The Ebb & Flow of Us
By Andrew White-Martin and Brooke Barnes in Consultation with Andy Houston
Our documentary reflection of our contribution to The Mush Hole Project
The Ebb and Flow of Us is a documentary-style reflection of the development of our platonic relationship to each other as queer artists working on sites of Indigenous history and trauma; Old Fort Erie as tour guides, where we first met, and the former Mohawk Institute as artists for the installation of Sub-Merge as part of the site-specific performance of The Mush Hole Project.
Created by Brooke Barnes
A note on development
In this short film, we record the re-visitation of these sites and dive into the emotional ebbs and flows that these sites solicited. This duo-reflection focuses on our relationship to reconciliation, and our associations to these sites as we traverse them. Both sites are places of layered historic and personal trauma. We acknowledge that these re-visitations are transpiring during a global pandemic while the unearthing of unmarked graves ensues. We do not go back to these sites unless we are called to, and through this Call to Contribution during a time where social distancing is still in place, we are coming together to share our story from before, during, and after our work in The Mush Hole Project in 2016.
In returning to The Mush Hole Project, while in the throes of a global pandemic, we knew immediately that developing a new performance would be hard to produce. With the potential of working under COVID-19 protocols, we would be very limited in what we wanted to do with a live performance and where we might be able to perform. Thus, we began with an idea of a short reflective documentary-style video. This formed into something that was much more fluid and personal as a filming experience. We didn’t want a crew, or professional film-makers. We approached this with a desire to keep the same three co-collaborators of the original work that we contributed to The Mush Hole Project in Sub-Merge. Through this realization, we wanted to maintain the idea of water in the previous performance of Sub-Merge, and apply through the concept of the ebbs and flows of relationships—our relationship to these sites, and to each other. This filming experience became an exploration of us and what brought us together, how we relate to each other, and how the unearthing affected us through the last year of the pandemic.
The original performance of Sub-Merge had been performed in the boy’s shower room in the basement of the former Mohawk Residential Institute. The creation of this original piece took place over the course of six months, planning our use of the space, how we would tell our story, and what we would tell as live performers to a rotating audience. The pandemic, however, forced live performance to a standstill and even as we began to slowly emerge from the pandemic, the possibility of restrictions or lockdowns was still very real. The film would effectively eliminate a live audience component, and the need for prolonged use of the site, and would better allow us to tell a much more visual story. The use of voice-over allowed us to relate to our audience on a more personable level. When we are on stage performing, we are actors; we represent memories, reflections, or places to an audience. When we allow ourselves to remain still and draw focus, we become a pure reflection, not only to the audience but also to ourselves.
There was no big master plan, no big cameras, or lights. When we came to the idea of a short documentary-style film, in essence, we wanted us. We ventured out with a DSLR camera, our cellphones, a microphone and a skeleton outline of what we wanted to capture and traveled through our shared memories and history that brought us to this. This approach proved to have its own challenges. Not unlike working in theatre, our advantage had been that we planned to keep mobile throughout the day of filming. These places that we revisit are not locations either one of us returns to without need or reason. Needless to say, in coming back to these places that we have not been to in years, be it since leaving or at the end of a project, these places haunt us to varying degrees—both bad and good. We reached for the nostalgia of being at the edge of twenty, in Fort Erie, a place we both once called home at the end of pivotal points in our lives. When we came back together to create and perform Sub-Merge after years apart in 2016 and how we knew we had a perspective to share. The years we spent growing together, growing apart, the love we maintained for each other, and reaching out to one another through the hard times describe the true ebb and flow of us.
About the artists
Andrew White-Martin is an actor of the Mohawk nation, born and raised on the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory. He wrapped shooting on the feature film "Quebexit" in 2019 and was nominated for Best Supporting Actor by the American Indian Film Institute in 2019 for his work in the feature film "The Incredible 25th Year of Mitzi Bearclaw. Andrew’s work spans film and television, from live performance to documentary work.
Visit Andrew’s website
Brooke Barnes is an artist-researcher of site-specific and intermedia creations with a B.A. in Theatre and Performance at the University of Waterloo and a certificate in Social Media through Seneca College. Brooke maintains a strong background in fostering relationships with co-collaborators and artistic employers and has recent experience in championing creative digital development for community and company initiatives.
Visit Brooke’s website
First, I want to thank Janis Monture for inviting me to participate in this important project.
I am a settler artist-researcher, of Scottish, Irish, and Swedish descent. I live and work in
the Waterloo region, in the Department of Communication Arts, at the University of
Waterloo. The main campus, where I work, was built on the traditional territory of the
Attawandaron (Neutral), Anishinaabeg and Haudenosaunee peoples. The university is
situated on the Haldimand Tract, the land granted to the Six Nations, that includes ten
kilometres on each side of the Grand River, from mouth to source.
As an educator, artist, and co-curator of the project you are about to experience, I invite
everyone to take a moment to pause and reflect on what it means to live, work, and now
co-create meaning as we engage with this artwork on land that carries a history of
colonialism and oppression.
Everyone has a different relationship to this land, but change begins when settlers come
together with Indigenous communities to acknowledge its history and the role we, the
settlers, played in that history, as a step toward conciliation.
In my heart and mind, Dejidwaya'do:weht (We are Thinking of it Again): The Mush Hole
Project 2.0 is a collaborative act of reaching. In part, it is a response to the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action, and in part it is a response to the
Mush Hole Project, which happened at the Woodland Cultural Centre in 2016. We are
reaching to develop a variety of relationships that fully acknowledge the pain and
destruction of Canada’s colonial past, but also endeavour to create a better future. We
are reaching for a relationship between settler Canadians and Indigenous peoples that is
grounded in truth and respect.
As it relates to my artistic-research in theatre and performance, the act of reaching for
these relationships is more sublime than beautiful. Without getting into too much history
of these terms, suffice it to say that beautiful art tends to calm and comfort, whereas
sublime art is focused more on an affect that excites and agitates. In both the curation
and artistic processes of Dejidwaya'do:weht (We are Thinking of it Again): The Mush Hole
Project 2.0, we have been repeatedly challenged in realizing an idea of what truth and
conciliation, in relation to the residential school legacy, might be. Indeed, it has been a
challenge making this work through a global pandemic, but also because we all share a
sense of agitation concerning the slow pace of change in the relationship between the
Canadian government and Indigenous peoples — that is, the relative lack of action in
response to the TRC’s calls to action since the first Mush Hole Project in 2016.
The Mush Hole Project in 2016 endeavoured to animate the embedded history and
cultural layers of the systemic genocide perpetuated upon Indigenous children at the
former Mohawk Institute. A powerful dimension of this work was in the labour of the
audience to immerse themselves in the physical, sensual experience of the site; the
sometimes-overwhelming engagement with the sights, sounds, and smells of the site.
Dejidwaya'do:weht (We are Thinking of it Again): The Mush Hole Project 2.0 is a digital
project that our audience can access from the comfort of their homes. After six years, it
is focused more on the growth and movement in the minds and spirits of the artists, as
we invited them to reflect on the current status and substance of the relationship between
Canadians and Indigenous people. We asked them, where are we at in reaching justice
on the legacy of residential schools?
I think that the result is a speculative space that explores the evolving relationship
between Canadians and Indigenous peoples. This sublime act of reaching is a vulnerable
act of invention. The reach is happening despite the weight of history, but it holds radical
potential to influence an audience to re-spect (literally, look again), re-think, and respond.
I hope that the artistic ingenuity of the works featured in Dejidwaya'do:weht (We are
Thinking of it Again): The Mush Hole Project 2.0 will reach the hearts and minds of our
audience, and encourage more reaching for justice on our shared journey toward truth,
conciliation, and collective well-being.