Feathers are a sacred symbol for many Indigenous peoples. Each feather carries a story of wisdom, strength, flexibility, healing and resilience. In the Tall Feathers workshop, we come together in community, endeavouring to express unique parts of our individual journey and then assembling the Tall Feathers we have created into an array that celebrates the whole as an expression that is greater than its parts.

Together, working in small groups we choose colours and decorative elements, assemble our paper feathers, and attach them to shafts made from saplings. Participants are invited to mark the feathers with symbols or words, which will remain sealed inside the layers like private messages or words of intention.

Each workshop begins with a ceremony and prayer. On November 18 and 25, 2023 the ceremony was led by local Elder Harley Crowshoe. On November 19, 2023, Elder Maurice Little Wolf opened the sessions with teaching and prayer. The sessions culminated in raising the array of feathers under the guidance of the Elders with a song, drumming and a prayer celebrating all the peoples spirits embodied in their feathers followed by shared reflections on the experience.

KOAC was honoured to host these two workshops as part of our ongoing dedication to reconciliation and to bringing our community engaging experiences of contemporary ART in NATURE!

How the Tall Feathers workshops came to be — as told by James Ziegler, artist and lead facilitator, recently gifted a Blackfoot name, Mohkinstsis Pookaa. It all started with a dream, and it has become part of his journey to offer Tall Feathers in community-engaging events.

“Tall Feathers was a vision that came to me during a dream in the Fall of 2021. It was about people coming together, each holding feathers twice their height, from various backgrounds, in a community celebration. Now, I’m usually all about making geometric metal sculptures, not feathers. I even argued with the dream, telling it my forte. But the dream was insistent, and somehow, I instantly knew how to make them.”

After researching, I discovered the sacred significance of feathers for many indigenous cultures in Canada. As a white settler from several generations past, I felt it wasn’t right to present the feathers alone, especially at this time in our history. That’s when I reached out to Elder Harley Crowshoe of the Blackfoot Piikani Nation in southern Alberta. After a smudging and long talk and consulting with other elders, we decided to use the feathers to bring people together, sharing the sacred wisdom of the elders through the arts. It’s a gift from the dream, meant to be shared.

For me, it’s about experiencing wisdom through the eyes of Indigenous elders and the power of sharing stories in the presence of community.

At KOAC three stainless-steel feathers created in 2021 stand as permanent reminders of the stories and wisdom shared. We offer them in gratitude to those supporting Tall Feathers programs and development. Our dream is to see thousands of feathers raised in communities across the country. The art of Tall Feathers is the gathering of people creating together. The standing Tall Feathers are the artifact of that community engagement.”