Ancestral Land is a project developed during the Our Land artist residency on the Toronto Islands. The work emerges from the collection of natural materials and from a sustained presence within the territory, where artistic gestures take shape through attentive observation and subtle interventions in the landscape.

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The Toronto Islands are a place where it is still possible to witness nature in a more raw state, with less interference from processes of urbanization and economic exploitation. For the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, the islands — originally called Mnisiing — were sacred lands used for fishing, healing, and ceremonial practices. In communion with this state of nature, the project is grounded in a desire to reconnect with the land.

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As the Indigenous thinker Ailton Krenak writes in Futuro Ancestral: We are not separate from the Earth and nature; we are a part of it.

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Guided by this understanding, the project unfolds as an act of listening — a gesture of respect toward the land and its living memory. The resulting works take the form of ephemeral land art pieces, later documented through photography and video.

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As part of the process, some of the pieces were returned to their natural environment, completing a cycle and honoring a relationship of reciprocity between body, matter, and territory.