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Articles
Understanding the Cultural Stories of Canada Esther Bryan is an accomplished painter and fibre artist who also has a keen interest in stitchery. But she is not a quilter. So why is it that Quilt of Belonging, a textile art project Esther masterminded in 1998, is made up of quiltstyle blocks? Esther explains. “Whenever I create a piece of art, I choose the medium that best expresses the ideas I want to share. A quilt is a wonderful visual metaphor –many different scraps of fabric are pieced together to make a whole. A quilt is a blend of varied pieces, just as the world is a mosaic made of many diverse parts.” Canada, too, is made up of a blend of different people, many different cultures - all with different personalities and gifts. Quilt of Belonging is a national, collaborative project that celebrates the uniqueness of each of the 263 different ethnic groups present in Canada. All of Canada’s main aboriginal groupings and members from every world nation have been involved in this project. “My hope is that Quilt of Belonging encourages people to realize that there is a place for all in this world, and we all have to find a way to get along,” says Esther. Her dream for bringing people together from every culture is working. Since 2005, when the Quilt was unveiled at the Canadian Museum of Civilization at Gatineau, Québec, over 1.3 million visitors have viewed the project, and walked away with, as one Canadian visitor noted, “a renewed sense of our inter-connectedness and understanding of the beauty of all cultures.” Indeed, the project reminds us all that while we should celebrate our unique gifts and heritage, we should also honour the connections that make Canada a beautiful, whole tapestry. As a child, Esther frequently moved from country to country with her missionary parents, living among many different cultures. No one place ever truly felt like home for her. The need to have a place to belong has stayed with her throughout her life. “From the time we are born, we all want to feel valued, accepted, and we want to fit in. The need to belong is a fundamental basic human need. Quilt of Belonging symbolizes that each person is designed by God to be unique, yet not be a misfit - something I struggled with and experienced as I was growing up and moving so frequently,” she says. Esther’s journey of belonging came full circle when, in 1994, she visited Slovakia with her father for the first time. Slovakia had been her father’s home until he fled as a young man shortly after WWII. During the visit, Esther came to realize that Slovakia was a big part of her own cultural fabric and she spent much of her trip learning her family’s history and gathering family stories, photographs, textiles and crafts to take home to Canada with her. Upon her return to Canada, Esther began creating art in order to make sense of her experiences. Telling her story in the exhibition, Return, proved to her that she needed to help people tell their own stories of their struggles of belonging. The seed for Quilt of Belonging was planted. “I saw the project in my head, and I knew I had to do it, despite the fear.” Esther recalls. It was a daunting task. How does one go about finding people from every nation in the world here in Canada, to represent each block in the Quilt? Esther gathered a team of volunteers, and the group set about locating all of the participants. They wrote thousands of letters, made many phone calls, visited mosques, churches, ESL programs, ethnic restaurants and shops, contacted embassies – even the United Nations. “And when we found someone, there was no guarantee they would be willing to participate in the project. We had to establish trust and friendship with each and every participant, and that was sometimes difficult. There were many challenges, and sometimes even language was a barrier,” Esther remembers. “But many of the ethnic communities we approached were also surprised and thrilled that we actually knew they existed here in Canada.” Once located, the participants were asked to portray themselves in the fibres that most represented who they were. “How do you boil down the essence of who you are, to fit into a 9 inch diamond?” They were asked to use textile forms and symbols to represent their own unique cultural beauty and contribution to the world. The participants made use of a variety of materials ranging from seal-skin, miniature carpets and bark, to a piece of 200 year-old handmade linen to show their own cultural beauty and tell their own stories. Each story was recorded in word as well, and the collective stories became a book, Quilt of Belonging – The Invitation Project. The book includes an illustrated history of the Quilt and a full page for each of the 263 textile blocks and personal as well as, cultural stories. The result of their six-year effort is a massive kaleidoscope of colored fabric and textiles, 120 feet long and 10 feet high. Esther chose the hexagon as the foundational shape for the individual blocks as well as the overall structure. “The hexagon-shaped carbon molecule is the basic element of all life, the beehive structure it forms when joined is the strongest natural structure in nature. The shape occurs in textile designs around the world and references the Tumbling Block pattern in quilting,” explains Esther. “Quilt of Belonging is designed to show how we can both retain our unique identities and yet live in a strong, peaceful way together.” The project has had a considerable impact - schools and entire communities all over the world are making their own versions of Quilt of Belonging. Esther hopes this is just the beginning. “I want people to know in a really deep way that each human is special , that there is a place for all. Quilt of Belonging is also a testimony of what wonderful things can be accomplished when our individual, sometimes seemingly small contributions are combined together for a larger purpose.” Quilt of Belonging will be on display as part of the 2010 Cultural Olympiad at the Surrey Art Gallery in Surrey, British Columbia, from January 23rd to April 4th, 2010. The gallery is located at 13750 88th Avenue, Surrey. For more information, please call the Surrey Art Gallery at 604-501-5566, or visit www.quiltofbelonging.ca
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