Tambour (Drum) is a part of the series Land Songs/Water Songs (Chants de terre/chants d’eau) and exhibited at the Surrey Art Gallery in 2018 under the same title. Created in collaboration with Peter Morin and Ziya Tabassain, this exhibition established an equitable and respectful space for cross-ancestral collaboration through the creation of a series of drum and music performances.

Composed of Marie Côté (French-Canadian), Peter Morin (Tahltan/French), and Ziya Tabassain (Iranian), the collective’s creation of these ceremonial objects was designed to build a deeper and more respectful artistic collaboration, while building pathways of respect for the land. Each drum is made of clay and deer hide with sinew. Marie Côté made the porcelain drum hoops on a throwing wheel, Peter Morin stretched the hide on the frame in the Traditional Ways of the Tahltan First Nation, and both Peter Morin and Ziya Tabassain played new music on the drums.

The frame of this particular drum was carved using small pieces of stone and glazed with a green-watery colour. Before installing and displaying the drums at the Surrey Art Gallery, all of the fifteen drums, including this one, were awakened in a Traditional Tahltan ceremonial. By centering Indigenous Methodologies from the beginning, the collective opened up a new space in which their respective ancestries could be invited and celebrated.

Scholars believe that percussion sounds are inherently part of the beginning of human development and drums date back to the mid-Neolithic period. Marie Côté and her collective’s new drums, created through a meeting of artistic practices and cultures, helped them to sustain a sort of “heart” beat that is much needed in a world whose cadence is accelerating its own dissolution.