Since 2012 I have been honored to be part of a creative collaboration with members of the Behchoko community, in the Tłı̨chǫ region, Northwest Territories. I have worked with elders and youth on projects that involve the visualization of regional oral history through participatory design and animation. Since the beginning of this collaboration, we completed one film in 2013: The Woman Who Came Back. In 2016 we began our second film, based on the nineteenth-century making of peace between the Tłı̨chǫ and the neighbouring Yellowknife Dene.
Through this ongoing work, we adhere to the Tłı̨chǫ educational philosophy of being ’strong like two people’. There is strength in bringing together different forms of knowledge (oral and visual), and different generations (elders and youth). This collaboration is based on relationships: between stories and the land, between community and researcher, as well as the past, present and future.
The Woman Who Came Back was screened by (among others) Ethnografilm, Prairie Tales, the Indianer Inuit Festival, and broadcast by Arte Television in Germany and France. A trailer for the film is included in this section. The film can be seen at the Tłı̨chǫ Research & Training Institute website.