Project Team
Advisory Committee
Artist Facilitators
About the projecT
The Proclaiming Our Roots project is aimed at honoring the histories, realities, stories and experiences of people who are of African diasporic and Indigenous ancestry, and who reside on Turtle Island. With over 400 years of African diasporic presence in Canada, originating from the British North American slave trade (Cooper, 2006; Di Paolantonio, 2010), relationships developed between Indigenous and Black people. Such relationships between African diasporic and Indigenous peoples were feared by colonialists because both communities experienced shared, as well as distinct forms of colonial oppression, conflict, and the need for survival. These unions became a central form of resistance for some African diasporic and Indigenous communities (Brooks, 2002; Lawrence, 2004). Indigenous and Black unions are common within many communities such as the Cherokee, Creek, Lumbee, Creole, and Seminole peoples (Brooks, 2002; Jolivette, 2007; Sturm, 2002). Similarly, Black-Mi'kmaw intermarriage in Nova Scotia proliferated as a form of resistance to extermination policies against Mi'kmaw people and the marginalization of Black loyalists (Lawrence & Dua, 2005)
The Proclaiming Our Roots project afforded individuals, who all identified as having Indigenous and Black ancestry, the opportunity to create their own digital stories or personal videos. Digital stories combine sound, image, video, and text to convey personal experiences. In centering their stories and voices, and sharing their testimonies on their terms, participants reverse the colonial gaze, exhibiting their self determination, and they highlighted topics that were important to them such as identity politics, lateral violence and discrimination, and health and wellbeing.
Who we are
We are a group of African diasporic, Indigenous and allied community-based researchers, artists, activists, and social service providers from both the Greater Toronto Area in Ontario, and the Halifax and Dartmouth areas in Nova Scotia, Canada.
We engage with arts- and community-based research to illuminate the stories of community members and to counter colonial forms of oppression. We acknowledge the stories, experiences and perspectives of community members as valid forms of knowledge, as we understand that stories and testimonies are important modalities for healing and for speaking truth to power.
Ciann Wilson
Ciann L. Wilson is the principal investigator for the Proclaiming Our Roots project and an assistant professor in Community Psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University. Ciann is of Afro, Indo, and Euro- Jamaican ancestry. She has over a decade of experience working within African, Caribbean and Black communities across the greater Toronto area first as a youth programmer and now as a health researcher. Her areas of interest build off her community-engaged work to include critical race theory, anti-/de-colonial theory, African diasporic and Indigenous community health, HIV/AIDS, sexual and reproductive wellbeing and community-based research. Her body of work aims to utilize research as an avenue for sharing the stories and realities of African diasporic, Indigenous and racialized peoples and improving the health and wellbeing of these communities.
Sarah Flicker
Sarah Flicker is a co-principal investigator for the Proclaiming Our Roots project, and is an associate professor at the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University. Sarah has a track record of success in engaging communities in community-based participatory action health research with racialized and Indigenous communities. Sarah has spent the last ten years working with Indigenous youth in Canada on a variety of HIV prevention research projects. Her allyship is a key component of the POR project.
Ann Marie Beals
Ann Marie Beals (nek'm/they/them) is a Two-Spirit Indigenous-Black L’nuwey – a mixed-blood African Nova Scotian and First Nation Mi’kmaq who hails from Mi’kma’ki territory. Ann Marie is a faculty member in Community Psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University. Ann Marie is a story sharer in the Proclaiming Our Roots project. Stories from the Proclaiming Our Roots project revolve around Afro-Indigenous identity and relationships with Indigenous and Black communities, as well as Truth and Reconciliation. Ann Marie’s research explores the health and wellbeing of Afro-Indigenous communities in revealing the effects of colonial legacies of oppression and violence, ongoing structural inequities, and lack of acknowledgement of Indigenous-Black identity in the canadian settler nation-state. Ann Marie shares Afro-Indigenous voices in stories of resilience, strength, self-assertion, and consciousness-raising. These sacred stories explore the lived experiences and realities of the wellbeing of Indigenous-Black communities.
Conrad Prince
Conrad Prince identifies as both Anishinabe and African diasporic and is a member of Sagkeeng First Nation (Treaty # 1) in Manitoba. He is the National Director of the Reconciliation Program at Save the Children and a welcome addition to the Proclaiming Our Roots Advisory Committee. Conrad is a Sixties Scoop survivor and has repatriated with his family, cultural and home community. He is actively involved in Indigenous child welfare issues, in particular supporting other Indigenous transracial adoptees in finding their families of origin and home communities. Conrad holds degrees in Criminology and Sociology.
TONYA “SAMQWAN” PARIS
Tonya “SamQwan” Paris (she/her), is an established Mi’kmaq & Afro Scotian artist-activist based in Halifax, Nova Scotia; which rests upon the unceded traditional Mi’kmaq territory. Her artwork has been featured in the award nominated 2020 Aboriginal Public Television Network production, Racism Lives Here Too, with Trina Roache and the production of Season 3 of DIGGSTOWN. Sam’Gwan is the Indigenous artist consultant and primary contributor for the hit television series set to be featured on the Fox & B.E.T networks in 2021-2022. Over the past 5 years SamQwan has had several art exhibits and installations within the N.S community. Most notably her contributions to the Dalhousie University Architectural Building, iNova Credit Union, The Nova Scotia QEII Mental Health Unit, and as a 2021 NSCAD Fall Artist in Residency. In 2022 she was shortlisted for the NEBA Viola Desmond Art Installation, and went on to be recognized by Arts Nova Scotia as Black Artist of the year for her most-received exhibition Ava in Wonderland. Her advocate voice has been featured multiple times with local community partners Proclaiming Our Roots, Dreadlocks & Kindness, Black Women in Excellence, the Mi’kmaq Friendship Centre, The Nova Scotia Career Development Associations and so many others! Coming in fresh off of Love Peace & Hair Grease, Hood Habits, and Match Stick Theatre’s production of Punch-Up, was the third play this year where she has been featured in Set Design for a stage play.
@samqwan_the_artist
RashidA SymmondS
Rashida Symonds is an Indigenous and African Diasporic woman from Nova Scotia Canada. Her ancestry is Mi’kmaq, Black Loyalist and Bajan. Rashida is an educator, spoken word, artist, poet, intuitive empathic healer, community activist and counsellor. She has worked with youth since she was a teenager and is fully dedicated to enriching lives. Her organization Reach One Collective is committed to mentoring and tutoring youth as well as working to heal the community in various ways though training and counselling. Her brand Mighty Royal is committed to natural living, knowledge, wisdom, mental, emotional and spiritual wellness, wholeness and balance.
Anique Jordan
Anique Jordan is the artist facilitator for the Proclaiming Our Roots project, and holds a Masters of Environmental Studies degree from York University, specializing in photography, auto-biography and Black Canadian histories. She is a community-based artist with over a decade of experience working within Black communities in multiple locations across Toronto and the Caribbean. She has designed and facilitated workshops in which artistic processes centre around building family archives and creating, through written form and assemblage, our own history. Anique has been recognized for this work through fellowships,awards and internships globally. Anique works intimately with communities and individuals to document family stories as central and important to the makeup of Canadian history. Her own family story extends through the war of 1812, American slavery, to Caribbean and Canadian immigration. Anique’s work has been exhibited at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Gallery 44 and at various national conferences. As an artist facilitator, she will work closely with the research team to design a digital oral history process centering on the claiming and voicing of our own story as a critical component of art production and the creation of both public and personal archives. Anique is technically trained in multimedia digital production.
Melisse Watson
Melisse Watson is the Graphic Illustrator for the Proclaiming Our Roots project. Melisse is a queer, non-binary Black diasporic afro-futurist with Aniyunwiya ancestry dedicated to rebuilding and supporting health care strategies within Black/&Indigenous communities. As a Registered Practical Nurse, earthworker, artist and advocate, restoring relationships through conflict or harm recovery is central to their focus and efforts of self and communal determination. Melisse is inspired by the heart and relationship work of adrienne maree brown, alexis pauline gumbs, octavia butler, qwo-li driskill, amber williams-king and beyond. They find motivation from the regeneration efforts of seeds, mycelium, and the potential for change, utilizing art as a tool of the archive, a placemaker of the present and a coded language for the future of Black and brown lives. As an accomplished creator, facilitator, grower, and dreamer, Melisse is committed through all they pursue; to integrity, care work, and the collective recovery.
