A project was funded by Women’s College Hospital which investigated the barriers and experiences associated with pre, peri and post-natal knowledge and education with Indigenous, immigrant, or refugee women in Northwestern Ontario. Three paintings were created to generate further discussion of the data.

In the painting “Arise” there is a woman floating passively down a river (her head is the bulb of the horse’s tail) and she transforms into a horse. In “Crush”, a young horse wildly challenges the status quo, and in “Reflection” the horse has gained empowerment through experience. In all three, the women are looking back. Histories, genealogies, culture and context are imprinted on their bodies and play a significant role in how they attend to their maternal health.

Biography
Pauline Sameshima is a Professor and Canada Research Chair in Arts Integrated Studies at Lakehead University, Ontario, Canada. She is an editor, curator, curriculum theorist, writer and artist with an interest in mobilizing research, learning across broad audiences, and innovating university-community learning collaborations. She uses the Parallaxic Praxis framework to integrate the arts in the data collection, data analysis and knowledge mobilization of the research design process.