TRAction is pleased to announce that it is expanding its leadership. After five years of being co-led by settler artists Melanie Kloetzel and Kevin Jesuino, TRAction has expanded as a collective and will now be co-led by Chantal Chagnon, Sandra Lamouche, Melanie Kloetzel and Kevin Jesuino.
As a climate arts collective that has both learned from and advocated for Indigenous artists over the past five years, this new leadership model offers both interest and excitement for the co-leads as it solidifies the five pillars of TRAction’s mission, which are ‘Centering Indigenous Voices’, ‘Relationship-Building’, ‘Action-Based Work’, ‘Care’ and ‘Self-Reflexivity’.
Chantal Chagnon, a Cree/Métis artist and activist based in Moh’kinsstis, was one of the leaders of TRAction’s Climate Art Web project as well as one of the authors of TRAction’s “Decolonial Toolkit”. These projects, as well as her long-term relationship with both Kevin and Melanie, has made her joining TRAction as a co-lead a natural outgrowth of work already in progress and she is excited about next steps.
Cree dancer, storyteller, teacher and author, Sandra Lamouche, feels similarly: “I am excited to join TRAction because it is one of the few places that allows artists to connect with each other through a shared passion for the land and equality. These are two things that I truly believe in, embody and share as an artist and especially as a hoop dancer, so for me, TRAction is a dream come true and I am honored to be a part of it.” Lamouche was one of the artists featured through TRAction’s 10 Ways Project and is also an author of the “Decolonial Toolkit”.
As an arts-oriented collective now exploring collaborative cross-cultural leadership, TRAction positions its work in line with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Call to Action #83, which specifically calls for more support for Indigenous/non-Indigenous collaborative artistic creation. TRAction is excited to further this work by nurturing and growing the relationships among the collective’s leadership team, as well as within the communities in which it functions.
Likewise, TRAction is highly invested in responding to this moment of climate and ecological breakdown by finding ways to learn from Indigenous leaders, adhere to the models of Two-Eyed and Three-Eyed seeing, and deeply consider ways to work cross-culturally to address the current (and past and future) crises that stem from colonialism, extractive capitalism and modernity.
