Medicine: Patterns by Star Nahwegahbo
Family Embroidery Circle, 2021. Left to Right: Grandmother Norma Assinewai, Aunt Florence Nahwegahbow, Mother Sybil Eadie, Star Nahwegahbo, and Cousin Echo Nahwegahbo (not pictured)
Featured Artist: Star Nahwegahbo
“This series was created in 2020 and 2021. When Catherine first asked me to create a collection of patterns, I wanted to speak to the truth, but without perpetuating trauma. As a result, the patterns hold medicine around difficult topics that showcase our ancestral bloodline strength, resilience, and beauty. Some of the medicines you can find throughout the collection are cedar, sweetgrass, sage, strawberries, the land, and my Nookomis.”
“Special thanks to Emily Roe, as she was instrumental in helping me transform my visions into life.”
Star Nahwegahbo is Anishinaabe, Scottish, and English, from Aundeck Omni Kaning First Nation, Ontario, Robinson Huron Treaty, currently living in Tkaronto/Toronto. Star is a mother, interdisciplinary artist, former Social Service Worker of 12 years, grassroots community organizer, and expressive arts facilitator. In 2017, due to severe burnout and mental health, Star decided to retire from a twelve-year career in the social work sector and enrolled in OCAD University’s Indigenous Visual Culture Program. This decision was made so she may nurture her artistic gifts to combine her passion for social change and art into a healthier career. Star’s work explores mental health, the parallels of motherhood and land, the impact of colonial violence on Indigenous families, grief, medicine, and the art of braiding ourselves back into our rightful place in creation. One of the main targets of colonial violence on Indigenous people has been the attack on culture/identity, land, and children. Her work aims to nurture these relationships and dismantle the colonial system within herself. Star acknowledges that her work is guided and co-created with ancestral and land-based intelligence.
Star Nahwegahbo’s work is shared with the artist’s permission and the artist has been paid fees for the inclusion of her patterns in this project. Paying artists for their work is recognition of the central cultural work that they perform.
Grandmother (Norma Assinewai) at the Holy Cross Mission
“My grandmother is a Residential School survivor and the heart of our family.”
Medicine Garden
“The land is a surrogate mother.”
Bloodline
“Offering Ode’imin, the heart-berry, medicine to my bloodline of the past, present, and future.
This image speaks to Missing Murdered Indigenous women and children, two-spirit and trans folks who have been and continue to be impacted by colonialism and the Residential School system, 60’s Scoop, Day Schools, and the ongoing disproportionate amount of Indigenous children in the child welfare system.”
Rainbow Children - Kamloops
“I wanted to acknowledge and honor the children who have walked through the doors of Kamloops and countless other Residential Schools across Canada and never made it back home. The discovery of these children has provided a larger consciousness of Canada’s troubling history. The birds represent life after death and the journey back to the spirit world.”
Seven Generations
“Ancestral wisdom and guidance nurses our families.”
Mother and Son - Gzaaghin
“Breaking generational cycles and creating new ones.”
A Mother’s Love is Medicine
“We heal together.”
My Nookomis (Grandmother)
“I wanted to celebrate an image of my Nookomis that was not about the Residential Schools; instead, this is about her daily life.”
Buffalo Medicine
“Oftentimes, the healthcare system is not designed to support the lingering impacts of colonial violence on families. As a survivor of child sexual abuse and suicidal ideation, I wanted to create something that holds space and medicine for the things we are not ready for or able to talk about yet.”
Jennifer Nahwegahbo (baa)
“I wanted to create a way to honour my cousin Jennifer who passed away in 2020. Due to COVID I was unable to attend her funeral, so instead I planted strawberries in her memory. She passed away from a drug overdose leaving behind 3 children. The impacts of residential schools, 60’s scoop, Day schools and the child welfare system have ongoing rippling effects on our communities.
In this illustration I used cedar to hold medicine around her, similar to a traditional bath one would be given to help with death and transition to the spirit world. The strawberries represent the heart, and her three sons, and her two parents Tim and Deb (baa) who have also passed away. I used this illustration to keep her memory alive, to generate compassion and awareness for folks living with addictions and who have lost their children to the child welfare system. I often wonder if there was more community care in place, would she still be here today.“
Disrupted, Not Destroyed
“The act of cutting hair creates a disconnection between the land and the self. Haircutting was a tactic of assimilation used by the Canadian Residential School System.
There has always been this false narrative of a dying culture, and I wondered, 'What if I had no one to teach me? If so, does that mean I have lost all of who I am?' After some time, I began to understand through my relationship with land, ancestors, and creation that nothing was lost; I just had to look within and explore the landscape of myself to find the answers.”
We Are a Part of the Land
“Braiding ourselves back into creation.”
Absent is the act of cutting hair.
