Planetary health through arts-based and Indigenous worldviews: Canada-Mexico perspectives with Matilde (Matty) Cervantes, Centre For Global Studies (CFGS) graduate fellow, and Hereditary Chief Rande Cook of the Ma’amtagila Nation and member of Awi’nakola Foundation. Territory acknowledgement and grounding by Gerry Ambers, Kwakwaka’wakw from the ‘Namgis Nation, Elder and Knowledge Keeper at the First Peoples House at the University of Victoria.
WHEN: Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024
WHERE: SED C168 or online via Zoom
TIME: 10:30 a.m – 12:00 p.m. (PDT)
Zoom Link: https://uvic.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEsd-CuqTkjGdaMdAO-b8-R39zCyo0uZvlM
This talk explores Cervantes’ doctoral program, including her community-based project and the production and launching of a podcast disseminating knowledge about its key themes and participants. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) funded project includes two main components, a cultural exchange and a co-developed curriculum program with participants from the west coasts of Mexico and Canada.
This arts-based, Indigenous-cantered, community-based project is being co-developed with people of colour and Indigenous communities to lay the foundations for a climate justice agenda from a planetary health perspective. This project is relationship-based and uses Indigenous methodologies, arts-based paradigm, and a social justice approach. Also, this project contributes to the goals of agenda 2030, United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
SPEAKERS:
Gerry Ambers is Kwakwaka’wakw from the ‘Namgis Nation in Alert Bay. She is the mother of five children and six grandchildren. She studied Northwest Coast Design with Kwakwaka’wakw artist Doug Cranmer, in a studio set up for art training in the basement of the former St. Michael’s Residential School in Alert Bay. Ambers gravitated towards activism and politics at an early age, becoming involved in the National Alliance for Red Power (NARP) in 1967. For 55 years, she has been an advocate for the rights and responsibilities of Indigenous People. Today, Ambers supports the work of art galleries, Indigenous organizations and post-secondary institutions on Vancouver Island as an Elder, mentor and healing worker.
Matilde Cervantes has a rich background in psychology, psychotherapy, and art therapy with 15 years of experience in private practice. She is also a PhD student affiliated with the Institute on Aging and Lifelong Health at the University of Victoria and the Centre for Global Studies. She holds a Master in the Social Dimensions of Health. Currently, she is in her third year of doctoral studies at UVic. For her doctoral studies and research, Cervantes is working with community-based research and arts-based research with Indigenous worldviews and the theme of planetary health. She aims to contribute to the social justice, equity, diversity and inclusion conversations in the community and believes art is a valuable tool to evoke social change in creative, transformative, and collaborative ways.
Rande Cook is hereditary chief of the Ma’amtagila Nation, member of the Awi’nakola Foundation and a multimedia artist born in culture-rich Alert Bay, B.C. With more than three decades of experience, Cook is passionate about creating beautiful and provocative works, challenging audiences to reconsider the role of traditional techniques for contemporary art-making. He has worked on films such as Before They Fall (2021) by Ecologyst Film, screened at Whistler Film Fest and the Vancouver International Mountain Film Fest, and Tree Of Life and Its People (2019) produced by Cook and screened at the Friday Harbour Film Festival and Courtenay Film Festival. Cook held the Audain Professorship of Contemporary Art Practice of the Pacific Northwest with the Visual Arts department at the University of Victoria in 2015 and 2016. In 2021, he completed his Master of Fine Arts at the University of Victoria.