Part of the core residency at Stelo Arts, GATHER features the multi-year collaboration of two Indigenous artists, Cannupa Hanska Luger and Marie Watt. In this project, participants were asked to embroider messages on fabric the size of handkerchiefs and bandanas, while pondering “if acts of collaboration help heal broken bonds with the environment and with each other.” The result is a monumental sculpture, Each/Other, threading our human desire to connect from all over the world. Lugar and Watt’s collaborative practices and their engagement with the global communities shine at the time we need it most: in isolation and seeking safety.
How are we connected? What are the ties that bind us? These are some of the questions that Cannupa Hanska Luger and Marie Watt have been talking through via their joint residency with Stelo. Visitors to the Stelo flex space will engage with pieces from Luger and Watt’s individual art practices, as well as their first collaborative art work, Each/Other. Watt and Luger merged their practices to create this sculpture with hundreds of people from around the world. The artists asked participants to embroider messages while considering “if acts of collaboration help heal broken bonds with the environment and with each other.”
During the exhibition, Stelo will host public programs relating to themes that have emerged throughout the residency.