BLUEBERRY SPOONS
Exploring Food Memory and Identity by Lisa Myers
T
he Blueberry Spoons video provides a visual interpretation of the many layers of a story. Using wooden spoons dipped in wild blueberry sauce, I place each spoon on a canvas
scroll and let the story unfold as I arrange the spoons in various formations. I use the spoons and berries as an abstracted pictorial structure for my use as a mnemonic device, or a reference for memories related my story of following the blueberry lined route my Grandfather walked as he ran home from residential school.
Blueberry plants are one of the small shrubs that grow
along the shield region. From my current home in Port Severn, Ontario to my mother’s birthplace in Shawanaga First Nation, I associate these plants and berries with my Anishinaabe family. Blueberries provide sustenance and
function as a traditional food in ceremony and feasts. Berries also provide pigment to dye quills in creating pictorial designs on leatherwork, bags and moccasins. I am interested in exploring how to express food memories through visual and edible means and how to tell stories through food.
// Lisa Myers is an independent curator and artist with a
keen interest in interdisciplinary collaboration and Indigenous art practice. Myers is of Anishnaabe ancestry from Beausoleil First Nation and the Georgian Bay region. She cooked for many years satisfying hungry stomachs at Enaahtig Healing Lodge and Learning Centre. Her MFA research in Criticism and Curatorial Practice at OCAD University investigated cultural agency and the encoding of food from diverse Indigenous perspectives, and resulted in the exhibition titled Best Before. Myers has curated exhibitions at the MacLaren Art Centre and the Art Gallery of Ontario. Her writing has been published in C Magazine, Fuse, Public, and Senses and Society. She lives and works in Toronto and Port Severn, Ontario.
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