Meagan Anishinabie BIOGRAPHY

Meagan Anishinabie is Anishininew from Sandy Lake First Nation. She is an artist, hide tanner and hunter. She began expressing interest in art at a young age while watching elders sew traditional garments. She learned the art of beadwork from her Kookum Minda and has become an incredible bead artist in her own right. She considers traditional art practices an important part of her connection to community, culture, and the land. 

gunnah-wendum-mook wuzziishakuywah  Protect/look after your skin is a pair of elk leather chaps decorated with beads and fringe. Meagan’s chaps are a beautiful example of how artists are revitalizing practices of hunting and hide tanning, using all of the animal that has given its life. They are also an example of how artists like Meagan are revitalizing and holding up styles of clothing from the past. There is a pride in creating leather chaps, beaded and fringed. Meagan is a hunter, hide tanner, sewer and beadwork artist. She was involved in each step of the labour needed to create these chaps. Her skill and passion can be seen, felt and smelled in the fine workmanship of these chaps. Her choice of title points us to the importance of revitalizing Indigenous languages as we decolonize, but also illustrates that there are so many cultural layers that require revitalization. This work can only be successful by being a shared load. It requires us to reconnect our communities and families, but it also does the work of reconnecting. The idea of protection is many layered, the chaps protect one’s body from the world when one wears them. Meagan has cared for and protected the existence of this hide by not letting it go to waste once the animal was hunted, she carefully preserved this skin and gave it a future life.

Links:

• Instagram: @megsanishinabie

• Manitobah store: Meagan Anishinabie | Manitobah | Walk With Us

• Vogue feature: For Indigenous Artists, Fur Is a Way of Life