This artwork engages with cultural diversity through intergenerational knowledge, migration, and spiritual symbolism. At its centre is the Adinkra symbol Sankofa—“go back and get it”—a call to retrieve wisdom from the past to inform the present. The image takes the form of a heron, a recurring representation of Sankofa, symbolizing return, continuity, and renewal.
The collage is composed of lithograph prints drawn from my early years as a printmaker in Alberta (1983–85), layered with a 1974 copper plate etching created by my mother, Lucille Fullerton, during her own studies at the University of Calgary. By combining our works, I weave together two generations of Black women artists whose creative journeys unfolded in Canada, far from ancestral homelands yet deeply connected to cultural roots.
The process honours the ritual of making as a vessel of memory, resilience, and legacy. It also reflects the lived experience of migration, displacement, and diaspora, where artistic practice becomes a spiritual act of grounding and belonging. Through Sankofa, this piece embodies both the act of looking back and the responsibility to carry cultural traditions forward.
In bringing together my mother’s and my own etched images, the work is both a personal archive and a communal story: a testament to how traditions and knowledge survive, transform, and are renewed through art across generations.