Collaborating with Environmental Youth Alliance, Moparrc, and Hastings Folk Garden Society.
The project wove together First Nations gathering traditions, early settler agricultural methods and contemporary environmental practices through shared investigations for urban cloth production. Terroir means a sense of place, and as such the project, led by artists Sharon Kallis, Tracy Williams, and Mirae Rosner, facilitated community connection with the land. It involved DTES residents in processing flax and milkweed crop at Hastings Urban Farm; processing the plants into spun fibre that were dyed with pollinator plant green waste from the farm; and waxing the fibre with beeswax from the neighbouring rooftop hives. The waxed linen thread was knit and crocheted into markers that showed pollinator corridors in the Downtown Eastside. Meanwhile, dance workshops lead to the creation of choreography that celebrates agricultural rhythms and is based on the fibre processing movements. The dance performance were a part of the final multidisciplinary celebration/performance at Hastings Urban Farm in spring 2015. http://earthand.com/