Trees Talk with Caroline Monnet

So we often like to start with the early days.

You grew up between the Taré region, and I know everyone is very curious about this duality between Paris, being brought up in near Canada's capital and at the same time in Brittany and France.

And what does home mean when you grew up in those two regions with a Anishinaabe mom and a French papa?

Yes, I see it as a real privilege to carry two identities and cultures.

For me, home is less a sense of place than relationship.

And I was fortunate to build relationships with the territory of the Utala region and the Maya Anishinaabe ancestors, and also with the Celtic culture of Brittany, France.

So for me, home is more a connection to land and to memory, to language and the people that came before me.

I think this idea of growing between two countries, two cultures, two languages has really shaped the way I see the world and how I imagine my place fitting within that world.

Because I was always some kind of in between.

Sometimes not enough something, sometimes too much something.

So it's been through my process and through creating art or through just learning more about myself and the world around me that I was able to better position myself within those gray zones and accepting that I can be many things.

And it's actually quite rich to be multiple people.

rather than just one unique thing.

And you studied sociology in thinking of many things that make society.

I was curious, I was surprised to find that in your parkour, in your bio, and wondered why and how much of an indigenous lens was brought at that time.

So I think because I don't come from an artistic family, there's no artist in my family.

It's not true because now my sister is also an artist.

But growing up, both of us did not have models as artists.

I just did not know you could do that as a job, as a career until much later in life.

And I think I've always wanted to be an artist.

I always wanted to create.

I had a very rampant imagination.

I always wanted to dress up and create magic around me.

So I decided to go into sociology to understand the structures of the world around me, to understand how things are shaped and how we can navigate as individuals within all these structures.

And sociology is so fascinating.