Last term, MacEwan’s Indigenous Students Club (MISC) held a student competition for their new logo. The competition was open from October to the end of November.  The winner, Sierra Shirt, is in her first year of Design at MacEwan. She answered a few of our questions through an email to the Griff. 

When she first heard about the competition on Facebook, Shirt says, “I thought that it would be fun to enter and see how my skills align with my love for Indigenous art and the program that I decided to dedicate years to completing.” 

So, she got to work on Adobe Illustrator and when she found out she had won the competition (and a prize of an iPad), she says, “I felt like I chose the right path for my future.” 

Shirt is from Saddle Lake Cree Nation. She says, “I have always been passionate about Indigenous art.  For me, it makes me proud of my culture and lineage. I strive to incorporate the abstract aspect that is seen and recognized in Indigenous art into the pieces that I make. Hopefully this logo gives that feeling to people that view it in and out of MacEwan.” 

MISC’s vice president of social media, ᑎᐱᐢᑳᐤ ᐚᐱᑿᓂᐩ (Tipiskâw Wâpakwani (dip-sk-ow, wa-pug-wa-nee)), translating to Night Flower, is also from Saddle Lake Cree Nation. Her second name is Tyra Delver. They say, “So we wanted to give a lot of our students and kind of community the chance to create something for us.” 

While Delver says she can’t speak for the rest of the MISC team, they can say that, even though they still appreciate the old logo, the competition for a new logo was part of MISC’s desire to, “…build a bright new identity for ourselves and for the other people that are in the club because, you know, Indigenous people are very much, not looked down upon, but they’re very looked over in terms of spaces, especially in institutions like MacEwan, our voices are often brought down to a level where we really don’t have them.” 

MISC received submissions from a couple artists, which Delver said made them feel really happy, especially after a bit of “radio silence” before the submissions and involvement rolled in. She says, “It means a lot because the community that we’re building is really significant to not only our lives, but other people’s lives within the university.” Delver says the submissions were beautiful, “And the way that they spoke about what it meant to them was really meaningful. And that’s what we wanted out of the whole entire thing.” 

A month prior to the logo competition, in September, MISC was gifted the name White Buffalo People in ceremony. Shirt’s circular logo includes an illustration of half of a Buffalo’s face on the right, feathers on the left, and a medicine wheel in the background. Shirt says that she included the medicine wheel symbol as it will be easily identified by MacEwan’s Indigenous community. She says, ”Just as the medicine wheel teaches people how to have healthy balance in their lives, it serves to balance out the logo.” Delver says that in her culture, the Buffalo is a symbol of strength, courage, and one of the strongest grandfather figures. They say, “ And we really saw that in a lot of the people that we have. And I think that through ceremony, the Spirits and Creator was also in agreeance that these are strong young people that want to make a difference.” 

While Shirt says her experience at MacEwan has been positive so far, Delver says that being an Indigenous person at MacEwan, “can be very heavy loaded and I feel like I’m carrying the weight of my people on my shoulders…”. For example, they think that Indigenous aspects don’t come up as often as they should in their design classes, “because our people are so creative and have such a beautiful art.”

“I can find myself getting lost in the classes because I don’t relate to a lot of people,” says Delver. “And that’s why it’s important that the club is a thriving thing for me because I find so much connection to people, especially Indigenous people, and not only Indigenous people, but we have these connections that a lot of people don’t understand and will never understand.” Shirt says, “It’s important for people that have a place to go where they can relate with their peers. They offer a lot of cultural activities and events that provide that feeling of community, which can be a nice break from stresses that come along with being a student.” 

MISC’s mission statement is community, connection, advocacy and ceremony. Looking to the future, Delver says the next team to step into the current MISC team’s shoes can do whatever they’d like with the old and new logo. Delver says she hopes for health, safety, and recognition above all. “We want people to know that we are here and we’re not going anywhere. And we also want people to know that we’re here with open arms.” 

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Illustration by Sierra Shirt.