A couple of weeks ago, I spent a week in Hancock and L’Anse, Michigan, USA, working with two diverse groups. Both groups were working on sharing stories and visualising them. One of the groups was from the International School of Art and Design at Finlandia University, and the other group was from the Keweenaw Bay Ojibwe Community College.

With Finlandia University students, we worked for three days on storytelling and building a textile installation using textiles, paper, and acrylic colours. The workshop started with a storytelling probe where the youth self-documented and shared their life histories before the seminar: “Who is the storyteller of the family? Think about your memories of the moments when these family histories are shared. What kind of feelings and emotions are related to the family memories? Some of the stories may be happy, and some sad. Think about the ones that made you feel good and empowered. Write down a short family history and share with us a story about coping or overcoming difficulties or struggles in the family.” These stories sensitised the youth to the workshop theme.

The workshop started by producing words under eight different themes: family, community, experience, incident, empowerment, challenge, feeling, and opportunity. Participants used one minute per theme to produce words related to that theme. After that, we picked eight words randomly and told a story about the words we had chosen. It was essential and empowering to share these personal stories. After this, we started painting feathers, thinking about the words we had chosen. Feathers were painted with colours, symbols and ornaments that described the empowering stories we shared. The feathers were sewn together to form a wing shape. This wing installation became a centrepiece of the exhibition at the Reflection gallery at Finlandia University. The youth continued the project with a video workshop and produced a video in two groups around their storytelling workshop experience.

In the workshop, working with storytelling and creating the textile installation provided participants with a shared forum for their stories. Using words made it easier to share a story about one’s life, and processing feathers and sewing a wing gave a collaborative effort where everyone’s contribution counted. Sometimes, art can provide tools for processing and thinking about your life, as well as sharing it with a community.

At Keweenaw Bay Ojibwe College, we worked on sharing stories and creating amulets based on the stories. Here is a link to a video about Ojibwe amulets.

By Satu Miettinen