My Soul in Story: In Conversation with Anishinaabe Elder Rene Meshake
Date: Jun. 15, 2023 – Jun. 15, 2023
Time: 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
Location: Trafalgar Road Campus, 1430 Trafalgar Road, Oakville
Join us on Thursday, June 15 in the Medicine Wheel Garden at Sheridan’s Trafalgar Road Campus for an intimate conversation with Sheridan graduate, residential school survivor, and Anishinaabe Elder, Rene Meshake (Graphic Design ‘70).
Bring a chair or blanket and enjoy a presentation of Anishinaabe storytelling, a performance of the pipigwan flute, and readings from Rene’s award-winning book, Injichaag: My Soul in Story: Anishinaabe Poetics in Art and Words.
Stay after the presentation for a book signing and light refreshments. Injichaag: My Soul in Story: Anishinaabe Poetics in Art and Words will be available for purchase at the event for $25 (cash only).
Date: Thursday, June 15, 2023
Time: 7–8:30 p.m.
Location: Medicine Wheel Garden, Trafalgar Road Campus, 1430 Trafalgar Road, Oakville
Rene Meshake was born in the railway town of Nakina in northwestern Ontario in 1948, and spent his early years living off-reserve with his grandmother in a matriarchal land-based community he calls Pagwashing.
He was raised through his grandmother’s “bush university,” periodically attending Indian day school. At the age of 10, Rene was scooped into the Indian residential school system, where he suffered sexual abuse as well as the loss of language and connection to family and community. This residential school experience was life-changing, as it suffocated his artistic expression and resulted in decades of struggle and healing. Now in his 28th year of sobriety, Rene is a successful multidisciplinary artist, musician and writer. His artistic vision and poetic lens provide a unique telling of a story of colonization and recovery.
Rene Meshake is an Anishinaabe Elder, visual and performing artist, award-winning author, storyteller, flute player, new media artist and a recipient of Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee Medal.