Plants as Members of our Communities

Rooted in Community is a public art project that connects the community of people to the community of plants in their neighbourhood.

Our history with plants has paralleled since the first peoples who’ve made their home on these lands. The plants have offered us food, shelter, medicine, wisdom, and continue to provide us all a chance to share in common experience through the appreciation of their beauty and resilience. We cultivate them and share relationships with them in our gardens, parks, public spaces and even in our homes. In many Indigenous traditions it is said that plants are our relatives, like an aunt or uncle or a grandparent; they remind us of our connection to the earth, that we (humans) are also a part of nature, and that we are all related.

Our Process

Community members and neighbours came together for two land explorations led by herbalist Tiffany Freeman (Harper) and artist daniel j kirk. We began by sharing stories and listening to the land as we walked the Bow river pathway and the Grasshopper hill/bluff of the neighbourhood of West Hillhurst in Calgary Alberta. We sought to find native species of plants and explored opportunities for inquiry. Conversations were had regarding the land and the plants, informing about traditions, honour-based practices and exploring new contexts for viewing their community with an eye for native plant species, our neighbours (also know as our plant relatives).

From these explorations visuals were created using a multimedia approach, printed on cedar, and have been placed within the neighbourhood of West Hillhurst for people to explore. The cedar visuals serve as an introduction to the ‘relatives’ (Plants) that share a home within our communities. Markers are used to identify plant species as our plant neighbours and not to identify (or commodify) plants at their exact location.

Visuals are found within the public realm of West Hillhurst as well as with participating hosts at private residences & local businesses.

Getting to know your Neighbours

We invite you to explore and learn more about your plant neighbours by scanning the QR Code when you come upon the cedar visuals or by visiting the website and the PLANT pages. From there you can enjoy the various visuals and learn more about your neighbours, the plants, through their names*, family connections, and stories.

*Latin names connect you to further research the plants and nēhinawēwin (Cree) names were included as this is how Tiffany knows them from her world view as a Maskēkowak iskwew (swampy cree person).