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What if I told you that you are part fish? Not metaphorically, but scientifically.
This is the inspiration for Zoe Todd and Courtney Chetwynd’s “The Art of Entanglement” program: a five-day immersive, somatic journey in October 2026 that fuses spirit, art and science.
The program takes place at Hollyhock, a learning and leadership centre on Cortes Island that draws people working toward a better world.
Fish were the first animals with backbones, and we inherited their basic blueprint. Scientists like Neil Shubin and Yara Haridy have traced the human brain, skull and teeth back through the fossil record to these aquatic ancestors.
Your teeth, for example, began more than 450 million years ago as bumps on the skin of ancient fish.
Truly, when you glimpse one in the water, you’re seeing a relative. Chetwynd explains that upon arriving at Hollyhock, “the first thing we do is go down to the water, introduce ourselves, make an offering.” This forms a relationship with the island.
“It tells me what to do,” she explains. “It creates the sessions.”
Chetwynd is an interdisciplinary artist-researcher rooted in the eastern and western Arctic, where her work focuses on the relationships between people, place and water.
Todd is a Canada Research Chair at Simon Fraser University and a citizen of the Manitoba Métis Federation. She has spent years on the question of what fish can teach us, founding the field of critical Indigenous fish philosophy.
Together, they joyfully reject the colonial notion that spirit, art and science belong in separate rooms.
Todd envisioned a program that would support people to face some of the biggest challenges of our time in a way that she describes as “immersive, joyful... defiant, playful.”
In their 2025 program, “Fish as Storytellers,” 23 participants gathered at Hollyhock, among them artists, scientists, land defenders, teachers, mathematicians and naturopathic doctors.
The facilitators drew on Indigenous relationships with fish in the places they each grew up. Through land-based artmaking, somatic practice and ceremony, they guided participants into the visceral discovery that they are already in a deep relationship with the natural world.
At a time of planetary crisis, Todd and Chetwynd describe this recognition as a revolutionary act. On the final day, the group gave voice to this with a collective sound piece, “We Are the Water's Memory,” weaving together everyone’s messages to the ocean — prayers, hopes, intentions and worries.
It’s little wonder participants described it as life-changing. As one expressed, “My time at Hollyhock has been an invaluable gateway for me to engage with and better understand the causes and consequences of colonialism (in history and the present day), and how to address it.”
Todd and Chetwynd will return to Hollyhock in 2026 with a new program called ‘The Art of Entanglement: Fish, Flow and Knowing’ — an in-person program running Oct. 2-7, 2026, at Hollyhock Learning and Leadership Centre. Hollyhock is located on Cortes Island, the traditional territories of the Klahoose, Tla’amin and Homalco First Nations. ![[Tyee]](/design-article.thetyee.ca/ui/img/yellowblob.png){kind=small}
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