Living Monument
Awarded the David Suzuki Foundation's Future Ground Prize (grand prize)
Country Heritage Park, Milton, Onatrio
Project partner: Grandmothers Voice
Timeline: 2021: garden design and installation
Goal: Plant a memorial healing garden to honour Missing and Murdered Indigenous women and girls.
BEFORE
AFTER
Our work at Country Heritage Park
In Spring 2021, we designed this healing space starting with a concept design by Grandmother Renee Thomas-Hill, who envisioned the garden in the shape of a longhouse with entrances on the east and west ends and a wide pathway running through the middle.
We planted two cedar trees at each end, while giving sweetgrass, tobacco, and white sage a central place in this garden. We included many berries and healing plant medicines that build our immune system, aid anxiety and sleep, and nourish women’s bodies.
Wind at this site blows intensely off the Niagara escarpment, so we designed the sections of the cedar palisades as a windbreak to protect the plants while also referring to the shape of the longhouse. The width of the central pathways ensures accessibility so that Elders and anyone using a mobility device can easily move through the garden space.
Miinikaan’s role: Garden design, working drawings and planting plan, installation and planting.
Collaborators: Garden build volunteers from Grandmothers Voice, Sustainable Milton, Country Heritage Park, and the community at large; Conservation Halton donated cedar posts for the palisades; and Country Heritage Park did the initial soil preparation.
Gallery: building the garden
Grandmothers Voice describes the Living Monument:
“The number of Indigenous women, girls, trans and two spirited folx who have gone missing or murdered is estimated to exceed 4,000. A resulting lack of action from the Canadian Government following a query into their deaths leaves their mothers, sisters, brothers and friends woefully searching for peace after so much heartbreak and loss. Our ask is simple: These women & girls lost their lives, and an inanimate thing does not serve to reprieve their spirits. We want to honour their premature loss of life with a rebirth. We began a campaign for a fully-funded, living monument in the form of a Community Garden so the life of these women can nurture our ecology, spirits and bodies to continue a centuries-long crusade for truth & reconciliation.”
-Grandmothers Voice
www.grandmothersvoice.com
Work with Us
Our speciality is Indigenous garden consultation, design and installation. In creating our gardens, we are revitalizing traditional AgroEcology and Indigenous ceremony. We’re experts in growing food, container gardens and rooftop gardens, and we love transforming public spaces.
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