Building a House to Heal In
The spaces we inhabit may often have a great impact on how we feel. This can be especially true when we are working through difficult personal growth periods or events which have hurt us.
Through Building a House to Heal In and accompanying sound piece, Eric Almberg and mentor Guadalupe Martinez, as part of the MAG Exchange Artist Mentor program, intend to call upon the strength of a collective process to build a structure that could hold space for and speak to the potential of embodied-collective-healing. Through collective markings into the wood of this structure, symbols or words will represent stories of healing, hoping to imbue the physical bones and skin of this building with their relief and mending capabilities. The act of working with wood and our own hands, becomes in itself a meditative way of processing.
Image courtesy of the artist and Stephanie Florence
As part of this process of gathering “stories of healing” for Building a House to Heal In mentee Eric Almberg and mentor Guadalupe Martinez have collaborated on a sound piece that pulls together excerpts from their ongoing conversations, as part of the MAG Exchange Artist Mentorship program, and creates a collage of recurring themes and words—a kind of poem—that speaks to their inquiries around the potential for embodied-collective-healing.
Eric Almberg is an emerging artist living and working in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He/they have graduated with a B.F.A. from the University of Lethbridge, and a Diploma in Visual Art from MacEwan University. Eric’s work revolves around the themes of connection between beings, internal awareness, re-skilling and learning, and environmental sustainability. Eric works with these themes through workshops, participatory and collaborative performances, storytelling, installations, and sculptures which bring new life to discarded objects. He has exhibited artwork in the Silver Skate Festival, as well as The Works Art and Design Festival. Eric is currently trying to learn how to make shoes, carve wood, develop joinery skills, and garden.
Guadalupe Martinez is an interdisciplinary artist and educator interested in understanding the multiple and complex relationships between identity and place. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, she immigrated to Vancouver in 2008, where she lives and works, conscious of her presence on the unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓ əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples.
Placing the body at the centre of her practice, Martinez’ work often takes the form of installation, performance, and collaborative research with a deep consideration for her personal and inherited histories. Through somatic practices and collaboration Martinez creates alternative spaces of learning and explores the potential for embodied research and love-actions to heal and decolonize the body and mind. Her commitment to spirituality, teaching, and political awareness underlies the development of her work in diverse contexts and she has presented work in Canada, the US, Italy, Mexico and Argentina.
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