Vie Jones - Project Lead
(they/them)
As part of the Maritime saying, I am a “come from away.” This term refers to the fact that like many others, I am not from the Maritimes. I grew up in Northern Ontario, both on and off - reserve. From a young age my parents actively nourished my connection to my Anishinaabek roots through access to language classes throughout primary school, ceremony, community connection, and connection to the land. My relation to the land was not the same as my peers, and the wonder I found existed not in the activity of the land, but its moving stillness. To me it became a place of stories, as I also learned the stories of Nanabush and the land itself. My effeminate queer nature was home in this space, but could not find a home in reality.
Moving from this community of connection and support into rigid bureaucratic systems of compulsory secondary education led to many struggles. Before being able to identify and support my needs, I had experienced incredible social difficulty, unemployment, and temporary homelessness. I am fortunate enough that now at the age of 33, I have finished two college programs and a BFA, and enrolled in a Master’s program. My education has presented me with many opportunities, and I find it part of my own responsibility to give back to the communities that have supported and loved me, because I wouldn’t be here without them.
My chronic illness, responsibilities of my divergent brain, and experiences of mental health have made evident the need for care to be at the forefront of how I work, and how care is regularly unsupported and hard to access within the systems we find ourselves. This project is built on an ethic of collective care and accommodation of difference from an intersectional perspective. It is my hope to invite what traditionally gets left behind in spaces like these, and the need to perform as a digestible version of our authentic self in order to access these opportunities.
LUCID came from the idea of bringing our dreams to life. Dreams offer the opportunity to defy limits with just a thought. Can we blur the lines of impossible dreams and bring them into reality?
