Brenda Mabel Reid (they/them)

Artist

Full colour headshot of Brenda Mabel Reid, Artist, against a light beige background.

Brenda Mabel Reid is an emerging artist who lives in Kitchener, ON, on the Haldimand Tract. Brenda holds a Bachelor of Architectural Studies and a Master of Architecture from the University of Waterloo. They have led several community-based artworks within Waterloo Region and participated in residencies at the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, Co-Create Residency in Guelph, Centre[3] for Social and Artistic Practice in Hamilton, and Eastern Edge in St. John’s, Newfoundland. 

Brenda’s practice explores care, spatial politics and the peculiarity of urban space. Their work often draws on historical care artifacts such as quilts and explores the role of softness in expressing care, often in ways the artist finds humorous or clever.

Unstitching Maps / Retelling Stories

Unstitching Maps / Retelling Stories is an experimental public-participant artwork that was created through Cambridge Art Galleries’ exhibition Journey With Our Kin (October 29, 2022 – February 5, 2023). 

The work centred the consideration of land, of property and how our common conception of mapping informs our relationship to it. The colonial division of land and the creation of property affects how everyone, including animals and plants, can live and move on the land. It's the underlying layer of our experiences, laws, and social expectations. Focussing solely on the division of land, colonial maps are abstract and difficult to read; in fact, the creation of property is itself abstract. 

In this evolving artwork, Phase 1, “Unstitching Maps,” depicted the property division in downtown Galt through a traditional colonial lens. It maps the area around Galt’s three bridges, including this property of the gallery located centrally on the map. This sewn map unravelled over a month through public intervention with seam rippers, turning the map into something almost unrecognizable. 

The second phase of the project, “Retelling Stories,” the map was removed from the gallery, mended, dyed with plants and reworked through a community mapping workshop. Brenda had specially gathered plant material from their neighbourhood and bundle-dyed the map. Through the community-held workshop, participants were invited to reflect on the practice of mapping, reimaging what maps can tell us about our priorities. Using their experiences of the Grand River/Willow River, they create a print block to symbolize that story, printing directly onto the dyed map. The stories depicted range from a life lived along the river to a moment in time. After the workshop, the river was sewn to connect all the stories. The final form of the map was reinstated in the gallery next to a timelapse projection of Phase 1. 

Special Thanks

Brenda Mabel Reid would like to thank the staff at Cambridge Art Galleries for their invaluable support in this project and Pat The Dog Theatre Creation for their generous support in the research of this work.

Photos from the Project

Part 1 (2)

Part 2 (1)

Part 1 (3)

Part 2 (2)

Part 1 (9)

Part 2 (5)