As part of the Music in Incar­cer­a­tion & Reha­bil­i­ta­tion Resource, Moe Clark describes her expe­ri­ence as a two-spir­it Métis artist mak­ing music with at-risk Indige­nous youth in lock­down and car­céral set­tings. She speaks to cul­tur­al sen­si­tiv­i­ties and the impor­tance of con­nect­ing with elders when work­ing with Indige­nous youth.

On her artis­tic prac­tice and work in carcer­al settings

(Intro­duc­tion in nēhiyawēwin — Plains Cree language)

Hel­lo every­one, I’ve just intro­duced myself in nēhiyawēwin (Plains Cree lan­guage), one of my ances­tral lan­guages. I’m a two-spir­it Métis artist orig­i­nal­ly from Cal­gary, Alber­ta and treaty sev­en, but I cur­rent­ly reside in Tiohtià:ke / Mooniyang on the unseat­ed ter­ri­to­ry of the Kanien’kehá:ka, the Mohawk peo­ple here in Montreal. 

I’m a mul­ti-dis­ci­pli­nary artist. I focus pri­mar­i­ly on spo­ken word poet­ry, song cre­ation, work­ing with indige­nous lan­guages, inter­gen­er­a­tional and inter­cul­tur­al col­lab­o­ra­tive prac­tices and process­es. I like to cen­ter land-based prac­tices and approach­es in the work I do, whether to be work­ing actu­al­ly on the land, or work­ing with the land of our bod­ies and our ter­ri­to­ries, as tools for decol­o­niza­tion, self-deter­mi­na­tion, and col­lec­tive co-creation. 

I frame my work around the med­i­cine wheel, draw­ing from Métis-Cree world­view, look­ing at the holism of the body, the per­son, the spir­it, and the mind. I like to begin from a place of mus­ca­saw­in, which is a nēhiyawēwin term which refers to belong­ing, find­ing one’s place with­in the cir­cle. A lot of the work I do frames around the cir­cle, look­ing at how we can approach prac­tices from an equal place of belong­ing, of sto­ry­telling, of com­mu­ni­ty, and ori­ent­ing our­selves as both teacher and stu­dent. So we’ve all got some­thing to learn, we’ve all got some­thing to teach.

As one of my late elders Bob Smok­er always says “I’m gonna need you, as much as you’re gonna need me”. This is real­ly cen­tral to the work I do in and out­side of lock­down and incar­cer­al set­tings. I began work­ing in lock­down facil­i­ties through a local lit­er­ary arts orga­ni­za­tion in Mon­tre­al, as part of a writ­ing and poet­ry work­shop. These ses­sions ran for 10 weeks where I would go to the loca­tion once a week and I would work col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly with the exist­ing teacher or ped­a­gog­i­cal spe­cial­ist and a group of at-risk indige­nous youth. The thing that felt real­ly suc­cess­ful about these work­shops was that there was con­sis­ten­cy, in that it was­n’t just a one-time event. It was recur­ring so it helped me to estab­lish trust and make bonds with the stu­dents over the course of those 10 weeks. It helped me to iden­ti­fy the needs of the stu­dents, their capac­i­ties, abil­i­ties and slow­ly cre­ate a space where more open­ness and more under­stand­ing of my work and prac­tices could be embod­ied and inter­nal­ized for the stu­dents, so that they could actu­al­ly make some of the tools and tech­niques that I was bring­ing to them their own. 

On a project with Indige­nous youth in a carcer­al set­ting 

Hi every­one. My name is Moe Clark. I’m a two-spir­it Métis mul­ti-dis­ci­pli­nary artist and I’d like to share a lit­tle bit about the val­ue and impor­tance of short-term projects with­in lock­down and incar­cer­al set­tings, work­ing with at-risk under­age indige­nous youth. 

So for me these work­shops began through a local lit­er­ary orga­ni­za­tion who act­ed as a host to con­nect me as a poet-artist-vocal­ist with a local facil­i­ty here in Mon­tre­al. I want to main­tain anonymi­ty so I will not express or name any of the orga­ni­za­tions or insti­tu­tions per­son­al­ly. I will say that these ses­sions were incred­i­bly valu­able and dynam­ic in that I would attend the facil­i­ty one hour per week, over the course of 10 weeks. I would work col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly with the host teacher with a group of any­where between 5 and 10 youth. To begin the projects, I under­took train­ing through a local fam­i­ly ser­vices orga­ni­za­tion to explore sen­si­tiv­i­ty notions of trau­ma and how to col­lab­o­rate and work with at-risk youth who might be in pre­car­i­ous situations. 

In addi­tion to this, I call on my own toolk­it and bun­dle which includes expe­ri­ence with somat­ic expe­ri­enc­ing which is an embod­ied approach to ther­a­py and a trau­ma-informed lens. It explores and looks at the body as a site of mem­o­ry and cre­ativ­i­ty, as well as a site of a lot of expe­ri­ences. I also draw from prac­tices of med­i­cine wheel teach­ings, which real­ly looks at the four direc­tions and the wholism of the per­son that we have a phys­i­cal, a men­tal, a spir­i­tu­al, and an emo­tion­al body. So real­ly exam­in­ing and explor­ing these four bod­ies as essen­tial aspects to who and how we are in the world. I also draw from expe­ri­ences of over 20 years of cre­ative facil­i­ta­tion, in and out­side of indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties, with at-risk youth, with youth with dis­abil­i­ties, and inter­gen­er­a­tional and inter­cul­tur­al collaboration. 

Through­out the course of these 10 ses­sions, we explored dif­fer­ent tools and tech­niques of cre­ative writ­ing and often worked from prompts from oth­er indige­nous authors and cre­ators and musi­cians. When­ev­er pos­si­ble I tried to use tools and prompts that incor­po­rat­ed indige­nous lan­guage and cul­tur­al­ly spe­cif­ic fram­ings that were spe­cif­ic to the youth I was work­ing with. 

I don’t claim to know every­thing there is to know about being indige­nous. I have my own expe­ri­ences as a Métis artist who grew up in the sub­urbs of Cal­gary and cur­rent­ly lives in Tiohtià:ke in Mon­tre­al, but being able to draw from a toolk­it of many dif­fer­ent indige­nous authors, writ­ers, and musi­cians helped me to cre­ate more acces­si­bil­i­ty and inclu­siv­i­ty for the youth I was work­ing with. 

One real­ly valu­able tool dur­ing the work­shops was col­lec­tive cre­ative writ­ing and col­lec­tive song­writ­ing. This gave youth the oppor­tu­ni­ty to voice their ideas and their sto­ries, and to build rela­tion­ships with one anoth­er, with­out the neces­si­ty of hav­ing to be lit­er­ate, hav­ing to have good writ­ing skills, and they were able to laugh. They were able to make dif­fer­ent sounds.

They were able to mim­ic and explore dif­fer­ent sounds from their land­scapes where they were raised, and where they grew up, and where they had cur­rent­ly been tak­en out of, in order to reha­bil­i­tate in a lock­down facil­i­ty in an urban set­ting. To con­clude these 10 work­shops, we cre­at­ed a chat book and this chat book was acknowl­edged and cel­e­brat­ed and each stu­dent left with their own copy of it as a keep­sake and as a mem­oir when they left the facil­i­ty and con­tin­ued on in their lives. So that’s it for short-term projects in lock­down and incar­cer­at­ed situations.

On cul­tur­al sen­si­tiv­i­ties when work­ing with Indige­nous youth 

Hi every­one. My name is Moe and I am a two-spir­it mul­ti-dis­ci­pli­nary metis artist. I’d like to talk now about cul­tur­al sen­si­tiv­i­ties and pro­to­cols when work­ing with incar­cer­at­ed youth, 

specif­i­cal­ly indige­nous youth as a Métis artist and cre­ator. I’ve worked exten­sive­ly with indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties folks com­ing from dif­fer­ent nations, dif­fer­ent walks of life, dif­fer­ent per­son­al and col­lec­tive histories. 

I think, first and fore­most, what’s impor­tant to note and what’s impor­tant to do your home­work on, is what are some of the his­tor­i­cal sys­temic and cul­tur­al notions that have led to the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion of the youth or the com­mu­ni­ty you’re work­ing with. So I real­ly like to exam­ine and look close­ly at the his­to­ry and impacts of res­i­den­tial schools, on the his­to­ry and impact of con­tact in dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ties. So, when did set­tler com­mu­ni­ties come into Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties and how has that impact­ed the cul­tur­al con­tin­u­um, lan­guage con­tin­u­um, and tra­di­tion­al land-based prac­tices of that com­mu­ni­ty. And I like to bring these notions into the work so that I can exam­ine and explore, and also facil­i­tate from a place that is more knowl­edge­able, and more aware and cul­tur­al­ly sen­si­tive to what the par­tic­i­pants might be expe­ri­enc­ing, and how those expe­ri­ences have been informed and impact­ed because of sys­temic sit­u­a­tions and col­o­niza­tion. So that’s step one. 

Step two is also look­ing at an under­stand­ing that each indige­nous peo­ple and each indige­nous nation have dif­fer­ent cul­tur­al con­texts, dif­fer­ent lan­guages, and dif­fer­ent prac­tices of relat­ing, of express­ing, of com­mu­ni­cat­ing. And this type of process is one that as you con­tin­ue to work in the com­mu­ni­ty, you become famil­iar and you get to know and you build rela­tion­ships with the communities.

So I think that’s real­ly the most impor­tant not to make assump­tions, to come with as much infor­ma­tion as you can, and to main­tain a lev­el of curios­i­ty and open­ness to learn­ing about and learn­ing from the com­mu­ni­ties you’re work­ing with. 

In addi­tion to this, I always ensure that I am work­ing with a coun­cil of elders, of com­mu­ni­ty, peo­ple that I know and I’ve built trust­ing rela­tion­ships with so that what­ev­er I take with me when I leave those work­shops, I can process and work through with the sup­port and cul­tur­al sup­port of elders. So this might include work­ing with plant med­i­cines, work­ing with dif­fer­ent heal­ing tools. So that what­ev­er I might have picked up dur­ing the work­shops, what­ev­er trau­mas and chal­lenges might have been shared or expressed, I also have a method and a process of work­ing through those dif­fi­cul­ties. And in rela­tion­ship and in con­ver­sa­tion with elders and coun­sel, whether that be oth­er arts facil­i­ta­tors, oth­er teach­ers, I’m also able to speak to and to process some of the chal­lenges that have come up, some of the things where I did­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly know how to respond, to devel­op and fur­ther my toolk­it to be a bet­ter ally and a bet­ter advo­cate for the needs of the stu­dents and the par­tic­i­pants I’m work­ing with.

On the impor­tance of con­nect­ing with Elders when work­ing with Indige­nous youth 

Hi every­one. My name is Moe and I am a two-spir­it mul­ti-dis­ci­pli­nary metis artist. I’d like to talk now about cul­tur­al sen­si­tiv­i­ties and pro­to­cols when work­ing with incar­cer­at­ed youth, specif­i­cal­ly indige­nous youth as a Métis artist and cre­ator. I’ve worked exten­sive­ly with indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties folks com­ing from dif­fer­ent nations, dif­fer­ent walks of life, dif­fer­ent per­son­al and col­lec­tive histories. 

I think, first and fore­most, what’s impor­tant to note and what’s impor­tant to do your home­work on, is what are some of the his­tor­i­cal sys­temic and cul­tur­al notions that have led to the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion of the youth or the com­mu­ni­ty you’re work­ing with. So I real­ly like to exam­ine and look close­ly at the his­to­ry and impacts of res­i­den­tial schools, on the his­to­ry and impact of con­tact in dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ties. So, when did set­tler com­mu­ni­ties come into Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties and how has that impact­ed the cul­tur­al con­tin­u­um, lan­guage con­tin­u­um, and tra­di­tion­al land-based prac­tices of that com­mu­ni­ty. And I like to bring these notions into the work so that I can exam­ine and explore, and also facil­i­tate from a place that is more knowl­edge­able, and more aware and cul­tur­al­ly sen­si­tive to what the par­tic­i­pants might be expe­ri­enc­ing, and how those expe­ri­ences have been informed and impact­ed because of sys­temic sit­u­a­tions and col­o­niza­tion. So that’s step one. 

Step two is also look­ing at an under­stand­ing that each indige­nous peo­ple and each indige­nous nation have dif­fer­ent cul­tur­al con­texts, dif­fer­ent lan­guages, and dif­fer­ent prac­tices of relat­ing, of express­ing, of com­mu­ni­cat­ing. And this type of process is one that as you con­tin­ue to work in the com­mu­ni­ty, you become famil­iar and you get to know and you build rela­tion­ships with the communities.

So I think that’s real­ly the most impor­tant not to make assump­tions, to come with as much infor­ma­tion as you can, and to main­tain a lev­el of curios­i­ty and open­ness to learn­ing about and learn­ing from the com­mu­ni­ties you’re work­ing with. 

In addi­tion to this, I always ensure that I am work­ing with a coun­cil of elders, of com­mu­ni­ty, peo­ple that I know and I’ve built trust­ing rela­tion­ships with so that what­ev­er I take with me when I leave those work­shops, I can process and work through with the sup­port and cul­tur­al sup­port of elders. So this might include work­ing with plant med­i­cines, work­ing with dif­fer­ent heal­ing tools. So that what­ev­er I might have picked up dur­ing the work­shops, what­ev­er trau­mas and chal­lenges might have been shared or expressed, I also have a method and a process of work­ing through those dif­fi­cul­ties. And in rela­tion­ship and in con­ver­sa­tion with elders and coun­sel, whether that be oth­er arts facil­i­ta­tors, oth­er teach­ers, I’m also able to speak to and to process some of the chal­lenges that have come up, some of the things where I did­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly know how to respond, to devel­op and fur­ther my toolk­it to be a bet­ter ally and a bet­ter advo­cate for the needs of the stu­dents and the par­tic­i­pants I’m work­ing with.

For more info on Moe Clark, see their artist pro­file HERE. For a taste of what Moe Clark does, see the fol­low­ing project fea­tured on the PCM Hub:

Sound Sto­ries From the Land

For more info on Music In Incar­cer­a­tion & Reha­bil­i­ta­tion, see HERE