Ailsa Clark – Founder of Inspiralba, Scotland Day 2 Story Circle Presenter
Ailsa Clark of Inspiralba in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, joins Dr. Wendy Wong and Ellie Joseph, Mohawk Elder to share stories about our current direction of travel and how leading from curiosity helps to explore our differences together.
Born and raised in Argyll, Scotland with experience working locally, nationally, and in Australia and South Africa. Ailsa Clark founded Inspiralba in 2009, recognizing the passion and determination in rural communities and the significant hoops and bureaucracy people have to navigate. She has been able to bring experience from income generation, business, networking, and community development into practice through the inter-related strands of Inspiralba’s work; coordinating third sector delivery of employability opportunities with a focus on tailored person-centred support as well as provision of business support for social and community enterprises across Argyll and the Islands. She has also provided an advocacy role for rural social enterprise as well as access and progression routes for young people in the rural economy. Established www.ruralsehub.net in 2019 to support networking, collaboration, information, and learning resources for the rural social and community-led enterprise bringing experience and connections from across Europe and further afield. https://www.inspiralba.org.uk/
Ellie Joseph – Mohawk Elder from Six Nations Day 2 Story Circle Presenter
Ellie Joseph, Mohawk Elder joins Dr. Wendy Wong and Ailsa Clark to share stories about our current direction of travel and how leading from curiosity helps to explore our differences together.
Ellie Joseph, Mohawk Elder from Six Nations is of the Mohawk Nation, Turtle Clan, born, raised, and still lives on the Six Nations Reserve along the bank of The Grand River. She retired from a thirty-four-year tenure as a classroom teacher of Elementary School in our public school system a decade ago but remains an active volunteer in the education field, and tutors privately.
After paddling on the sixteen-day Two Row Renewal Campaign from Albany to Manhattan, New York, on The Hudson River in 2013, Ellie Joseph was one of four participants who established what is now known as “Two Row on the Grand.” Functioning as a grassroots volunteer committee, they have watched this project’s participation increase in size. Two Row on the Grand is an annual nine-day family-oriented camping and paddling excursion on The Grand River, starting in Cambridge and ending at Port Maitland, Lake Erie.
Dr. Wendy H. Wong Day 2 Keynote Address & Story Circle Presenter
Dr. Wendy H. Wong unravels the sticky issues of AI and data when it comes to human rights, global governance, international relations and, especially, data rights through a rural lens.
Award-winning author and professor of Political Science and International Relations at the University of British Columbia Okanagan in the department of political science. Wendy’s interests include emerging technologies, human rights, data/AI, global governance, NGOs, social movements, non-state actors, and humanitarian assistance.
This B.C.-based scholar is among the finalists for the 2024 Lionel Gelber Prize. She is nominated for her book, We, The Data: Human rights in the digital age which highlights how pervasive data collection and tracking are in everyday life. Laying the foundation for future policy, We, The Data calls for human rights to be extended to encourage human potential when data threatens to complicate how we progress.
She has also co-authored two other award-winning books, Internal Affairs and The Authority Trap (with Sarah S. Stroup), both published by Cornell University Press and penned dozens of peer-reviewed articles and chapters. Dr. Wong has appeared in outlets such as the CBC, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, and The Conversation.
Dr. Wendy H. Wong is a Member of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists. She Is currently Faculty Affiliate at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society (SRI) at the University of Toronto in Global Governance and Civil Society. From 2012-2017, Dr. Wong was Director of theTrudeau Center for Peace, Conflict, and Justice at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.
Dr. S. Ashleigh Weeden Day 1 Opening Keynote Address
Dr. S. Ashleigh Weeden opens R2R24 with the question, “WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO MEET THIS MOMENT IN TIME?”
Dr. Weeden is an award-winning rural futurist who splits her time between Ontario’s Bruce and Wellington Counties. She is currently working as an independent researcher and consultant and serves as a Research Associate with the Ontario Office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. She is a long-time advocate for the power of participatory and place-based approaches as critical mechanisms for creating effective public policy. Her recently completed doctoral research focused on the role of stories in shaping rural policy and realities, using the nuclear energy sector as an entry-point for examining the relationships between place, power, and policy. Prior to becoming ‘Dr. Weeden’, Ashleigh spent the first half of her career working in public administration for a number of municipalities across Ontario, working on transformative projects related to community engagement, infrastructure, and economic development.
Dr. Weeden is recognized as a thought leader on rural renewal, policy foresight, infrastructure planning, public sector leadership, and ‘the right to be rural.’ She has developed a reputation for ‘speaking truth to power’ and has provided expert commentary to outlets and organizations like Buzzfeed News, the Ryerson Review of Journalism, the David Hume Institute (Scotland), the Scottish Government, CBC News, and CTV News, as well as several podcasts and community news outlets.
Dr. Weeden has published widely in both academic and popular press and her work can be read in publications like The Conversation Canada, the Journal of Rural and Community Development, the Annals of the American Association of Geographers, the Annals of Regional Science, IRPP Policy Options, the Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation, Rural Policy Learning Commons, CIGI Online, and Municipal World.
We go down to the riverbanks to think We go down to the riverbanks to drink The river washes The river watches Grand living and learning Grand transporting and transferring The grand of the Grand touches us all We gather at the river to reunite We gather at the river to might right The river rests and reactivates River denizens synergize in song Glorious voices from the river throng We join the river in sweet harmony Grand living and learning, Grand transporting and transforming, the grace of the Grand touches us all
Shared, illustrated and written by Marcia
“Six miles deep from each side of the River beginning at Lake Erie and extending in the portion of the Head of Said River, which Them and Their Posterity are to enjoy forever.”
Knowing your watershed and the waterways that meander through your community is important and I’ve been dabbling in exploring through drawing since creating that map. I met the Grand River Community Play group in the cold of November in the Abe Erb Mill by Laurel creek in Uptown Waterloo. It was the second Prologue, which was a manifestation of the group’s past year of collecting stories about the Grand River and tributaries. I was hooked. I wanted to continue my explorations in this context. This was fine with the creative leaders of the project, because everyone is invited to join in this collective community gathering of stories and ideas about the Grand. It’s in this spirit that I continue recording, exploring, mapping and scribbling ideas on the page with my fude (bent nib) fountain pen. The flow of ink feels like the flow of the river.
The question often asked in our workshops is “What does the River mean to you; and what do you mean to the River? Words for this scrambled in my brain, so I tried to tame them through my pen. Having experienced a guided “automatic drawing” session (I know – that sounds like an oxymoron), I wanted to try reaching my inner consciousness to express my feelings. I started as artists (such as Mirò and Dalì) have done before me, clearing my mind and letting the pen travel around the page randomly without rational control. After many lines and swirls the shape of a creature finally appeared. That’s where I stopped the random marks and started thinking of how this creature might take shape. As I began detailing this strange creature, other critters of the Grand began to enter my thoughts. Eggs, tadpole and frog; dragonfly, bumble bee, otter, … and lastly when I thought I was finished – a kingfisher. In the midst of that, words came and swirled around the image. Now that I look at “Grand Thanks again, I see that strange first image as the spirit of the dragonfly nymph.
Am I the River and the River is Me began when someone said “We are not the river.” I explored this idea in the drawing, but I wasn’t finished chewing on it. My research found that at least three Indigenous-led initiatives have been successful in arguing that rivers have the right to “legal person” status. Rivers in New Zealand, the Amazon and Quebec, Canada now hold legal rights and responsibilities equivalent to a person. https://www.instagram.com/p/C1k-sR3Av-V/
I’m looking forward to exploring the river at Hillside Music Festival nestled on Guelph Island on the Speed River – a Grand tributary. With my comrades in the Grand River Community Play, we’ll be exploring through song, movement, puppetry, storytelling – and drawing.
ABOUT THE EVENT There are no rules for creating a square aside from a final size of 10 x 10 inches. Any approach is welcome (sewing, painting, applique, felting, etc.), and we encourage experimentation and creativity. The most important thing is that each square should tell your story or depict your relationship to the river. Rather than a traditional rectangular quilt, each of your squares will be tied together to create the shape of the river and be displayed with a map of the Grand River watershed identifying where each square came from. We will also display a matching “quilt” of your stories about each square.
Examples of current Grand River quilt squares
MORE ABOUT THE GRAND RIVER PROJECT The Grand River Community Play Project: The Voice of a River is an interdisciplinary piece that will connect the communities and inhabitants that live along the length of the Grand River – a river that starts in the highlands of Dufferin County, travels 310 km, before emptying into Lake Erie at Port Maitland. About a million people live within the watershed, a watershed that passes cities, towns, villages, trees, wild grasses, coyotes, and includes thirty-nine municipalities and two First Nations territories.
The Voice of a River is about community and the meaningful connection to Indigenous leaders and communities along the Grand River. It is an inclusive creative activity involving artists, municipal and Indigenous leaders, scientists, Elders, Community folk, children, NFP organizations, educational institutions – and most importantly the Grand River. This is a project about storytelling – in all the ways stories can be told – in spoken word, in song, in dance, ceremony, in art installation, in silence, through different cultural lenses, and via technology. It is being imagined as an environmental experience – something that will develop and build over time, leading toward a unique presentation in all four seasons, and over many years, passing the experience along to the next generations for them to reimagine, for them to inhabit with their own stories.
On Saturday, July 20, participate in telling the story of the Grand River – celebrating 30 years since its induction into the Canadian Heritage Rivers System in 1994 –by experiencing creative workshops in puppetry, music, art, and movement!
Back in 2014, the CCRC helped raise $5 million for the revitalization/renovation of the Blyth Memorial Community Hall, Art Gallery, Kitchen and Lower Hall. Two years later, the first Rural Talks to Rural (R2R) conference happened under a big white tent on the Blyth Fairgrounds. R2R becomes a biennial conference and is hosted in Blyth and Brussels. This year we are back in Blyth and the Memorial Community Hall. This special place offers a main stage theatre, art gallery, and lower hall. Much of the conference will take place in these spaces and for many, it is also a form of ‘coming back home’. For those new to Blyth and the hall, you’re in for a treat. It’s a beautiful space and place that reflects the incredible community and the arts.
Early bird pricing is available until June 30th. Scan the QR code to access or click here.
Meagan joins us again as our Creative Assistant to continue supporting the development of the Grand River Community Play Project. Meagan will work alongside Pete Smith in bringing together the people, stories, and spirit of the Grand River which will culminate into a community play in 2025.
Meagan shares:
“Hi I’m Meagan! I have two cats, love to read, and have been listening to California by Chappell Roan on repeat for a year! I’m a recent Theatre Studies grad from the University of Guelph and will be continuing my studies there in the fall pursuing a Creative Writing MFA. I am so excited to be back with the CCRC for another summer and can’t wait for what’s in store!!”
