The Gallery is excited to host the first session of Listening to land, people and plants featuring a presentation by Francis First Charger entitled “Spirit of the Land & Plants to People.”

Organized by artists Annie Martin and Janet Youngdahl with the assistance of Migueltzinta Solis and Tareq Abu Rahma, this land knowledge creation and dissemination project brings primarily Indigenous elders, artists and scholars together to explore practices and traditions which link the earth to human beings, honouring the spiritual connections between humans, land and growing things. Focusing on the interrelations of people, plants and the arts, this lecture/workshop series is accompanied by an online archive of lectures, articles and artists’ creative responses to the project’s leading questions.  

“Environment refers to the surroundings, setting, situation, atmosphere, milieu, location, background, upbringing, natural world, nature, ecosystem, and natural environment. Environment in our Blackfoot traditional, cultural, and spiritual ways includes the animals that walk the land, the creatures below the waters, and the birds that fly above the skies. It includes the plants that grow from the earth. It includes the rocks that are everywhere and the soil in which the plants grow. Part of our oral history sites our forests’ timber, where we pick our herbal and sacred plants. Some of this is how and where songs and dances come from, the animals. How our cultural and spiritual ways are part of parenting in raising our children to respect all creations including plants, people, and the land we live on. We follow our Blackfoot ways to respect all creations, including to respect all people and to respect themselves.”

FRANCIS FIRST CHARGER was born and raised on the Kainai First Nation (Blood Indian Reserve). He was raised in the traditional, cultural, and spiritual ways of the Blackfoot people. He has six diplomas in agriculture and several letters of recognition and a certificate in management and financial accounting. Since 2008, he has worked for the University of Lethbridge - Dhillon School of Business as the Elder in Residence. He has served on many committees over the past 20 years, including on Aboriginal Council of Lethbridge and the National First Nations Forestry Program. He was the special advisor to the former Lethbridge College President, Tracy Edwards. He presently serves on the University of Lethbridge’s GFC Iniskim Education Committee & Indigenous Advisory Circle and on the Elder Committee and Board of Directors for Opokaa’sin. 

This program has been organized with funding from the University of Lethbridge’s Community of Research Excellence Development Opportunities (CREDO) program.

This event is free for members and attendees who self-identify as Indigenous, or with regular admission. Please check in at the Gallery’s front desk when you arrive. 

For more information, visit listeningtolandplantsandpeople.wordpress.com.