Water Is Medicine

The City of Pickering’s Rotary Frenchman’s Bay Park West and Beachfront Park public art was the ideal location for a water inspired sculpture designed by Dbaajmowin. The piece is a large stainless steel public art sculpture called Nbi Ayaa Mshkiki - “Water is Medicine” in Anishinaabemowin, and is intended as an interactive feature that engages visitors and asks them to reflect on their own understandings of history, and relationships with Indigenous Peoples.

Description by Dbaajmowin designers Jacques Baril and Karl Chevrier:

“...SpruceLab’s basic proposal was very interesting, so we focused on other elements. In Karl’s speech, respect seems to be the most important notion, so we looked at how to represent the notion of respect in this context. The first aspect seems to come from the man/nature relationship and in this sense cedar has become an essential element in the construction of bark canoes, since all parts of the cedar are used. The roots seemed to us to be an important element in this symbiotic relationship. So I proposed to use a cedar branch as a starting point to illustrate the tree as such. Then the roots became part of the canoe as a strong link between the source of the material and the canoe. Thus the cedar branch becomes a tree that hugs the structure of the canoe. It was then thought that the roots could continue their way and form a portal to join the schooner. In these roots which intertwine and become a portal between the two worlds, the past and the present, elements such as a few round stones (symbolic of grandfathers and grandmothers) and perhaps a drum (spiritual guardian, reference to the past) could be inserted in the intertwined roots. These symbolic elements remain to be determined with the agreement of the first peoples.”