What is an Incongruencies? That is a question I asked myself on Day 1 of this Latest Humanities Project. By definition an Incongruence or Incongruencies is “the state or condition of not being in agreement, accordance, or harmony, or the degree to which things are in this state”. Basically two parties disagreeing with each other.  

With that little tid-bit out of the way the project we just completed in Humanities, which by the way is the last Humanities project of the year, was called Lies and Incongruencies. In this project we learned about Indigenous Issues and what steps can we take towards Truth and Reconciliation. The Driving Question for this project was: “How can art and text reflect both the history and our current place in time?” The final product for this project was a collage. Now onto the project. 

The learning in this project consisted of reading the book “The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline” we were also tasked with learning about one historical issue, one contemporary issue, and one civil dispute, all involving indigenous communities.

For Keystone 1 we read the “The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline” we kept up a reading journal for every Friday, and Tuesday we had to put a quote, drawing or something, then write a reflection on it. 

I would say my best reflection in this journal was this slide:

As earlier that day we did an activity that educated us on how the Canadian government systematically assimilated indigenous people. We learned how Adolf Hitler based his concentration camps off of Canadian Residential Schools. So learning about that and then reading something similar was interesting. Especially because this book is based off of Canada’s history. The ending of Keystone 1 included a reflection on the driving question for the book which was: “How does the Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline reflect Canada presently and historically?” To answer that question we were tasked with writing a multi-paragraph reflection answering that question. Here is mine:

Marrow Thieves

I am quite proud of my reflection and feel I made insightful connections to Canada’s history. The reason I succeed in this part of the project is because I came to class prepared to write with a good idea on what I wanted to say. After three years of PLP I have finally learned the skill of coming to class prepared. Utilizing this new found skill (not really newfound) I can be prepared for future projects. (Hence why I’m doing this blog a day before the due date) 

Moving onto Keystone 2, Keystone 2 was a multi part keystone consisting of three parts, about 3 Indigenous issues one past, one present, and one current civil dispute. For each one you needed to find a piece of Indigenous Art to link to your topic. 

For part one we found a historical issue about indigenous peoples. I chose Bill-31 and amendment to the Indian Act, which aimed to address sex based inequalities in the original Indian Act, passed in 1985 while Bill C-31 did fix some issues, Indigenous women still face underrepresentation, mistreatment, and violence. You can view my full thing below ⬇️ 

Bill C-31 

I did have to revise this Keystone several times as I initially struggled with writing this as I couldn’t link the Bill to my art originally. But after receiving some feedback I was able to form a deep connection between the BIll and the Art. 

For part 2 I decided to learn more about Indigenous Addiction Issues I found a piece of art made by Christi Belcourt, called: Bloodletting: Does This Make You More Comfortable With Who I Am? You view this below ⬇️ 

 

 

I believe that the title is sarcastic, calling out those who only see indigenous peoples as addicts. She’s trying to challenge their world view and make them think about how they view Indigenous peoples. For more information click the link 

 

Indigenous Addiction Issues 

 

After already doing a similar assignment my second one was much better my information, and connection to art was much better the only thing that was required was a quick edit for grammar, spelling etc. I am proud of the work I did on this one as it shows that I can learn from past mistakes, and Improve for the future. 

For part three I chose the Mi’kmaq Lobster Dispute, which an ongoing civil issues between Indigenous Fishermen in Nova Scotia and non-indigenous peoples. The dispute is about Mi’kmaq fishermen exercising their treaty rights from the days of colonization, these rights include being able to “earn a moderate livelihood” to do this Mi’kmaq fishermen have been fishing outside the commercial fishing season causing uproar from non-indigenous fishermen. 

Mi’kmaq Lobster Dispute

I found this one to do even easier as this was the third rendition of this style of writing. This one was by far my favourite to learn about as the irony of non-indigenous fishers worried about over fishing when Indigenous peoples lived off the land sustainably for centuries. 

Keystone 3 was also in 2 parts, part one was make a reflection on Truth and Reconciliation and part two was making a plan for our collage, basically saying what kind of collage we were doing, digital or physical, and how would we show our learning, also the topic of the collage. 

 

For my Truth and Reconciliation reflection I talked about how this project was super eye opening, for someone who doesn’t know a lot about Indigenous Issues, I expanded my knowledge of these issues. Probably not enough the educate others on Indigenous Issues (nor am I really qualified) but I have learned a lot. 

Moving onto the collage I was making mine on the Mi’kmaq Lobster Dispute as that was the one I most enjoyed learning about. For my collage and initial idea was to make digital collage, that looked like a lobster. After 4+ hours of trying to design it and make it look nice I gave up. Instead I went with a standard collage with nice Mi’kmaq art, photos from the Mi’kmaq protests. The entire collage was a link to all the learning I showed above.  

Collage

My collage is quite nice you can click anywhere on it to see my learning. I think my favourite part of the collage is the protester holding her sign at a tilted angle on the left. That was actually a happy accident from when I tried to crop the background on the original photo, it looked nice though, so I ran with it. It sucks that I couldn’t find a way for the Lobster Idea, but as the PLP teachers say “flexibility is a tortoise trait”. 

Onto the driving question which in case you forgot was: How can art and text reflect both the history and our current place in time?” Art can reflect our history because you can base your art off of historical events, or in this case, stereotypes about a group of people, like Christi Belcourt’s. It can also be shown in text the primary example for this project being The Marrow Thieves, as already shown, it reflects Canada’s history of colonization and assimilation of Indigenous Peoples. In terms of present day stuff, art can be used to represent how people feel in today’s world. Overall I would say art and text reflect the past and present by showing our History and current time though documentation, and symbolization. The power of art in particular is the ability to capture the time period in way that stays relevant throughout the ages. 

Thanks for reading my last Humanities post of the year!

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