Watch the Video of our Online Discussion of Gardens Past, Present, and Future

Update: The video for this talk in now on YouTube.


Four gardeners from the Victory Gardens for Diversity artist residency at Terra Nova Rural Park talk about the intimate ways gardens have shaped their lives. Lori Snyder, Catherine Shapiro, Lois Klassen and Lori Weidenhammer will talk about gardens in their past that have inspired them, how their present gardens are being informed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and describe what their dreams are for gardens of the future.

Lori Weidenhammer is a Vancouver performance-based interdisciplinary artist and educator. She is originally from a tiny hamlet called Cactus Lake, Saskatchewan. It is in this place, bordered by wheat fields and wild prairie, that she first became enchanted with bees. Her mother’s garden, with its sunflower forest was a special source of inspiration for the work she does today.

 She is the author of a book called Victory Gardens for Bees: A DIY Guide to Saving the Bees published by Douglas and MacIntyre. For the past several years she has been appearing as the persona Madame Beespeaker, practising the tradition of “telling the bees”. As a food security volunteer and activist Lori works with students of all ages on eating locally and gardening for pollinators. She has worked with several models of community gardens in the Lower Mainland as a consultant, advocate and educator.

On occasion, she likes to dress up in silly costumes and talk to bees.

Lori is originally from Treaty 4 Territory in Saskatchewan the original lands of the Cree, Ojibwe, Saulteaux Dakota, Nakota, Lakota, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation and feels gratitude to be able to live and work in unceded territory of the Coast Salish nations.

Lois Klassen is an artist, writer and researcher based in Vancouver, Canada. Known for long-range projects that invite and engage participants in collective actions, her projects address social and political concerns – deliberately facing ethical demand with social, aesthetic and material methods. Klassen's artworks have been hosted by Dunlop Gallery, Santa Fe Art Institute, The Glenbow Museum, The Western Front, HubM3 (University of Salford), Banff New Media Institute, and more. Lois Klassen is a 2020 Fulbright Scholar (Center for Inter-American Border Studies and the Ruben Center for the Visual Arts, University of Texas El Paso). Her PhD dissertation (Cultural Studies, Queen's University, 2018) focused on ethics and participation in art. She earned a Master of Applied Art at Emily Carr University of Art + Design (Vancouver, Canada) in 2011, and a Diploma of Art History from University of British Columbia (Vancouver) in 2008.

As a settler artist working and living on traditional and unceded Coast Salish territory of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, I am humbled by the long and difficult journey for justice for Indigenous peoples. I am committed to respectfully joining in alliance on this journey by learning, witnessing and taking action.

Catherine Shapiro went to the San Francisco Art Institute for a couple of years in the late 1960’s and immigrated to Canada in 1970. Settling in the Caribou with her husband, they set up a printmaking studio and Catherine started gardening. Moving to Vancouver in 1974 she continued making multimedia work that expressed her growing knowledge about plants focusing on women’s contributions to the development of horticulture. In the 1980’s Catherine began making environmental works from plant materials that she foraged or grew including nettle, hemp, cedar, wisteria, artichoke, mallow, flax and bamboo. These interests have continued to inform her work and have given her the opportunity in the last few years to mentor a young artist in growing and processing indigo as well as to be artist in residence at MOP garden to continue this project.  Working with indigo has lead her to making a wide variety of paints from botanicals sources which she has been using recently on a new series of cast paper sculptures and paintings.

Lori Snyder is an indigenous herbalist and educator, with a deep knowledge of edible and medicinal plants. A descendant from the T’suu tina (Sarcee), Nakota (Assiniboine), Cree, Nipissing, and Anishnaabe (Ojibwe) people; with a Metis blend of First Nations people with Scottish, French, and Celtic ancestry. Born and raised in Squamish, Lori spent her childhood playing in the forest. From a young age, she has been learning about plants and later studied herbalism, aromatherapy and permaculture. Lori spent her childhood in the forest and helping her father in their back yard garden growing vegetables, fruits and berries which the community raccoons would like to visit!

This days Lori has been consulting on garden design and care takes the Medicine Wheel garden, showcasing native, wild, foods and pollinator plants at Moberly Arts' And Cultural Centre.

Since 2013, Lori has been bringing forth her First Nations perspective of wild, edible, and medicinal plants to help people reconnect to the wisdom of Mother Earth.