Daydreamer's Tea Service

Date: Saturday, September 17, 2022

Artist: Tania Willard

Open Space is pleased to be an organizational partner to the Dreaming the Land Residency (zoom-based) led by France Trépanier, and supporting the projects presented on lək̓ʷəŋən Territory by the artists Tania Willard and Kemi Craig.

Daydreamer's Tea Service is an affirming of plant relations and an assertion of anti-capitalist time mismanagement through the intentional disruption of daydreaming  expressed through Indigenous plant knowledges and the making of tea. 

The piece was developed in response to the Dreaming the Land Residency (zoom-based) led by France Trépanier. The plants in the tea were harvested and prepared from plants in Secwepemc and Lekwungen territories and collected with prayers and offering.

The Daydreamer’s decolonial tea blend (and design) features:

Rose hip / sekwéw’
Fireweed / Ts’ixnéllp
Lake Mint 
Buckbrush
Coast Salish Kexmin

Brewing the tea in an oversized handmade tea bag and tea cup modelled after distinctive archeological Cahokia black drink cups the tea references a decolonial approach to the colonial culture of tea. Through an attentive process of non-monetary labour and knowledge values the work explores the potential of committing to the time and resources needed to manifest Indigenous resurgence. 

Daydreamers decolonial tea service considers ideas around the right to harvest the forest understory and Indigenous authority as well as relationality with plants and territories.

Daydreamers decolonial tea service encourages suspending work, school or responsibilities in order to go berry picking, to harvest and gather from the land and enjoy rich daydreaming as an expression of gratitude for our collective and creative potential of transformation towards a culture of abundance and against a culture of extinction.