Nigàsimonìgin
Nigàsimonìgin (Variation 3), 2023
Silkscreen on air filter / Sérigraphie sur filtre à air
35 x 35 in / 88.9 x 88.9 cm
___Nigàsimonìgin — meaning “canvas” in Anishinaabemowin — transforms a hidden building material into a membrane of memory. Through this work, I make visible what is often unseen: Indigenous language, knowledge, and resilience. It is an act of presence, a declaration that our perspectives are alive, valid, and enduring. By printing on an air filter — the part of a building that breathes, the protective layer — I reveal the quiet strength that sustains our communities. It is a reminder that we belong to the land, we can not own and claim it. We carry it in every breath.
The patterns pay tribute to the ancestral tradition of “birch bark biting” - using teeth to create shapes in thin, folded layers of birch bark. When unfolded, they reveal perfectly symmetrical geometric patterns. The symbols are a communication form connected to different family lineages, carrying home along with them.
Caroline Monnet is a multidisciplinary artist of Anishinaabe and French ancestry, originally from the Outaouais region, who lives and works in Mooniyang/Montreal. With a deep interest in communicating Indigenous identity through complex cultural narratives, her artistic and cinematographic work grapples with colonialism’s impact, updating outdated systems with anishinaabeg methodologies.Choose options