Inspired by the matriarchs who give ROSEMARY its namesake, ROSEMARY SKOOL looks to kindle moments of engagement that support our cultural values of fierce love, humility, and courage. Thinking about the homes of these matriarchs, ROSEMARY SKOOL strives towards the cultivation of spaces for gathering that are welcoming and generous to all our relations to build knowledge together. ROSEMARY SKOOL operates without cost to the public or to artists, providing an opportunity which ensures fair pay to arts workers. Its operations are Indigenous-led, through ROSEMARY Gallery. It works in critical discussion with, existing institutional models of equity and diversity initiatives to press for meaningful engagement with underrepresented communities in the arts.

Credits:
Conceived of and programmed by: Jaimie Isaac and Suzanne Morrissette
Technically and financially supported by: Sputnik Architecture + The Forks
With special thanks to: Chris Pancoe, Dave Pancoe, Peter Hargraeves, Lexis Nizio, Benita, Tom Kroeker, and Bobby
Programs supported by: The Forks, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and proceeds from the ROSEMARY SKOOL art brick fundraiser

photo by New Copper Photography

When designing the structure that would become ROSEMARY SKOOL, we began with the idea of a birch bark basket as a container for knowledge and gifts.

At the same time, we drew inspiration from the clay and silt that cradles the rivers, which appears parched and cracked when exposed to the air, and that is sticky when wet.

We imagined how ROSEMARY SKOOL could help to build space and capacity for artists. To support this idea we built bricks using silt and clay materials from the river, alongside prairie grasses, cattails, and medicines.

Meanwhile, we worked alongside Sputnik Architecture and Anvil Tree to design and plan for our structure to be built from snow. The design marries the conceptual use of the basket and brick forms with our programmatic needs for artist presentations and community gatherings. It was sited and looked out onto the Assiniboine and Red Rivers.

We built the structure in one week in late January 2025 using the help of snow blowers, wooden form-work, and custom hand-sculpting tools for working with snow and ice.

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THE PROGRAM

In his video - River Poetics - artist Chukwudubem Ukaigwe reads from the poems of M. NourbeSe Philip, Dionne Brand, Canisia Lubrin, Christopher Okigbo, Chimwemwe Undi, Chim Nwabueze, Sharanpai Puprai, Edouard Glissant, George Elliott Clark, Sonia Sanchez, Slvia D. Hamilton, and Uchechukwu Umezurike. When read to and at the site of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers these poems, and Ukaigwe’s reading of them, affirm the significance of waterways for understanding diasporic relationality.

This video work was projected onto the backside of a snow seat, which glistened luminously when struck by the light of the projector.

January 24, 2025

In this workshop with KC Adams participants were invited to connect to the land by making a small bowl using clay and materials harvested from Treaty 1 Territory. Bowls were left near ROSEMARY SKOOL with the intention that - like the birchbark basket structure itself - these bowls will return to the river with the spring melt.

JANUARY 25, 2025

On January 25 ROSEMARY SKOOL hosted a community feast, catered by Feast Cafe.

In Partnership with Decolonizing Lens and Just Waters:

EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED, a program about river-thinking and the water that connects us all.

Screening of: Poplar River (Kevin Settee), River Poetics (Chukwudubem Ukaigwe), This River (Erika MacPherson & Katerina Vermette)

Panel with: Chukwudubem Ukaigwe, Becky Cook, Chimwemwe Undi, Kevin Settee and Erika MacPherson

february 13, 2025

Thank you to ROSEMARY SKOOL funders and partners!