16 (sixteen) artists and presiding elders and knowledge keepers from both Indigenous and non-Indigenous worlds in Simcoe County gathered in September 2015 at the homestead of Dazaunggee (lead Indigenous artist Paul Shilling).

The artists chose by lot the order in which
to make their works, non-indigenous artists
alternating with Indigenous.

The first artist, who was non-Indigenous, set to work in late September and two weeks later handed his woodcut to the first Indigenous artist. As he did so, he spoke about his piece and the creative process he went through. The second artist responded to the woodcut and in two weeks brought her painting to the third artist, who was non-Indigenous. And so the process unfolded. Each artist inspired the next one in the quest for shared vision. The process culminated in June 2016 at Paul Shilling’s homestead at which the artists revealed their works and told their stories in the order that they made them. 

The first piece is a woodcut depicting the Ojibway creation story of the Seven Fires, the White Buffalo and an Eagle emerging from darkness. The next is a deeply felt painting of loss and hope for renewal. In addition to canvases, the series includes lacework, paper cut-outs, a mixed media construction of the medicine wheel, a large sheet of birch plywood painted and carved by a router and with a painting of children from a residential school. A huge collage on a seven-by-seven-foot piece of canvas depicts the wall of a residential school, on which children carved their initials, alongside figures of suicides that emerge from a ground seemingly covered with ash and cinders. An iconic image inspires a diptych of powerful abstract canvases
reflecting on the strength of Spirit. 

Each work is the creation of a unique personality, aesthetic sensibility and skilled hand yet the pieces share many images -- themes that bear witness
with honesty and respect to
the facts of past experience
while envisioning a future
toward reconciliation.