Kasey Atcheynum | Sweetgrass First Nation

Name

akâmaskîhkmâtatâmowkisêck
Singing Across the Universe

Tribal Nation

Sweetgrass First Nation

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Kasey Atcheynum grew up on the homelands of her Cree people, the Sweetgrass First Nation. During that time, she was influenced by her grandparents, mother, and aunt. Within her family circle she learned how to prepare sacred foods for ceremony along with the related language and protocols. Family and homeland have been defining for Kasey and to them she returns to visit, to listen, to learn, and to sit in ceremony.

Kasey’s education and work have brought her to many places in Canada, places where she acknowledges being a guest in someone else’s homeland. She has equal years working in the world of business and in the arts industry. Her career in business offered a stable living to herself and her daughter, but she could not deny that her heart belonged to the arts. Brilliantly, Kasey has woven these arts and business worlds together to offer a unique skill set in service of others. She hopes to one day begin her journey to completing her Film + Screen Arts Degree through Emily Carr.

As a Two-Spirit Cree woman, Kasey understands the need for spaces for Indigenous Two-Spirit youth. She has been active in building community to leverage support for programming that provides safe creative spaces for Queer Indigenous, Black, & People of Color (IBPOC) youth. Through her volunteering she has built collaborative networks and is in partnership to develop literary arts programming for IBPOC youth. She is hoping to integrate her Cree language into digital stories and other artist endeavors, braiding her art, skill, and culture together as a healing and empowering tool for communities.

As a Fellow of Spirit Aligned Leadership Sisterhood and a Project Coordinator with the International Buffalo Relations Institute, Kasey looks forward to weaving women’s teachings, language, and cultural renewal, with buffalo consciousness, and buffalo rematriation. She looks forward to seeing how this creative weaving of important and necessary work will help our communities going forward.

Kasey dreams of writing and telling her stories in Cree. She believes others share that dream. Native languages are potent beyond explanation. When Kasey and her daughter heard their language spoken in a movie theatre in a mainstream film, each word spoken traveled to their hearts and there was nothing to do but cry. Kasey is willing to step into spaces where that Native language and knowledge has rarely occupied. She says, “We have been creating since time immemorial.” She is ready to share her creations with the world.