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In November 2018, Ace was selected as the first Indigenous artist for the newly established Art + Law Indigenous Artist in Residence Program. This exciting new residency came about as a partnership between the Arts Council Windsor & Region, the University of Windsor Faculty of Law and School of Creative Arts in support of contemporary Indigenous art and its practices as an integral educational opportunity for both students and community. Being the first of its kind, the Art + Law residency brought together 94 students, faculty, and participants from the Indigenous community and the general public around a collaborative project.
Ace proposed a collaborative work that would coalesce a very complex legal document, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s – Calls to Action (download here), into a single work of art taking the form of an 11.5 metre long contemporary wampum belt. Working in the Armouries Art Gallery in the School of Creative Arts, each participant was asked to confirm their participation by first surrendering their rights to the work by signing a witnessed document and symbolically accepting one dollar in exchange. The surrender was a wry reference to the treaty making process in Canada, and also reflected in the work’s title, For as long as the sun shines, grass grows and water flows.
Read more on the project here.
For as long as the sun shines, the grass grows and the river flows (2018), canvas, wood, velvet, metal, electronic components, glassbeads, cotton, tobacco, vellum, graphite, paper, cotton thread, copper, wire. 1,150 (l) x 178 (h) cm. Collection of the Artist. 
Document signed by participants. 
Workshop setup at the gallery. 
Participants working on the project. 
Pieces of vellum paper where the TRC's Calls to Action were written out and recorded by hand. 
"As long as the sun shines, grass grows and water flows" (detail) 
For as long as the sun shines, the grass grows and the river flows (detail). 
The collaborative project installed alongside Ace's "How can you expect me to reconcile, when I know the truth?" and "Memory Landscape." 
"How can you expect me to reconcile, when I know the truth?" installed. 
Participants Tory James and Alex McKay.