Indigenizing the home: Winnipeg designers draw from Anishinaabe culture, language to create modern home decor

After failing to find items that reflected their identities, Anishinaabe designers in Winnipeg have taken it upon themselves to create the modern home goods they were looking for.

"It's time to start sharing our own narrative, and making sure that it's told correctly and by the right people," Destiny Seymour, founder of Indigo Arrows, told CBC.

The interior designer has worked at an architectural firm in Winnipeg for over a decade, noticing a lack of options for home goods made by Indigenous people in the province.

"I couldn't find textiles and products that represented local Indigenous people and culture from this territory in Manitoba," she said, adding that the home decor she did find represented Indigenous nations from British Columbia and the southwestern United States.

"I wanted fabrics that I could put onto furniture that was from here, and they didn't exist, so I started making them on my own. That's how Indigo Arrows started."

Seymour creates items such as linens, quilts and tea towels with unique patterns that originate from ancient pottery and bone tools made in the province. She gained the inspiration from the Manitoba Museum's stored collection of Anishinaabe pottery from the region.

"It's basically like our early home decor," she said.

Many of the patterns in her work have been given names in Anishinaabemowin, which was done in collaboration with her father Valdie, elder-in-residence at the University of Manitoba's faculty of architecture.

"I really admire her and the work that she does," Valdie told CBC.

Anishinaabemowin words have creation stories behind them, he said, and it's exciting to watch his daughter share the language through her work. "Each of her products that she names in our language can actually be a teaching."

Her products have acted as teaching tools since Seymour shares the stories behind the patterns in her work, and she said non-Indigenous people have been curious to know and appreciate the history behind each pattern.

"They'll order my fabrics or my products using our language and it does make me feel really proud," she said. "They're speaking Anishinaabemowin without really knowing it."

Seymour is glad she took the risk in starting her business back in 2016. Her products often sell out quickly, and she is just beginning to keep up with orders.

"I'm just very grateful that I did take the chance and start this company, because it keeps me very busy."