Kamala Todd completes inspiring residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity

Today, Kamala Todd completes her Indigenous Arts Thematic: Story Sharing Residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. This three-week residency for Indigenous storytellers like Todd enables them to further develop their projects with the help of faculty, guest artists, and other participants.

Todd describes her experience as follows:

What a privilege and complete treat it has been to be immersed in this incredible land of mountains and ancient stories. Here within Sacred Buffalo Guardian Mountain on Stoney Nakoda and Treaty 7 territories, I am in a small group of Indigenous storytellers from so many lands and creative backgrounds--musicians, actors, writers, filmmakers. Our brilliant lead faculty and Auntie extraordinaire January Rogers (Mohawk/Tuscarora writer) and all the other extremely talented mentors like Michelle Thrush (Cree actress and cultural leader) and Jesse Wente (Ojibwe arts journalist and chair of Canada Council for the Arts) have been so inspiring and supportive. I came here to further develop my project "the mountains are our relatives" as a digital story, which I will develop into a larger exhibit and also share as a teaching tool in the classroom, to share stories and encourage students to create their own digital stories. I am so grateful for this time to explore stories, protocols, and good ways to share them. 

*Kamala Todd photographed all the images associated with this story.