Vol 2 No 1, 2026 Research Article
1Priyadarshini Ghosh 2Anurati Dutta
1Independent Researcher, USA.
2PhD Student in Comparative Literature, Purdue University, Indiana, USA.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21659/iw/v2n1/v2n102
[Article History: Received: 03 August 2026. Accepted: 04 October 2026. Published: 10 October 2026]
Abstract
Art heals. Art protests. And it is through art that one often finds their voice. Canadian Indigenous history has a long tradition of art and craft as a space that represents their everyday life; it becomes a space of sustenance, a space that creates comfort as well as discomfort. What makes indigenous art and its practices stand out is their intense sense of community along with their unique traditions, styles, and symbols. With the advent of the pandemic and the discovery of the unmarked graves at a former residential school many initiatives came up where quilts were/are being sewed like Quilt for Survivors initiative, where quilts are being made to honour the residential school survivors, to show them that there are people who care. A way of sending a touch wrapped in the quilt when physical touch is restricted. Healing circles were shifted to Zoom due to the pandemic, where they gathered virtually to share stories, talk and sew. So, it isn’t just about creating art but a space of storytelling as well. Other initiatives include Women Are Sisters, where a memory quilt was made to honour the lives of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. Women from various indigenous communities came together to share stories of trauma and abuse, and to empower themselves, and the quilts became a canvas of their resilience. Another crafting art, weaving, also talks about resistance through its patterns. A particularly interesting weaving practice, double-weaving by the Cherokee community, is significant in this regard; works and theories by well-known Indigiqueer artist Qwo-Li Driskill, and poems by Cherokee poet Marilou Awiakta, also examine this craft as entwined with the lives and lived realities of Indigenous communities. This paper will focus on how creative arts, healing, and culture come together in Canadian Indigenous communities. The two creative practices this paper will mainly work on are weaving and quilting. It will talk about the various quilting initiatives that came up during pandemic and healing circles that were shifted to the virtual world, not particularly focusing on one indigenous community, moreover, stressing on how women from different indigenous communities came to quilt together, expressing an intense sense of sisterhood and resilience. It will also talk about the double weaving practice of the Cherokee community by looking at the craft as a metaphor for deciphering the politics of intersections amongst Indigenous and Indigiqueer people along with their stories of resilience. Overall, this paper will bring together both the creative practices and their patterns along with all its aesthetics and metaphors to talk about how art creates a space of sharing trauma, a space of bonding and healing, and in turn, stitches a story of resistance.
Keywords: quilting, weaving, resistance, crafting arts, indigenous.
