'A sanctuary in the middle of the city': Art collective donates $10K to Thunderbird House

A cheque for $10,000 dollars was shipped out and mailed on Wednesday for Winnipeg's Thunderbird House, courtesy of an Indigenous art collective.

Members of the Onaman Collective raised the money to help renovate the non-profit Indigenous cultural centre, located on Main Street and Higgins Avenue.

"It's a place that offers a sanctuary in the middle of the city. It's a beautiful space" said Christi Belcourt, a Métis artist and member of the group.

"We've been to many cities and tried to look for spaces. There aren't a lot of spaces that are Indigenous-run and operated the way that Thunderbird House is."

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Belcourt said the centre is a vital space for Indigenous people in the city but has been struggling financially.

"We need spaces to be free and to be utilized by the community, but that comes at a cost for them. They need financial support to keep going," she said.

From Oct. 17 to Nov. 7, Belcourt worked with Isaac Murdoch, another member of the collective, to drum up donations of Indigenous arts and crafts through Facebook.

They then resold them through online auctions to people around the world.

Within a few weeks, the pair had managed to raise $20,000, half of which is going to Thunderbird House.

The remaining $10,000 will be used to realize Belcourt's and Murdoch's shared dream of creating a "cultural camp," where help Indigenous people reconnect on the land and learn about traditional governance, gardening and clan systems.

"We're raising money right now where we can have a permanent culture camp in the forest, where we can really focus on rekindling the language and cultural practices with the young people," said Murdoch.

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"A big focus of what we do, is trying to create environments where — including land based activities — where we can bring youth and elders together, to learn the language but put it into practice," said Belcourt.

Starting this spring, the pair are determined to have the camp up and running just north of Elliot Lake, Ont.

"It's a really beautiful place with it's vast wilderness," said Murdoch.

For both Murdoch and Belcourt, language revitalization is a crucial element of their vision.

"We're going for it with or without the funding we need," Belcourt said. "We're doing this all without government funding. It's just grassroots supported and grassroots driven"