Project Description

2023 Territories of Dreams

Territories of Dreams is a collaborative art installation by Franco-Albertan artists Patricia Lortie and Sabine Lecorre-Moore of the Collective Conversation. Created for Dialogues: Encounters with Riopelle’s Oeuvre from Sea to Sea, this project celebrates the centenary of Canadian artist Jean Paul Riopelle. Supported by the Jean Paul Riopelle Foundation and Culture pour tous, Territories of Dreams features a ten-meter crochet tapestry interweaving the dreams of Alberta’s Francophone, Aboriginal, and Anglophone communities.

Guided by Elder Harley Crowshoe, a respected Blackfoot Elder, the artists gathered dreams from students across Alberta through fabric-writing workshops, which are now unified in this symbolic tapestry. This project is a testament to shared vision, honoring Alberta’s cultural diversity and connection to nature.

Artworks

Kaitlyn-Jean Walker at Kapawe'no Cree School made a crochet for the project over night

A Video Presenting the Projet

See the project Territories of Dreams on Global News
The Territories of Dreams project is a temporary and participatory art installation selected to represent Alberta in the national art event called Dialogues Riopelle Encounters with Riopelle’sOeuvre from Sea to Sea, a celebration of the painter centennial birthday. Patricia Lortie and I, the collective Conversation, have assembled a crochet tapestry** ten meters long and one meter wide to tie together the dreams of Alberta’s Francophone, Cree and Anglophone communities. This spring, we traveled from northern to southern Alberta to visit five schools where, to collect students’ dreams, we offered writing on fabric workshops.

Our Collective Conversation worked under the guidance of Elder Harley Crowshoe, a respected and well-known First Nations mediator. Elder Harley Crowshoe is of Blackfoot ancestry from southern Alberta. In 1997, he was inducted as an honorary chief of the Piikani Nation. In the past, he has worked for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and founded an on-reserve policing model that focused on community-based policing and delivered culturally safe and responsive police services on his reserve. Currently, he sits on the National Advisory Committee on Missing Children from Residential Schools and Unmarked Graves.

In response to the Foundation Jean Paul Riopelle‘s call to “move closer to nature”, we installed the tapestry on a circular wooden structure. Starting in June, the work will be exhibited for the summer in the sculpture park of the Kiyooka Ohe Arts Centre (KOAC), a public space combining art and nature. The collective Conversation and KOAC is inviting the public to add their own dreams to the Territories of Dreams installation.

*The school partners are: La Vérendrye Francophone School in Lethbridge, De la Source in Calgary and Boréale in Fort McMurray, as well as West Island College in Calgary and Kapawe’no First Nation School in Grouard.

** The association Creating Strong Families and Communities in Calgary (CARYA) partnered with the project by bringing together a Calgarian senior citizen group. They have shared their skills by creating the project Crochet panels.