Kookums Lounge

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About

The Kookums Lounge is interactive space of light in a very familiar structure to the landscape since before Winnipeg was Winnipeg - the Tipi. Traditionally, the tipi represents a women’s skirt, sheltering community and kin. I consider the tipi Indigenous femme architecture and as a type of Indigenous institute, a gathering space to share and transmit knowledge, stories and languages. On the shores of the red river the tipi brings to light many histories of Indigenous peoples, immigrants and settlers. The Kookums Lounge tipi encourages an intercultural exchange in offering a place of refuge and reflection. Instead of hide, upcycled water resistant sails from sailboats and tarp material will be sewn together for the tipi covering, both materials used to symbolize migrations of many people that came here from across the oceans on boats, and the tarp material to represent tent cities constructed from the homeless.

My background with this project is multifaceted, as an Anishinabe ikwe member of Sagkeeng First Nation from my matriarchal side situated in Treaty 1 Territory, I also have settler ancestry with British European bloodlines from my patriarchal side of my family second generation Canadian. Working with light, sound, mixed media, archives, cultural materials and interactivity are within my art practice, as well as working in large scale projects in public art. My recent solo show, Brings to Light at Gallery 1c03 allowed me to produce large scale works in sound and light, photos of tipi’s as knowledge centres. I had explored projection, and cast light as a way to tell a story and bring to light dark histories, as well as instigate intercultural and intergenerational exchange from a lens of learning and experimentation in light, movement and material. I am a sailor and have received a kookum scarf from my great grandmother that also bring me particularly close to the materials in this project, which are coded with history and visual literacy that speak to intercultural understandings. I live near the river and bike down the waterfront trail to witness the tent cities which have increased since the pandemic. Creating and holding space for collective understanding and dialogue is what is being presented as a concept in Kookum’s Lounge. I invite storytellers and nappers to rest in the space, listen to one another and reflect on the place it stands.

A Kookum scarf material will be present in the construction of the tipi, so it is encouraged that visitors wear their favourite ‘kookum scarves’ when they visit but all are welcome.

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Organizer

Jaimie Isaac

Jaimie Isaac is a curator and interdisciplinary artist, member of Sagkeeng First Nation in Treaty 1 Territory and is of mixed heritage. As former Chief Curator at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria from 2021-2023, where she continues as a Curatorial Advisor to activate the TRC calls to actions remotely. She served as the Indigenous and Contemporary Arts at the Winnipeg Art Gallery for six years and has been in leadership positions in arts and cultural organizations as well as many independent projects.

Artistically, Isaac co-founded The Ephemerals Collective, which was long-listed for the 2017 and 2019 Sobey Art Award. Collectively and independently, she has exhibited and presented work internationally. Jaimie collaborated with an artistic team on a public sculpture at the Forks called Nimama at South Point path: Niizhoziibean and collaborated on a public art project, Cyclical Motion: Indigenous Art & Placemaking and completed a solo public art work, the 8th and Final Fire at the Forks, Winnipeg, 2021 and solo exhibition, Brings to Light at the 1co3, 2022. With published work, Jaimie has contributed articles and features for Art + Wonder, C Magazine, Bordercrossings, and essays for exhibition catalogues; Insurgence Resurgence, Boarder X, Close Encounters: The Next 500 Years, and unsacred. Isaac has contributed to scholarly collections of writing within The Routledge Companion to Indigenous Art Histories in the United States and Canada, and The Introduction to Determinants of First Nations, Iniut and Metis Peoples' Health in Canada: Chapter 13 Taking Care: Indigenous Peoples' Art, Resurgence and Wellness, and The Land We Are Now: Writers and Artists Unsettle the Politics of Reconciliation, and West Coast Line 74 and Public 54: Indigenous Art: New Media and the Digital Journal and forthcoming publications. In community, Jaimie was co-faculty for the Wood Land School at Plug In Summer Institute in 2016. Within community work, Curatorial Advisor for the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, currently serves on the Advisory Committee for the Manitoba Museum, on the board of directors for Bordercrossings Magazine and Trustee for the Sobey Art Foundation and currently Scholar in Residence for the 7 Oaks School Division. Jaimie is an honouree for Leaders of Tomorrow from the Manitoba Museum 50th Tribute Awards 2020, CBC Future 40 Finalist and the Canadian Museums Association recipient for an outstanding achievement award in exhibitions category with the Boarder X exhibition, 2021.

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