Rooted in Place: The W̱SÁNEĆ Wellness Tree

Figure 1. Rooted in Place: The W̱SÁNEĆ Wellness Tree. Original artwork exploring Indigenous wellness, relationality, land-based pedagogy, resurgence, and W̱SÁNEĆ relationships to place. Created by Ayesha Anderson (2026).

This original artwork was created as part of my exploration of place, Indigenous resurgence, relational accountability, and land-based wellness within W̱SÁNEĆ territory. Inspired by Indigenous teachings, land-based knowledge systems, and artists such as Tania Willard, the W̱SÁNEĆ Wellness Tree represents the interconnected relationships between land, spirit, governance, ancestry, healing, resistance, and community.

Drawing from Indigenous epistemologies and place-based frameworks, this piece understands land not as property or backdrop, but as living relation, pedagogy, and source of knowledge. As Simpson (2017) tells us through the concept of “land as pedagogy,” Indigenous knowledge systems emerge through reciprocal relationships with land, spirit, story, and community. The W̱SÁNEĆ Wellness Tree reflects this teaching by positioning place itself as teacher, memory, and relation.

The roots symbolize the foundations that sustain Indigenous wellness: Creator, language, ancestral knowledge, kinship, relational accountability, sovereignty, resurgence, medicine, ceremony, and sacred relationships to land and water. Embedded within the roots are teachings connected to PKOLS, the Salish Sea, W̱SÁNEĆ governance systems, and intergenerational responsibility. These roots represent continuity and survivance despite colonial attempts to sever Indigenous peoples from land, language, spirituality, and identity.

The branches reflect emotional, spiritual, physical, and mental wellbeing, emphasizing that wellness cannot be separated from place, culture, collective memory, or community relationships. Rather than understanding wellness through an individualistic framework, this artwork reflects Indigenous understandings of interconnected balance between people, ancestors, future generations, and the natural world.

This work is also informed by Rickard’s (2017) articulation of Indigenous visual sovereignty. Rickard argues that sovereignty cannot be understood solely through Western legal frameworks, but must also include intellectual, artistic, cultural, and relational forms of self-determination. Through this lens, the W̱SÁNEĆ Wellness Tree becomes an act of visual resurgence - a reclaiming of Indigenous relationships to land, memory, and representation. The tree itself functions as a living expression of survivance and Indigenous presence within contemporary colonial spaces.

The piece further reflects Tuhiwai Smith’s (2021) discussions surrounding Indigenous self-representation and decolonization by centering Indigenous voice, oral teachings, and relational knowledge systems. The inclusion of SENĆOŦEN language, W̱SÁNEĆ place names, and land-based symbolism reflects the importance of language and visual storytelling as living connections to territory, governance, and identity.

The W̱SÁNEĆ Wellness Tree also recognizes that systems of oppression are interconnected. Influenced by collective liberation and intersectional frameworks, the artwork acknowledges how colonialism, racism, patriarchy, capitalism, and heteropatriarchy continue to shape Indigenous experiences of wellness and belonging (Combahee River Collective, 1983). The work, therefore, imagines healing not as individual recovery alone, but as collective resurgence rooted in land, relationality, and community care.

Rather than understanding place as simply geographic, the W̱SÁNEĆ Wellness Tree imagines place as living, relational, spiritual, and deeply connected to past, present, and future generations. Colonial systems attempted to sever Indigenous peoples from land, language, and identity - but the roots remain alive. The land remembers. The roots remain. We are still here.

References

Combahee River Collective. (1983). A Black feminist statement. In B. Smith (Ed.), Home girls: A Black feminist anthology (pp. 210–218). Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press.

Rickard, J. (2017). Diversifying sovereignty and the reception of Indigenous art. Art Journal, 76(2), 81–84. https://doi.org/10.1080/00043249.2017.1367194

Simpson, L. B. (2017). Land as pedagogy. In As we have always done: Indigenous freedom through radical resistance (pp. 145–173). University of Minnesota Press.

Smith, L. T. (2021). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples (3rd ed.). Zed Books.