New art decorating Fort Whoop-Up

A new art installation is hoping to spark some conversations about decolonization. The Hope and Healing Canada project has woven intricate pieces of red yarn using crochet and placed them on the front of the Fort Whoop-Up building in Lethbridge. Organizers for the project say it is meant to really illustrate the connection between our Metis, Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.

“As far as I’m concerned the strings in particular are the best way to represent this because one string is strong, two strings is stronger, three strings is stronger still. But, if you cross thatch those strings they’re almost unbreakable. Even though it’s still string it’s still almost unbreakable, and that’s what a community needs to do,” says the Metis artist responsible for the artwork, Tracey-Mae Chambers.

Tyler Stewart, the Museum Curator for the Galt Museum and Archives says the fort is intending on making sure the interpretive staff thinks about the fort from multiple lenses, “Different perspectives on this fort rather than just the predominately settler/colonial one that this place has focused on. That kind of narrative over the years, and so we want to bring in different narratives to think in more complex ways about what this site means both today and throughout history.”

The art pieces will remain up at Fort Whoop-Up until October.