator, and I'm also both of those works together have pushed needles and they have been part of activism, not front and foremost. I don't go into something wanting to be an activist. It's that I put my myself into my work and make the work move the needle, right? And so, in doing that, I have to engage community and the communities that I've worked with, which I term communities of refuge, whether they be the Africville community in Nova Scotia or the Tamil community diaspora in Canada, or some of the Indigenous communities I've worked with. So, it's all about making sure that whatever knowledge is gained or gleaned and whatever creativity is created continues to go back to the community, engages the community, and keeps the community front and center. So, WhereWeStand is a product, or it's a result of that vision, because it is not only about making something or making something for research or finding research and putting it on a shelf. So, a lot of times, academia is a bubble and the bubble kind of is caught in a zone that, it's a feedback loop, right? So, we only talk about what someone else has done, and they talk about what we have done, and it kind of keeps going around in this loop, and it does. It's very insular. So, the idea here was to kind of take it out of the libraries, out of the institutions, and to kind of bring it back to community. And that is kind of where my intention lies, and that is my first step is, how can this be connected to and make sense to a community of people? That's kind of where I start with this idea, and therefore the activism, is actually a result of that process, and not an intentioned first step of that process.
Maggie Perzyna
So, releasing the knowledge from the echo chamber or from the Ivory Tower, I guess, right?
Cyrus Sundar Singh
Absolutely. And going back to what Heather said about the museums, is like this is also a way to decenter the ideologies of capturing culture within a museum large context, right? So, even in terms of institutionalizing them, cultures become institutionalized within these centers. And so, this is about kind of, not necessarily breaking down the wall, just finding other ways of connecting directly to the community. And stories are powerful, right? And so, stories, whether they're through music, dance, poetry, whatever it is, art. It is powerful, and it is always meant for an audience or community of audience or the community itself. So that's, it is for us! And it's about the feelings that it gives us, and not necessarily about the scholarship that is underlying it. So, one of the things that is missing from academia is that it fails to value feelings. Heather, do you think? What do you think about that?
Heather George
I completely agree. And it's interesting, when we were sort of having the pre conversation around this and that role of the activist. I think often in academia, it's that label is used as a way to discredit people's scholarship. And the only reason it can be used is because the people who are labeling people as activists generally are the folks that are benefiting from the systems that are around us in the way that they are right now. So, they never actually have to question those systems, right? Like when I think about things like research ethics, right? Like until someone decided to question the ethics of communities having free, prior, informed consent that wasn't even included in academic work, right? That wasn't part of SSHRC proposals. So, those changes only happen because the folks who have not benefited from the way that the system works have called attention to those things. And so, I always sort of bristle at this idea that I'm an activist in the work that I do. I don't think that my existence as an Indigenous person is an act of activism, but there are laws and there are structural inequities that exist that impose themselves on me and on my community, and I'm certainly going to call attention to those things in an effort to change them and to, you know, create more equitable experiences of what it is, either to work in in the sector that I'm in, or to be in academia, or just to, you know, exist in Canadian society as it is. So, I think that usually the folks that are sort of crying wolf the loudest about things like this are the folks that are already benefiting. And so, changes in the system might require them to do more work, or it might become more onerous for them to work in community, right? If communities have more sovereignty over their research, over the methods and over what research is approved, that suddenly becomes a bit more of a barrier for academics who - they might have a different idea of what their priorities are versus the community's priorities, right? And so, then that's where you get, like labeled as an activist, but it's not an activist thing to assert the right to look after and to uplift your nation and your community's knowledge. Those are sort of basic, fundamental human rights. And I think that actually that's probably a little bit what we're talking about, in a really soft way, in this really beautiful way, but we really are looking at a rights-based approach to how we engage with and share our cultures and our knowledges and these really beautiful, powerful things about who we are. And we're also getting into this sort of world that I love. You know what Jesse Wente calls narrative sovereignty, right? And so, this idea that communities and nations should have the right to share their own stories on their own terms, and that's an incredibly important thing, especially for communities that have been marginalized, purposefully or not purposefully, but that's a really, really important part of our healing as well.
Cyrus Sundar Singh
Wow, I got goosebumps [laughs]. You said something there about activism that I just wanted to kind of come back to, and in a way, I'm glad that you did. I think the idea that sometimes, if you say you're an activist, or you do an act of activism, you know, then it can be labeled as, as something that is, oh, look at that, you're an activist, right? But if you really think about it, giving someone who's thirsty a glass of water or a cup of water could be labeled activism, right? It all depends on the context of that situation, right? So, if today we give someone who was suffering assistance, is that activism or is that just human? You know, humanity, right? So, we have to kind of also decenter this idea of activism. So, it's not just something that is separate from everything that we do, but it is a part of everything we are, and it should be part of everything we are, because if it isn't, then it's just something else.
Maggie Perzyna
So well said. Now looking at the WhereWeStand project, we brought together newcomers to Canada together with Indigenous scholars to create pieces of art. I mean, migration is an ongoing kind of form of settlement of Canada. It's still like a very real thing that's happening. What sense did you guys get from the project of moving the conversation forward?
Cyrus Sundar Singh
Okay, I'm just going to back up a little bit. So, when we talked about the idea of activism, or even about community, what are the first steps along the journey to even get here for WhereWeStand, other than, "oh what if? That what if became an opportunity to actually engage the community in consultations before even the title came about, or the theme or the first paragraph. So, I spent almost a month in conversations with different, and a diverse group of Indigenous folks across the country. Some of whom I knew, some of who I was introduced to, and just to have conversations about, what if it will open up the conversation. And it was an opportunity to listen. And this is one of the differences in kind of an academic pursuit from an academic convention. This was kind of a opposite of the academic convention. It's like we didn't come up with a question to answer. We had conversations to find out what potentially would be reasons, or whether this, you know, as such an idea, could even be wanted, right? So, through that set of consultations, the idea came out that, one, yes, this would be great. Two, it's not necessarily about rehashing, but about what can be made together. And that's what the whole pairing came about. And the title only dropped after all those conversations were had. So, once the conversations and the consultations were finished, I sat down, and the first thing to drop was the title, WhereWeStand, because what I kept hearing back and what I learned was that the value of land and the value of identity that's tied to land. Heather?
Heather George
Yeah, I think the really powerful thing about that thinking about sort of these place-based conversations and land and all the things that come from land, right? The language associated with place, the food associated with place, you know, the cyclical ceremonies that follow change in place. All of those things are that, are things that we can build relationships around, and I think, allow people to have a different type of relationship with the landscape that, you know we all call Canada now, and I think that's really important, because there isn't, there isn't really another way to get that right. You're probably not going to get that sitting in a classroom. You're probably not going to get that in your citizenship test. There aren't those, those methods or mechanisms for building that relationship, and it's an important relationship, I think because, I think a lot of the solidarity for Indigenous folks that I see comes from newcomers to Canada. And I think it sometimes is because of those understandings, those deep understandings of identity tied to place. Because when you've recently left a place that holds your identity, you're looking for that right, and you're looking for people who understand that. And so, I think that's why this type of work and these types of conversations and creative outputs work so well, is because they create that space and that opportunity for people to build those relationships with each other, build relationship to place and engage in some of that you know, almost healing. So, I think you know, when you when you leave a place, or you're forced to relocate to a new place, often due to those lasting legacies of colonialism - and I will say, you know, the British Empire impacted a lot of us, and still does - it leaves that little hole, and while this might not fill the hole, it at least allows you to see that you're not alone in that, and that other people have similar passions and similar care and love for place. And I think that that is really important, again, in sort of building these solidarities between our communities, and in making sure that we think about, what does it mean to live in a place that there are Indigenous people there that have this relationship to a place? What does it mean to come into that and then also see this layer of policies and laws and structural racisms that are impacting that and is there a way that we can find commonality and build at the very least, you know, a community of caring for each other. We can't always change laws and policies, or the time it takes to change laws and policies can be an entire lifetime, and so we pick away at it, but in the meantime, we still need to look after each other, we still need to have care. We need to have love, because otherwise, you know, you really you burn out in doing that work, and you lose part of yourself to that work, and you lose being able to see what's still beautiful, and I think that this project is one of those opportunities to make sure we don't lose that.
Maggie Perzyna
I really do hope that folks do get to see some of the projects. They're available if you look for WhereWeStand on the CERC Migration website, because I think they're really, truly unique. And there's such a diversity of stories that came out of this project that made it so special. Heather, you've touched on the importance of ethics when engaging with different communities. What ethical considerations should be considered when using art to represent migration experiences?
Heather George
Sure. So, there's sort of like the if it's an academic project, but really any research project, there's those elements of what are called the OCAP principles. So, ownership, control, access, possession, and that looks different in every project. But you need to have some conversations around that, right? Around methodologies of care, around you know, what happens with the final output or the final material that are created? How is it going to be used? You have to keep to keep having those conversations. Which is something I really value about this project, is that conversation hasn't stopped. We're still having those conversations with community members about, how do we use this next how does this get disseminated? Is this working for you? Is this working for your community? And so that isn't like a one-time conversation just to get through research ethics. It's an ongoing conversation [both Heather and Cyrus laugh]. And so, you have to keep having those conversations for one thing. And then there's a whole other side of things that, again, we sort of mentioned this earlier, sometimes, I think, in academia, just because of the way that it's set up and sort of the competitiveness and all of that, it gets lost. But is that ethic of care and Woodland, I think about this a lot, and I don't have all the answers, but it doesn't mean I stop thinking about it. We are at the site of a former residential school, and so what ethic of care do we have when we bring people into challenging spaces, challenging conversations, spaces where really horrific things have happened, because those spaces do exist in Canada, and we are certainly one of those spaces. And what is then in terms of methodology, it's really thinking about this ethic of care and how that's practiced within methodology. And so, I think a good example is that bringing this project to Woodland, it wasn't just a one day, you know, it was multi-day, and there was ceremony involved, and there was food involved, and times to be quiet and times to be boisterous. And so, it it's a longer process, I think to do research in that way. But really, if you're going to be working with Indigenous communities, there is no other way to do that work and have it do the work in a way that's not harmful. Because it's so easy to be trying to do good work and still be extractive. I think, sort of one of the pitfalls or the concerns of academic work is you can have the work have very good intentions and be very well meaning, but if you aren't constantly checking in with community and sort of thinking about how you have care throughout the process, you can still cause harm, because Indigenous communities often are joining this work from place of marginalization or long standing trauma and harm. And so that's why it's so important to include all of these elements of ceremony and of joy and of sadness and all of that together, and to make the time. So, right the time that it takes is the time that it takes, and often it's longer than you know, a semester [heather and Cyrus laugh]. Cyrus knows very well [both laughing].
Cyrus Sundar Singh
I love what you talked about is about process, and this is something. In process, it's tied to time and what institutionalized ideologies do is they do not allow for time. Whether it's it's a course, it's a semester, and you know, where there's a delivery of something, and so time is really important for process, and it's the process where the real shit goes down, right? That's where the stuff, that's where we engage. So, just to give you an example, when we did the first premieres of WhereWeStand, which was in Halifax, and we brought it to Woodland Cultural Center in Brantford, the time in between, and all the time that it took us to eat together, to even have a sunrise ceremony the morning of the event at Woodland. All those little bits and pieces of conversation and just hanging, was as important and was important to what we produced and put out and gave and premiered at Woodland that afternoon. It's even in the setting up, and it's about, you know, Heather, you know, should we use this flower or that flower in this you know, it's about that consultation, that engagement, that conversation. And even for the cohort, it was that time in between that was as important as what they produced and what they showed in the premieres. So, that process is really, really important and is so undervalued, or we undervalue it within institutions. And I think that that is one of the reasons why this particular project WhereWeStand has come to and as Heather said, it wasn't just a one time while we've done this, let's move on. Is that one conversation opens up another conversation opens up another conversation. And so, in a way, that was kind of what the intention was.
Heather George
I think it's really important to speak to that, because, in my experience, I don't think this has really changed enough yet in academia, is that researchers who do community based research and actually go out into community and build the relationships and do that work, it takes a lot longer, and it's not a, you know, a four year project and then you never see those folks again, right? That's a lifetime commitment. And because of sort of the demands of research output and publication and all of those things and the way that the academic system is set up to value certain things within an academic career versus others. You might, you know, uplift someone for spending 100 hours in a laboratory. Are you going to uplift that at someone else for spending 100 hours in community, in conversation, in meals and ceremony? Because all of that is just as much part of that work, and it doesn't get given the same sort of credit, I think, still to this day, and that's a big problem, because it means that where funding goes, where notoriety goes, where sort of the uplifting of careers in academia go, isn't often privileging people who are doing research in ways that actually really benefit and are directed by community. And so again, that's sort of when we talk about these systemic structures, right? It's not an activist thing to point this out. This is actually the way academia has been set up. And so, we have to change those systems that aren't meant - nobody's going out there being like, I'm going to be racist, and I'm going to say, you have to publish 10 journal articles to do well. They're just like, well, that's how we measure success. And so, it's changing that and saying, well, actually, that perpetuates these systems of inequity, and it forces researchers to do work that can be harmful. And so, how about instead, we value not just publications, but we value the time that people are committing in community and being engaged in that way.
Maggie Perzyna
The slow academia revolution. I love it. I love it! [all laugh]
Cyrus Sundar Singh
Well, not only academia revolution. Let me give you another quick example. So, if I walk into a studio to record a session, I've done this many times, where I could spend, like four hours doing everything but playing a note, but in that final hour and a half or two hours after that four hour five and six is where the magic happens, right? But it took those four hours to get to that magic, right? And so, there's value in the total of the six hours that I spent in the studio making something, but really, if you already looked at it technically, it'll only be like one and a half hours that I actually spent playing any notes. So, this is in a similar way. This is how this idea of methodologies also work, is that one of the things that we need to kind of deconstruct is that methodologies, they need to be dynamic. They cannot be static, right? They need to change as the needs change and as communities are different, and one size, one methodology or one size does not fit everybody.
Maggie Perzyna
Heather, how has your understanding of art, identity and migration evolved through your work and research?
Heather George
I mean, I wouldn't say it's changed. I think it's been supported [laughs]. It's more like, you feel less lonely and less odd. Because I think what could happen is when you do work in this way and you're surrounded by folks who don't necessarily work in this way, yeah, you're either seen as sort of odd or you're held up like it's so it's really lovely when people come to me and say, like, oh, the work you're doing is so great. That's really cool. I never would have thought of doing that. But at the same time, I'm always like, it's not that revolutionary. It's not actually, it's not something that you couldn't also do, right? To me. And so, I think it's more about rather than changing the way I see it like supporting that it's okay to do work in this way, and that there are other people doing work in this way, and that it's needed, and that there is value in doing it this way. And I think that it's actually a bit more about confirming this, because if you spend a lot of time working, at least in Indigenous communities. And this did take me a while, right? Like I grew up, I should say I grew up off reserve. Half of my family, my mom's side, my family, came over in the 1800s and so a lot of the value system I initially grew up with was very based in this sort of, like professional success and this drive and the need to do things in the most efficient way, and a lot of those things, right, those sort of core values and ways of working, and it's never meant to be harmful. But it took a lot of unpacking for me, a lot of years of working in community and ironically, being in post-secondary with very good indigenous professors, to change the way that I saw the world and the way that I did work, but then when that change was, you know, occurring, it often could feel very lonely, right? It made me feel like, okay, I'm learning how to be part of an Indigenous community, but in learning that I'm now not following the values of this other community, and that feels very lonely. And so, that can happen in academic work as well, where you're doing the work in a certain way that you know is in line with community values. But if you're one of only a handful of people doing the work in that way, it can feel very lonely, or you can feel like the way that you see the world is strange or at odds with other folks. And, you know, kind of like, am I the only one in the room that sees things this way? And so, doing this work has actually been, I think, very uplifting and supporting, and because we're bringing people together who have those common values and ways of going about doing work. And so, in fact, it's more it's, in some ways more healing than anything.
Maggie Perzyna
Cyrus your thoughts. How is your understanding of art, identity and migration evolved through your work or research?
Cyrus Sundar Singh
It's been an ongoing journey, and it continues the idea of movement. But I think that for me, it's always been about capturing, kind of some of the stations along the way, and multi-media, like whether it's music, it's films, it's a poetry. So, I have not arrived at an understanding of migration, but I continue to learn about why we move, what makes us move, keep moving, and sometimes what makes us kind of stand and stay and take a position, whether that's philosophically position or whether that's the physical position. And sometimes we do stand and fight for that piece of land that we're staying on, right? And so, it is a learning that continues to be a learning. And I want to kind of maybe leave you with this idea of migration, which is kind of connected to ethics and academia. Many years ago, while I was conducting research on some of the Tamil refugees who had arrived in Canada back in the 1980s one of the persons that was going to give me an interview would give me an interview. Was happy to give me an interview. But when I went through ethics, ethics had all these ideas about where the interview should be, should be conducted, that it should be on campus. There has to be all this paperwork that's involved. There needs to be translators, this, that and that, and I knew that this person wasn't going to sign any papers, would not feel comfortable on campus. So, where they wanted to do the interview was at Tim Hortons. So, hence my Tim Horton's methodology. So, they wanted to be in a place where they felt comfortable, which was at the coffee shop, which is where the people gather, and they wanted to be amongst other people so they felt safe. And the person wanted to talk to me and give their interview with somebody else present, which was great at our table, but they also wanted to speak in their language, which I was happy to do, because it was also my mother tongue. And so, what they did was that I could not record them, so I had to listen, translate in the moment pause, show them my English translation, and they would say, yes, okay, and then I would move on to the next minute and the minute after that. So, I just wanted to say that there are many ways for us to connect and to talk about ideas of migration, and to start to understand the different implications in all the different parts and parcels of movement, of human movement, and that it's not a fixed notion.
Maggie Perzyna
Heather, any final thoughts to leave us with.
Heather George
I want to express gratitude to Cyrus and to Toronto Metropolitan and CERC for supporting us in doing work in this way. Because going against the grain, I guess, in any organization can sometimes be, it can be scary, it can be challenging. It's easier, I think, for people to say no often than it is to say yes. And so, I am incredibly grateful to everybody for, you know, making that making that time, making that effort and being willing to say yes.
Cyrus Sundar Singh
Here are my final notes ready. I am grateful for being brought into this and for being asked to speak along with Heather. And I'm grateful to Heather for not only opening the door, but holding it open after all these months, and that we continue to do this work. So, I just wanted to give you an idea that we are now with Heather and with Woodland, in collaboration with them, working on an educational package that's based on all of these outputs that came out of the WhereWeStand project, so the journey continues, and also that WhereWeStand can be found at wherewestand.ca.
Maggie Perzyna
Thanks to Heather George and Cyrus Sundar Singh for joining me today and thank you for listening. This is a CERC Migration podcast produced in collaboration with Lead Podcasting. If you enjoyed the episode, subscribe to Borders & Belonging on Apple Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. For more information on WhereWeStand and using arts-based methods in migration research, please visit the show notes. Do you want to share your thoughts on the intersection of arts and migration studies? We'd love to hear from you. Follow the Borders & Belonging LinkedIn page and be part of the conversation. I'm Maggie Perzyna, thanks for listening!