Local Métis artist Tracey-Mae Chambers has brought hope and healing to the McMaster Museum of Art with a site-specific art piece installed in the museum’s garden.

The installation is part of Chambers’ #HopeAndHealingCanada project, which contemplates themes of connection, reflection, and healing in the wake of the COVID-19, and the daily news of unrest around the world. In recognizing the need to reconnect, #HopeAndHealingCanada creates space for people to pause and reflect and heal towards a more hopeful and brighter future.

Using vibrant red string, Chambers’ creates detailed installations by weaving and intertwining the string among elements of the environment outside of sites across the country such as museums, parks, and city halls. Chambers’ says red is chosen because it is “the colour of blood, the colour of passion and of anger. It is the colour of the slur against Indigenous and represents danger and power. It can also represent courage and love.”

The process is painstaking and organic — Chambers creates the intricate web without knowing the result, instead building and adapting the installation based on her surroundings. This approach itself is a form of healing as she is able to connect with both the environment and the community during the process of creating. According to Chambers, “The challenge of an unknown environment to build in is part of the point. I must adapt. We all must.”

The installations are mostly temporary in nature, often created, photographed, and then taken down in the same day. Chambers says, “I want to illustrate the temporary nature of our lives, of our struggles and our achievements. The string represents the connectivity between each other and our environment.”