Shoe design reflects my insecurity and vulnerability about how I stand on the land in my hometown, Toronto. (The Summer Collection: Sandals Leave You Vulnerable.)
…
- Visit places in the city that have an Indigenous history. Use the Indigenous Toronto: Stories that Carry this Place to choose locations.
- Notice the land. (Notice what I notice, even if this means reflecting on the fact that I can’t see outside of my worldview.)
- Enact gratitude at each site.
- Learn about the land without using books or screens.
- Use the “I know, I wonder” protocol to reflect on what I do and don’t know about history, treaties, and Indigenous presence at each site.
- Scavenge shoe materials from the land using a Materials Exchange Ritual, or Give and Take Methodology. Use only discarded objects.
- Connect each historical site I visit to a current Indigenous event, action or activity happening in Toronto. Visit, participate, engage.
- Handle all materials with love and respect. Materials are chosen for their inherent resource value, hidden stories, and for the ways they have introduced me to the land and Indigenous culture past and present.
- Choose a shoe design to reflect my current mind frame: vulnerability about doing this work; feeling exposed. Custom fit the shoe to my foot.
- Be self-reflective and honest during the shoe making process. Be vigilant for Eurocentric views and assumptions. Do not hide or conceal these, but stitch them into the shoes.
- Write a personal and specific Land Acknowledgement for the land.
- Accept the mistakes, misunderstandings and failures embedded in these shoes. Understand that these shoes chronicle a journey but cannot take me to a destination.
- Use these shoes to talk about living on Indigenous land with friends, family and other Settlers. Know that each time these shoes are worn the conversation will be different.