What We Do

Pronounced ah-nah-mun, The Onaman Collective was formed in November of 2014 and is currently run by Isaac Murdoch and Christi Belcourt. We care so deeply about the youth and the future of our communities, each of us in our own way has been using our art for social change. We formed the collective for the express purpose of finding ways to converge land-based art creation with traditional knowledge, youth, Elders and Anishnaabemowin and Cree languages.

We are interested in the ways the arts can assist in helping social justice movements including the reclaiming Indigenous land-based arts and language.

We believe the arts are a powerful medium to create positive social change within our communities for the future so in addition to the work we do in and with community, we also create our own art to share, much of it for free use for various land and water protection actions.

This website was created primarily to “house” our banners for easy access and downloads of the banners and images we offer free of charge to grassroots initiatives. (Permission is not granted for profit use, private or corporate).

Some of our past projects have included:

• Anishinaabemowin Wiigwaam: Language Houses
• The Sacred Fisher Story: The Youth Mural Project
• Onaman Kendaagozid: Gathering about Sacred Paint (Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan & Alberta)
• Canoe Building in Chippewa of the Thames in July, 2015
• Murals & storytelling within Schools
• Painted Hand Gathering in Sept 2015
• On-going collaborative art pieces within the collective
• On-line Spreecast Forum: Community Discussion on Nuclear Waste
• LAND FUND: Ongoing fundraising for land to set up a permanent traditional camp to be able to host year round language, art and traditional food camps.
• Cree Language House (Edmonton)
• Great Lakes Gathering, July 14-17, Sault Ste Marie, ON
• Birch Harvesting
• Canoe building
• Research with Elders
• Youth Art Retreat: Words from the Land
• Traditional Foods Camp
• #CallResponse (http://www.callresponseart.ca/)
• On-going collaborative works
• Community Art Builds: screen printing banners in communities

RESEARCH

Within our collective we continue to do research into the areas that interest us and to make presentations on:

• • Onaman (red ochre / earth based paints)
  • Pictographs
  • Traditional tattooing
  • Traditional Stories & Legends
  • Constellations
  • Anishinaabeg & Metis History & Oral History
  • Sacred Sites
  • Anisinaabemowin place names & plant names

• Find our more about our name.