'Mi'kmaq Six Worlds' - Acrylic on Canvas - Jorandi Kisiku Joseph Randolph Bowers

An evocative legacy work rooted in the ancient Mi’kmaq cosmology of the Six Sacred Worlds—depicting ancestral journey, cultural endurance, and spiritual memory through symbolic form and layered storytelling. This piece has a strong scholarly and narrative significance.

Collection: Signature Collection
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas
Size: 100 x 80 x 2 cm, approx. 19.3 × 31.5 × 0.8 in.
Year: 2007
Provenance: Featured in a major international exhibition and informed by the artist's postdoctoral studies.

Story & Narrative Significance

Deep within Mi’kmaw tradition lies the teaching of the Six Sacred Worlds—a cosmological structure that pre-dates European contact and continues to shape the cultural and spiritual life of the People of the Dawn. This painting emerged from the artist’s time living among Mi’kmaq communities in Mi’kma’ki, during postdoctoral studies and extended visits with Elder and ethnographer Ruth Holmes Whitehead. The artwork itself serves as both documentation and invocation—a visual map of the Six Worlds traversed in traditional teaching. Not pictured, yet deeply present, is the Spirit World—understood to permeate and intersect all others. The figures, inspired by ancient Mi’kmaq stone petroglyphs, appear throughout the artist’s broader Legacy Series, telling the wider story of sacred journey, resilience, and renewal.