Two students at the First Nations University of Canada say they are excited to have their art sculptures featured in Regina’s Victoria Park this winter.
The Regina Downtown Business Improvement District (RDBID) and Regina’s Warehouse Business Improvement District (RWBID), partnered with the City of Regina to launch an artistic installation pilot project.
The project called on local architects, artists and design professionals to incorporate concepts of warmth, shelter and conversation starters into an active design space during the winter months.
Lorne Kequahtooway, a third-year art student at the university, said he has never had his work featured on such a large scale before.
“I never expected to [have] a piece exhibited or commissioned this early [in my career] but it’s a good start,” he said.
Kequahtooway said his sculpture fits the theme of warmth and shelter.
“I came up with this concept of having the teepee design and as the teepee [goes on gradually], if you go to the side you can see the shape of a buffalo,” he said.
“The reason being for that is historically we lived in teepees and they were our homes and the buffalo provided shelter or the covering for those homes.”
Kequahtooway said he is happy to have Indigenous culture acknowledged in the downtown space.
“It means a lot, not only for myself but being a student at the First Nations University in the fine arts department, to have our recognition in the City of Regina.”
Kequahtooway says his piece represents both a teepee and a buffalo to represent shelter. (Submitted by Lionel Peyachew)
Calista Moser’s piece was also chosen to be featured in the downtown exhibit. She said she wanted to introduce a piece that was different from what people would usually see in downtown.
She said having people view her art on this large of scale was something she never thought she would be able to do.
“Now that I’ve accomplished that, it kind of opened up a whole new door for me to be able to be paid to do something like this,” she said.
She added that money isn’t everything but the recognition is what is important to her.
Moser says she wanted to start conversations with her piece. (Submitted by Lionel Peyachew)
“It’s cool to have my art out in the public and to be recognized,” she said.
“It just proves to me and other people that [if] you’re Indigenous, you can exist in these spaces.”
Learning experience for students
Lionel Peyachew is the lead artist and advisor on this project. He, Kequahtooway and Moser put together the two proposal packages as part of the class Peyachew teaches.
He said he thought that possibly one submission would be chosen and was surprised to learn that both of them would be going forward.
“When I emailed the students they still couldn’t believe that they won,” he said.
“They were very excited to go to the second stage; everyone was ready to do this.”
Kequahtooway says if you look at his sculpture from a certain angle, it looks like a buffalo, and gradually turns into the front of a teepee. (Richard Agecoutay/CBC)
Moser said after the initial celebrations she quickly realized what getting chosen meant.
“Mine and Lorne’s first reactions [were] just like ‘hell yeah!’ and hi-fiving and everything and so excited,” she said.
“And then the reality set in like, ‘Oh now we have to build it.'”
She said it was her first time building something on that scale and getting it done in the time frame, and outdoors in winter, was a challenge.
Peyachew said he is proud of his students and what they have accomplished.
“Hopefully everyone enjoys it for the next four months,” he said.
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
