Still from Stitching My Landscape (2017); Video (6:10mins). Commissioned by Partners In Art for LandMarks2017/Repères2017. Curated by Tania Willard.
Stitching My Landscape is Maureen Gruben’s first large-scale land work. Installed on April 23rd, 2017, 111 ice fishing holes are stitched with 300 metres of broadcloth in the arctic community of Tuktoyaktuk. The red cloth on snow-covered ice speaks to the artist’s memory of her brother harvesting seal and stretching out fresh gut. The process of rolling cloth from hole to hole, as captured in this film, is an act of endurance and careful devotion, as her body physically generates the familiar pattern both of raw stitching and the beautifully worked delta trim that adorns Inuvialuit drum dancing parkas. The piece simultaneously evokes elements of Inuvialuit culture; the strength of family and community; and the potential for healing and being healed by the land.