The Medicines We Carry

February 10, 2024

10 February - 12 May, 2024

Curated by Darryn Doull with Fitsum Areguy and Shalaka Jadhav

As we move forward and start seeing ourselves in the future, these medicines that we carry with us, they ground us, they connect us to our ancestry, our Indigeneity, no matter where we go, no matter where we are.
— Bangishimo, 2023

Portraits have long been used to reinforce dominant narratives, a practice deeply rooted in colonial legacies. Challenging portrait photography as merely a method to catalogue, study and lay claim to peoples and nature, Bangishimo—Kitchener's first Indigenous Artist-in-Residence—reframes their relationship to the medium. Across these intimate portraits of community members, Bangishimo weaves in connections to seven medicines: birchbark, cedar, sage, strawberries, sweetgrass, sunflowers, and tobacco. In using these medicines, Bangishimo explores ancestral connections to land and the need to reclaim time honoured teachings within a futurist vision. With the creative support from local artist Brittney Baldwin, Bangishimo and Baldwin were able to create a number of pieces centering the seven medicines, to be adorned by the subjects in this series. The Medicines We Carry disrupts colonial lineages, inscribing Black and Indigenous futurities into public memory, and emphasizing relationships to the land.