Line by line, stroke by stroke, a vision is becoming reality over at the Presbyterian Church of Traverse City.

The vision is a mural titled “We Are One People” that will soon hang in a bright, open space inside the church’s main entrance. It’s designed primarily to tell the story of the Anishinaabe, who have inhabited the area for centuries and are represented locally by the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa & Chippewa Indians.

Like those of other native groups, this story has elements of both triumph and tragedy. It’s the story of a people shaped in part by dedicated efforts to erase their very existence. Considering the perpetrators of those efforts, the place where this project is unfolding carries extra significance. Extra weight. There is culpability within these walls.

“The church with a capital C has done so much harm over the centuries. The church has led the way with deforestation, boarding schools, the doctrine of discovery,” church Pastor Rev. Julie Delezenne tells The Ticker. “So we don’t take the gift of (native artists’) presence and their art and their creativity in this space lightly...We don’t take their trust of us lightly.”

It’s the people completing this mural that give this story its most interesting twist. Five artists from the Americas, all indigenous, are working together on the project. Two of them are Anishinaabek; the others hail from native groups in Mexico, Ecuador and Peru.

They’ve been working together despite their own differences in language, culture and even units of measurement. This dovetails nicely with the final panel of the mural, which attacks the very concept of dividing the human race in any way. We are one people.

“The birth of a new consciousness (the final panel) is the recognition that we are in fact one people and we need to work together as one people in particular to restore this planet,” church elder John Waechter tells The Ticker. “We can no longer build barriers. We have to work together.”

These natives from across the Americas are here via a Quito, Ecuador-based group called Intercontinental Biennial of Indigenous Art (Bienal Intercontinental de Arte Indigena, or BIAI), a group of indigenous artists who have completed art shows, projects and installations all over the world for more than 20 years.

A church committee member met BIAI executive director Jorge Ivan Cevallos in St. Ignace, where he was helping with an Anishinaabe project. This led to a BIAI art show at the church last year and now the mural project.

Cevallos tells The Ticker it’s the first time the group has completed a project in a church. He and his artists (those here were pulled from a much larger roster of BIAI artists) have felt incredibly welcome, he says. People have stopped by to offer food, support and encouragement as the artists work, and church leaders have opened their homes during the process so they have a place to stay. 

“This is a fantastic community and we are proud to be here,” Cevallos says. “It’s an honor to serve this community.”

BIAI aims to showcase and celebrate indigenous cultures through art and promote cultural exchange, all while empowering indigenous artists. It also aims to create discourse that mends wounds sustained over generations.

“Hopefully through this we can help the community heal a bit more (and provide) a brighter future for everyone,” Cevallos says.

Cevallos hopes local residents may one day consider visiting the homelands of the artists who have come here. It’s something that has been lacking as BIAI has traveled around the world, he says.

“Our other message to people is: Come to our countries. We can keep coming, but we need you guys to come too. Our houses are waiting for you too,” he says. “Reciprocity is fantastic, and we are really ready for that part.”

Grand Traverse Band member and artist Janelle Dahlberg “can’t say how thankful” she is to participate in the project.

“It’s very honorable to be a part of it, and I feel like it happened at the right time and the right place for me in my life,” she tells The Ticker. “I talked to people in the tribe, my family, my relatives. What parts of Native American culture do I absolutely need in this? How can I represent it correctly?"

Church leaders are proud to have provided a home for this mural and are eager to show it for generations to come.

“One of our hopes is that this can be a spiritual pilgrimage site,” Delezenne says. That people might come and to see the art and be moved by it, and hopefully even changed by the message, too.”

Delezenne feels the project has an even greater significance now amid increased calls for border security and crackdowns on immigration.

“Given the political climate, I think (the themes of) reaching across borders and considering that we are one people adds a whole additional layer of meaning for this project,” she says.

The public is welcome to come to the church to see the artists work from 9 a.m. to  6 p.m. through Aug. 10, with a mural opening celebration from 5-7 p.m. on Aug. 14. There is also a small collection of other art from indigenous artists at the church. In addition, BIAI also has art on display at the Commongrounds Cooperative through the end of the month.