Ideas - Arctic Amazon Art Project: The Mural, Part One

Episode Date: August 27, 2024

The Arctic and the Amazon may be far apart geographically, but art connects them intimately. As part of a public art project bringing Indigenous artists from both regions together, Inuk artist Niap and the Shipibo artist Olinda Silvano worked on a mural that now graces the campus of Toronto Metropolitan University. They share their inspirations and their collaboration. *This episode originally aired on Oct. 23, 2023.

Hey there, I'm Kathleen Goltar and I have a confession to make. I am a true crime fanatic. I devour books and films and most of all true crime podcasts. But sometimes I just want to know more. I want to go deeper. And that's where my podcast Crime Story comes in. Every week I go behind the scenes with the creators of the best in true crime. I chat with the host of Scamanda, Teacher's Pet, Bone Valley, the list goes on. For the insider scoop, find Crime Story in your podcast app. This is a CBC Podcast. Welcome to Ideas. I'm Nala Ayed. Two Indigenous artists, one from the Arctic and one from the Amazon, meet in Toronto.

I wasn't worried. I was very excited about the experience. I couldn't wait to see what was going to come out of it. And I was coming in with an open mind and open heart and willing to learn. I was coming in with an open mind and open heart and willing to learn. And now that I am here, I am very happy with this work. I have tears of joy. Art gave me strength because art is life. Art is therapy. Art is everything for me.

They're collaborating on a mural that will grace the campus of Toronto Metropolitan University. Things are tentative at first, and they only have a few days together. How does that happen? How do you bring a Shipibo-Kanibo way of looking at the world, which is primarily from the Amazon, and match it up with a far north, with the ice and snow, with the culture so far away? That's what people want to see. That's what we want to understand. But before too long, the barriers disintegrate. And this meeting of apparently disparate cultures is transformed,

making way for mutual recognition, solidarity, and beauty. Ideas producer Sean Foley brings us this documentary, Arctic Amazon, the mural. In a modest studio in downtown Toronto, the Arctic and the Amazon are meeting. And as Olinda said, there's a Shipibo-Kanibo way of seeing. And Neop, who is from the Arctic with the Inuit, also has a way of seeing. And so bringing Shipibo-Kanibo and the Inuit together, people would think there's a conflict, but there isn't.

The room we're in is Gerald McMaster's office. He's director of the Wapata Center for Indigenous Visual Knowledge at OCAD University. Gerald is the lead curator of a related exhibition called Arctic Amazon Networks of Global Indigeneity and of this collaboration. It seems like a high-stakes hemispheric jam session, but his serene demeanor doesn't betray even a whiff of anxiety. Which is not to say that there is no tension. But there's also ceremony, singing, and sharing. Olinda Silvano, whose name in Shipibo is Reshinhaba,

shares a powerful element of her own tradition. For the Shipibo artists from Peru, singing gives birth to the artwork. As they sing, they draw plants and inscribe patterns called kene, which means a bunch of things. Language, map, image, spirituality. Olinda and her companions have been singing and inscribing kene patterns all over the world, most visibly in the form of murals. But kene has traditionally been expressed through embroidery and beadwork. The Shipibo art shows the powerful kene.

The kene is our identity, our ancestral memory. I don't want to lose our identity. I want people to know about our community. Some do, some don't. I work with a lot of artists and curators, and I learn from every work that I do. Olinda is joined in Toronto by her son, Ronin, and Vilma Menas. Olinda describes Vilma as a sister and partner.

What a great background. It's going to go far. It's going to go far. It's going to go deep in. And then more symbols and a lighter wash, more symbols, lighter wash. And it's going to look like death, like galaxy. Today, Niapp has been imagining the deepest blue possible as the ground for this meeting of Amazon and Arctic landscapes. Not just some chunk of the horizon, as in the Western tradition, but a landscape rendered

in pattern, symbol, plants, ocean, river, knowledge. During a pause in the work, Olinda introduces herself. I always speak in my mother tongue, which is Shipibo, with my language, with my identity that I represent very proudly. Spanish is an adaptation. Torontonga. I'm afraid to say it, but I'm afraid to say it. And that's it. up I didn't have we didn't have stop signs or we would you know it was very tiny what growing up it was a thousand five hundred and today it's a it's a population of twenty eight hundred people it's the biggest community of northern Quebec of Nunavik the smallest being out the look of a of 195 people, I think. It's a beautiful place. The land is very rich

and the land is very, very inspiring. And I believe that's where I get most of my inspiration from, this connection I have to the land. In our community, no one visits There's a lot of needs in our community The Shipibo-Kanibo people have traditionally lived in communities along a major headwater of the Amazon But in recent decades, many have migrated to the city of Lima There's banana, there's fish

But if you need to dress up, if you want to do the laundry, there's nothing. And the studio is not easily accessible. Sometimes it is work just to get dressed. It's hard. So we migrate to the city, look for opportunities, to give visibility to our identity, to give visibility to our beautiful art. To not forget our origins, our roots.

To show people in the city that we are human, but we are indigenous, from this beautiful, marvelous country, Peru. It's a bit weird, but every community has its own smell. When you get off the plane in Kuchuk, it smells like black spruce, very, very strongly. When you get off in Puventuk it smells a lot like berries, like Kimi Nak berries, the red

berries. When you get off in Salluit it smells like the sea, you know, so Hotuk also smells like water. It's a bit odd, but I, yeah, every town has its particularity, and it's a beautiful, beautiful region. I have a very big story in my life, since my birth. When my parents got together, my mom was 12 and my dad 14. I was born when my mom was 13 years old. They cut my umbilical cord and they prepared plants to help me heal.

And those plants were piri-piri, and they were also mixed with the tongue of fish and a root, a vegetable that's a root, that was grated. And this part that was grated, it's a very powerful plant. In our tradition we believe in the plants. There's different types of piripiri for love, for hunting, for fishing, for deliveries, for giving birth. You eat piripiri and then the next morning your baby is born and piripiri for knowledge. So grandmothers used to plant this and they would heal us on Saturday and Sunday and would go to the earth to cultivate, to weave. So that made me grow as a woman who is hypnotized by the plants.

Besides piripiri, the Shipibo people place great importance on ayahuasca. The plant brew enables them to receive visions. As I grew up, my grandfather, my great-grandfather took ayahuasca, and he started singing to me and placed upon me an invisible crown with a design like that. and no one sees that. You place that through the vision so you don't see it. It's kind of like you're giving power. I remember seeing on TV a woman dancing and she had a very flowy white dress on and there was very long white curtains and a blue light.

And she was dancing contemporary dance with this very beautiful music and I was completely hypnotized by it. And I had decided that's it I want to dance I want to very young I like four or five years old I was just throwing myself on the ground and I remember my mother asking me like what are you doing I said I'm dancing and she says oh is that how we dance I said yeah I saw it on tv I saw it on TV. I saw it on TV. For a long time, I decided that I'm going to be a dancer, but I had no classes, nothing available to me as a child, you know. But I remember another time where I heard the piano for the first time, and I wanted to know what the sound was. And when I was told it was a piano, I said,

that's it, I want to be a piano player. I have to learn how to play. And I had no classes, and I remember being very disappointed when I didn't get my grand piano I had asked for for Christmas, you know. When you are in the jungle, you use mosquito protection. And when I was inside the fabric, I was seeing the visions. I saw visions, kene, everywhere. And I was like, what is happening? And I would call my friends and say, look, look.

And they would say that there's nothing, there's nothing here. And I was surprised because I was like, why am I seeing this? It used to hurt. It was painful. I would ask my mom again. I would ask my grandmother again. And my grandmother told me, you are special. What does that mean? I didn't get it. Sometimes I used to cry. In the community we cook with wood, and it burns,

and I used to feel like I had a headache. And my grandmother was like, No, you're special. Come here. And one day I got up, and my grandmother was trying to cure me with piri-piri, and I am not ashamed of what my grandmother did to heal me, so my knowledge exploded. I used to feel that there was a presence coming with me, so I would tell my grandmother about that, and she would heal me and do this to me.

She drank piri-piri, and she's like, I'm going to get that out of your head. She sucked on my head and that moment is when I felt relief. I wanted to see visions and then I would go back into the mosquito protection and I couldn't see more visions.

But she told me, I will leave some of these visions for you because you're going to be a big woman. She knew that my future was beyond what I could understand. So I have a really big story. I still work, because I love this.

What I had access to was pen and paper, crayons, paper, and my imagination. So storytelling and imaginary worlds, imaginary friends. And so I started drawing. I remember my mother teaching me how to oil paint very young. She would get me to write stories and put them together, and I'd have little binders of my little stories that i wrote i mean i wrote a story about a clown that got you know that lost his job in a circus and then had to reinvent himself and i was like eight nine like i mean yeah and then i

it it ended in a happy ending He ended up making friends with a dolphin and they opened their own show together in my story. And I remember these things so clearly. But this is something that I always felt like I needed to do, like creating or imagining things, imagining stories. When I was two, I used to love to paint on the earth, paint designs, because I was very humble. I didn't have notebooks, I didn't have pencils.

The only distraction was to play with the earth and design on it. But when the rain fell, everything was erased, and I was running to see my designs, and there was nothing left. I used to try observation drawing a lot, without knowing that's what I was doing, but I instinctively, you know, would bring pen and paper, crayons and paper to camping when we'd go out on the land. And I would try to reproduce these landscapes. And I remember being so frustrated because I had this image in my head and I had this style that I wanted to create, but I didn't have the fine motor skills for it.

I was very young and I used to cry that I wasn't good at drawing. It was very frustrating for me. It was very frustrating for me because I didn't have the skill or the material. And I didn't know it was lack of skill or lack of material, you know? What did you think it was? It was me. I thought it was me. I thought I couldn't do it.

I thought I was incapable of coming up with my image that I had in my head, this artwork that I'd seen in my head so clearly. I thought I wasn't able to reproduce it. Little did I know if I had a paintbrush, I probably would have had an easier time than wooden crayons, or wax crayons, you know? In Lima, the Shipibo-Kinibo settled along a river, on top of a landfill wedged between the water and a major highway. The settlement is called Cantagayo.

It's an outpost for Shipibo-Kinibo art and culture, as well as a bulwark against the assimilation that often occurs in the city. Olinda's son Ronin grew up in Cantagayo. I'm an artist and I'm also an activist, representing the people, the Shipibo community, and a student. I am very happy and very thankful with my mother because it is through her that I am here. Since I was a kid, she's always told me about the millenary culture and about the knowledge of our ancestors. As youth in the city, it is very hard for us to continue with our culture because of all the discrimination. But art has allowed the Shipibo people to share the knowledge and the work that we do with the world. Do you remember the first time your mom taught you something in the tradition? She would always tell me stories about when she was a kid and how her life was, living

with her grandparents. And I always think about that in my imagination because my mom brought me into the city when I was five. I have very little memories of the jungle. Through her stories and her art, I've been able to be more interested in learning about my culture. And we're here fighting in resilience, showing what indigenous cultures have to show in the world. We don't want our culture to disappear because it's happened with other cultures in our country before and we don't want that. Olinda tells us about the journey she and other Shipibo women made from their ancestral lands to the city.

We suffered a lot as we opened the road, walked hours without eating, and suffer being insulted. There's people who molest women, but no one defends us. So I was courageous, and I said, I am going to defend our culture and our women. I don't care whatever happens. So I became a leader for the group.

Being a leader is not easy. You don't get a paycheck. You say goodbye to your home, to your kids. You work without a paycheck for hours, countless hours, fighting for the community, fighting for the women, for the kids. So my tears have made me grow roots, and I'm strong. We help widows, abandoned women, divorced women. We are opening the road. We are paving the road for women. We are looking for fairs, workshops to empower women.

We fight with our partners. It's not easy to make that decision. They say, Olinda is a bad woman, teaching bad things to women. She's looking for men. But we know we are not looking for anyone. We are looking for opportunities. Our husband is our work. Our work is our faithful companion.

And being a leader, an example to our families. Even my own family has made me feel bad at times because I leave my place and I come back late and everyone is saying, Olinda is abandoning her family. I was very criticized, but I never listened. I know what I am doing.

I knew what I was looking for. And just now, everyone is saying congratulations. And I used to cry at night because people would tell me that you abandoned your family. And I was cooking at 4 in the morning. Everything was ready for 6 a.m. And then I looked for opportunities.

So there's a lot of work. This family ties all across Nunavik. I mean, you know, these borders are, like, even the borders between Nunavik and Labrador, it's all just, you know, man-made and not real. But in it, we traveled a lot. And I have family, you know, a lot across Nunavik. People I've never really met. People I know very well. And sometimes I'll go to a new community and they'll recognize me as my mother. Oh, are you Daisy's daughter? And I'll say, yeah.

Oh, she's my second cousin. So we're cousins, you know, we're family. Or my grandmother was cousins with your grandmother. Like, I have cousins in Hotduck. We're all interconnected. And when, let's say when I go to Aupalook, which is known for their abundance in seal and, you know, all sorts of country food, my mom will say, oh, make sure to bring me some seal meat back and then i was in huatak and they were biluga hunting and my brothers called me

when they found out i was there i said oh make sure to find some some matak which is the biluga skin that inuit eat my brother's all excited oh my, bring me some matak back, please, you know. So we're all still very interconnected. I can only imagine that's just a huge source of strength and strength. Yeah, I mean, definitely. We're a people who are trying to bring each other up. We always try to support one another, and it is a very strong community when the people are strong.

You know? I was planting the seeds, and now I am getting the fruits of that. And we move on. We move forward. Now I am a president of the community, so I am an artist leader. In the whole of Peru, I am a leader for the Andean woman and women of the Amazon. And I am very happy to be opening the way, to be paving the road. But there are still lots of things to do, because we are a big community.

I gather my family and ask them for help. Help me. So now I am fighting for studies and for education. I am fighting for a place to live and I am also fighting to show my work. But the state always looks for ways to make us smaller, to discriminate, that we as indigenous people, we cannot live in the city because we cannot afford it,

that we don't have studies. No, I have an ancestral profession and I keep fighting in the fight against everything. We're always being confronted with that traditional knowledge not being recognized as real knowledge, you know? My sister-in-law, she's in school and she has a class in journalism. And she wrote a story about her grandmother and the land

and the travels that they did and these things like that. And the teacher says, did you check your facts? Like, Olivia's like, yeah, I did. She says, where are your facts from? She said, well, my grandma told me. You know? And he goes, oh, no, those are not facts. He's like, what do you mean?

And then she says, they're not scientific facts. Anthropology facts. Is it written somewhere? She says, no, it's not written anywhere. My grandma told me. Why would my grandma lie to me? This is traditional knowledge. It's not in any book, but it's as valid.

My sister-in-law, she's struggling with this class because she says, I want to write about our culture and things that people don't know about and put them in the media and talk about injustices, but I cannot because they're not backed by facts, accepted by my school or the Western world, you know? So it's a struggle. It's a big struggle.

I give opportunities to women and kids as to how they can make a living. My heart is big. And now that I am here, I am very happy with this work. I have tears of joy. Art gave me strength because art is life. Art is therapy. Art is everything for me. Always working, at night,

during the day. And I have a lot of work, but I keep working. Whatever I sell or I don't sell, I don't mind. I keep working because I keep showing the women and telling them, I am here. And if you don't know, I can teach you. That way women see and they also learn and they see the opportunity. Now it's 12 muralist women in the community. Because art has given me power. Art has given opportunities to me. Art is our best company I enjoy it it's everything I believe in the power of art let me just add that

what I'm hearing that's being said is something that we share in my culture, which is the Plains Cree. And we have a concept for the kind of things that's being said. We say migosuin. And it's like what's given to you from the plants, from the spirits, from the Great Spirit maybe. It's what you're born with. It's those kind of gifts that you're given.

So we're all given migosuin, every human being and so when I hear that Olinda says that art is everything that's where to me that that comes into being that concept yes I can only think of that in a very small way but it's a much larger concept that I think that the older people really understand and that it's what we give to say, the young people like Ronan. We help them as well to develop Migoswin. And so art being everything, it comes out in people in different ways. So it's that creative creativity in mind. And so creativity can be in art,

it can be in just your everyday practice and whatever you do. So it's those gifts that you're given. Yes, it's very beautiful. Gerald McMaster, lead curator of the exhibition Arctic Amazon, Networks of Global Indigeneity. networks of global indigeneity. Ideas is a podcast and a broadcast heard on CBC Radio 1 in Canada, on US Public Radio, across Turtle Island on Sirius XM,

in Australia on ABC Radio National, and around the world at cbc.ca slash ideas. Find us on the CBC Listen app and wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nala Ayed. My name is Graham Isidore. I have a progressive eye disease called keratoconus. Unmaying I'm losing my vision has been hard,

but explaining it to other people has been harder. Lately, I've been trying to talk about it. Short-sighted is an attempt to explain what vision loss feels like by exploring how it sounds. By sharing my story, we get into all the things you don't see about hidden disabilities. Short Sighted, from CBC's Personally, available now. The mural is called Landscapes of Us. It's now installed at the campus of Toronto Metropolitan University. The mural contains the visions and knowledge of the Inuit people of the Arctic

and the Shipibo-Konibo of the Amazon region. The artists are Niap from Kujuak, Nunavik, and Olinda Silvano and her companions from Cantagayo, Lima, Peru. They worked together to create the mural in the fall of 2022. But here's the thing, they had never met before, much less made art together. Yet, there were clear affinities between the two artists, like their love of and loyalty to their people and their communities. For Nia, who dreams of joy and well-being for her people, ideas are the raw material for change.

I have many ideas, and they're all written in my book, and they're all in my back pocket, and I feel like I don't have enough time to get them all done. I really do hope it's making a change. Probably not in my lifetime, but maybe people will see it later. Maybe people will see it later But I want us to be recognized as People with knowledge And people with rights And people that are struggling

We're struggling and we need support It's like a pull and push and pull feeling Because I'm doing good and we need support, you know? It's like a pull and push and pull feeling. Because I'm doing good. I'm doing very good. Not just career-wise, but personal. I'm in the process of healing. And sometimes I'm sitting in my living room,

it's raining outside, and I just feel so fortunate, so grateful. And then I think like, why me? Why not everybody else? And I understand that I pulled myself out of it. And I had a vision and I wanted to go to school and I worked really, really hard, but I also had a lot of comfort. I had this like perfect mix of hardship and support, you know, I feel. But why me and not everybody else? Why do I have to go home and hear about, you know, the numbers of suicide having gone down or, you know, we have one psychologist to represent all of Nunavik. There's one psychiatrist that comes every three months. And then there's all the support given because a non-Inuk lost her life

and her co-workers need support. So they get extra psychological support. Whereas we've been dealing with death and loss for years and and we're not getting any extra support why why is our education system behind why is our health care system so sad why do we not have enough housing for everybody why is our food so fucking expensive? You know? Why all this? It's just so unfair. Just recently there's a girl who was murdered.

She went down south for school. She did NS, was successful, went back home, came back to go to Algonquin College, and then she died. She was murdered. Like, why? You know? I love my people, and I really, really am trying to show the world who we are and what our struggles are and how we need help. And I'm trying to explain where we come from

and how we got to where we are and why we are where we are. But then I feel guilty that I'm doing good, you know? So it's really, really hard. Cantagallo was burned down in 2016. It was very sad. We don't know if it was provoked. Only God knows.

Only the universe knows. So we don't know. But we never received any help. All Cantagallo sounded like... Kids crying. Things falling apart. 11 p.m. Midnight. The fire was a big fire. We worked with seats. It sounded like beads falling. And the kids were crying. It was horrible. That night, November 4th at midnight,

it was a tragedy that fell upon our community. The smoke came, and it was suffocating us before the fire arrived. Our kids running one way, us the other. We're always looking after them, but when something like that happens, you don't know where your family is. Looking after them, but when something like that happens, you don't know where your family is. I had had surgery, and I was in a wheelchair. I was in recovery, and I couldn't run. That day, I ran, but I could not find my kids. The day after, people were crying. There were no houses left, no art left.

Everything had turned to ashes. The earth was feeling hot like an oven. We were looking for family, and our family was under the bridge where the water was passing by. It was very sad. The mayor was trying to get us out of there, but we have not left.

We kept fighting, and the art helped us heal. We couldn't sleep. Mama! Fuego! Fuego! Mama! We were frightened about the fire.

And so we started working on murals. And that was our therapy. We cried. We laughed afterwards. And our daughters also started singing, and their song helped us to fall asleep again. Singing is art as well, and that night, they were able to sleep quietly. That's why I believe in art. Art has made us capable of surviving and thriving. Art has made us capable of surviving and thriving. We're still living in the community in Cantagallo.

If you visit Peru, visit Cantagallo. It's 10 minutes away from the palace. If you visit, we welcome everyone. We give workshops. We share, that's who we are. We're happy to share with Indigenous artists here in Canada and create a connection, and hope it's not the last collaboration. And one day I will visit her community. así estamos trabajando y acá hemos hecho un montón de diseños listo para escoger, para hacer murales ¿Cómo te sientes de trabajar con NIAAP?

Muy contenta estoy aprendiendo a combinar Super. I'm learning how to combine. And she's a very talented girl, very easygoing, very happy. So there is an energy there. Very easygoing, very happy. I'm a happy partner. So there is an energy there. So this is one of my first times collaborating with another artist. My first time working with an established artist. And it was, I was a bit, I wasn't worried. I was very excited about the experience.

I couldn't wait to see what was going to come out of it. And I was coming in with an open mind and open heart and willing to learn. And I think our processes being very different, it took a little bit of time, like a day or two or three, to kind of get into each other's groove. When we sat down to really talk about the project, very quickly it set into something concrete and very organic, you know? I realized a lot of things.

You know, as an Aboriginal woman from Kujuk, our region is struck with a lot of hurt and a lot of, you know, consequences coming from, you know, our colonial history. And I've realized that Olinda, as an Aboriginal woman, she knows the same thing. woman she's she knows the same thing and then our our worries from this common experience is also very similar in terms of identity sense of identity fear of losing identity and culture and and trying to you know work hard to keep it alive and affirming that we're present and I think we were very much the same in that way you know and we come from two completely different parts of the world and that I thought was really special With these designs, the energy is there. The energy of how we are healed with our plants, the piripiri, the ayahuasca vision, the floripondio,

the doe-wey, the mucura. There are many plants, many plants. And this work, it's not something that you copy. It comes from within you. Our Shipibo community didn't have a clock. There is a design called constellation, and it is to guide, to show the way to your house. Or if you were lost, you would see the design, and that is how you would find home. It would show the way to the farm, to the fish. This one represents the anaconda, that is mother of the earth,

the mother of the water. It is anaconda. It is powerful. It is hypnotizing. If it sees you, it drowns you. So that's the way this is reflected in the work. There are different types of anacondas. There's an anaconda that gets fish.

You see the anaconda and the river dries. That is the mother of the earth and the water. It is a powerful anaconda. Very good. We sing when we work. We sing and through that we get inspired. Sometimes when you're alone you can focus. You can talk as if someone was there. When there's noise around, we can't. You can't.

And then, if you want me to do it again, I can't. We have to do another one. It is one time that you do it with that guide. That's how we work, as women, whether on the mural or on even fabric. Our music is so beautiful. First time I heard her sing, I just got waves of shivers all the way up to my from my feet to my skull. It was just so good. And when she started singing here, kind of to celebrate the beginning,

I was just, I just felt like singing as well. And I don't know a lot of my traditional song, but what I did know, I wanted to sing it. We speak about intergenerational trauma is passed on through DNA and all that, but I also believe that just tradition and knowledge and deep connection to who we are as a people is also transferred you know i remember meeting a jewelry maker uh randomly in my college she was selling uh beaded things beadedaded earrings, necklaces, and they were so urban, but I was so drawn to them. There was many vendors, and this table I was very drawn to. There was these designs that I was very attracted to, and the simplicity in terms of color, and there was like a sophistication to them also,

and I said, wow, these are beautiful. And the woman started to explain, yes, they're Delica beads. And she was trying to explain the process. And I said, oh, in my culture, women bead a lot. So I know about the process. And she goes, oh, cool. What's your culture? And I said, I'm Inuk.

And her face just went like white. She's like she's like I'm Inuk and I looked at her I said no way because I thought she was Mexican you know and she says yeah my mom is Kibikwa and my dad's Inuk and I'm from this region I said wow I'm from that region too have you ever and I asked her have you ever been there she says says, no. I said, do you know anything about our culture? She says, absolutely nothing. I said, how did you get these designs? She goes, I don't know. I just do them. And I just, to me, it's just profound. I just do them. This is what I want to do. It's not an easy work.

It's little by little when you work with embroidery. The Ministry of Culture now recognizes this as part of our culture, but they just give you recognition but no support. People don't appreciate embroidery. They think they're artisans and we're minimized. The painters, oh painters. And they sell more. And why not embroidery?

That's why I work with the Ministry of Culture, and I consult with them, especially during COVID. And I make the case for why the artisans work so hard and they are not given the same recognition. Why don't we have a pension? An artisan gets sick and they die. An artisan grows older and there's no pension. They're forgotten. They are forgotten. People need to be recognized. Does it have to do with embroidery traditionally being done by women, or is that an issue? I don't know. But now men are also involved in embroidery. If men don't have the work, they need to help. Because how are they going to provide for the family?

Traditionally, men were not allowed to participate in these activities because it was believed that it would affect their masculinity. But it's not true. It's just macho culture. For example, Ronnie, my son, he embroider, he does embroidery, he gives workshops, he teaches youth, he teaches kids. And he's still a man. He's a happier man, probably, for doing embroidery. He likes it. He's a happier man, probably, for doing that. He's happier because he does it. Yes, he likes it. He's a good teacher.

Ronan, when you talk to the young people, are they receptive? How do they receive what you're teaching, what you're bringing to them? What I do with the youth is I try to show them what we do traditionally, but in a new way. Sometimes it feels like they're a little ashamed when they're talking about their culture, but art is helping them be proud of it and reconnect with their grandparents. And the work that we've been doing is exactly trying to preserve our identity. No matter where we are, we always have to feel proud of being indigenous.

Now we have a group that sings rap in Shipibo. We look for dancers, chants, paintings, everything that has to do with art, but integrating that into our indigenous world so we can continue in this path sharing with everyone. I don't want to go all cliche on anybody, but I feel like I have a message. And my media is art. That's what I am good at. That's the gift that I was given. I'm fishing. I lure people with really pretty things, shiny things, and then I catch them with the hook, and I talk to them about,

you know, issues. And I'm very lucky to have the platform and people who listen, and I'll keep doing it as long as I can. Wilma, you've been very quiet. Do you have anything you want to add? You've been so patient to listen. We're very happy to be here with the attention you're giving to us and we're going to move forward. Thank you for receiving us as a family. This is my first time leaving Peru, so I'm very happy. I took a plane. I am here. First time outside of Peru? How does she feel in the north with the world turned upside down.

Happy, very happy. We would like to be here for a longer period of time. But these kinds of projects are like this, and we go from one place to another. We're going to be waiting for the opportunities to visit. I always wanted to travel with my designs. The designs give you the strength. And that's why I am here now. I've been wanting to travel. Yes, now you do. For me, I was thinking, living in Canada, we have so much art from different parts of the country

with indigenous artistic forms and visual knowledge. So when you think that other indigenous peoples across the Americas, you just multiply that and everybody is seeing the world differently or at least expressing it in a different way. I think to me that bringing Indigenous artists together from the hemisphere and presenting it in these magnificently important spaces is how indigenous art will reach the world and perhaps be understood better and not just something of the past that is ancient that is maybe dead but rather it's living as you can see in their clothing it's living it's a part it's in neop as well with the tattoos. It's ancient, but it's contemporary. It lives with you. It's living, breathing, and an important part of life.

To me, that's the basis for indigeneity, indigenous art, indigenous visual knowledge. We want to say goodbye by singing. Do you have a song in Toronto? Yes. On Ideas, you've been listening to Arctic Amazon, The Mural, produced by Sean Foley. Translation and voiceover by Carla Rojas. Additional voiceovers by Rosie Fernandez and Jack Suits. Special thanks to Kristen Geiger and Derek Flack from Toronto Metropolitan University.

Our technical producer is Danielle Duval, with help from Oronde Williams, Emily Chiarvezio, and Gabby Hagorilis. Our web producer is Lisa Ayuso. The senior producer of Ideas is Nikola Lukšić. The executive producer is Greg Kelly, and I'm Nala Ayyad. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.