Driving Question

”How can art and text reflect both the history and our current place in time?”

Art is many things. Something you can touch, something you can see, something you can hear. But can it be more than that? Can it inspire? Can it inform? Can it protest?

In this project, we learned that it can. 

For our last assignment in Humanities, we were tasked with creating “protest collage art,” but not for just any topic (though I would seriously love to protest pineapple on pizza jkjk… unless…). In this project, we took a look at Canadian history… wow, who could’ve guessed. Canadian history in a Canadian history class… and learned about how issues in the past affect today. In particular, how the residential schools and treaties affect Canadian and Indigenous lives today. We would reflect this learning in a collage (or an art piece) that protests modern day issues. 

As someone who’s been drawing as long as she could hold a pencil, this meant that my time has come. It was finally time to flex those art skills that I totally haven’t spent like 13 years developing. Art kid time.

(Just to let you know. I’m going to try to make this blog post shorter than usual, because I have like a ton of them due this and next week. My brain is also complete mush right now… It’s the end of year crunch, what did I expect? So, for once in my life, I’m going to try to not be as extra™ … Keyword, “try”… Anyways, on to the show!) 

First off, we also learned that art can be in words. It can be memories and feelings. It’s pouring your emotions on a page and… embracing the inner cringe of ourselves.  To launch this project, we created an “I am From” poem to reflect our relationship with the land and our country… (which would come into context real soon.) 

I started off this poem strong, but then I made the terrible mistake of writing some of it before bed one night… and that’s when the random “poetic-ness” comes in at the end. Don’t get me wrong, I love poetry. Just not… my poetry. Its different… very different… The truth is, I really enjoyed writing this poem. It was fun to look back on my childhood and try to get the words to rhyme (even though it wasn’t required, I’m just a try hard.) I also used the skills that I learned in Grade 9… (it was grade 9, right?) to write this poem, since we did a cool poetry project that year which you can read about here. 

Next up, we read a cool book.

This book…

(Click to Read my Reflections!)

“The Marrow Thieves” by Cherie Dimaline is a young adult dystopian novel where most of the world has forgotten how to dream. This leaves the ones who still can, Indigneous peoples, to run for their lives, because they’re hunted for their marrow (where the dreams can be found.) The book is told in the perspective of a young boy named Frenchie as he learns to survive in this new and dangerous world.

Overall, I really liked this book. Though the beginning was pretty slow to build up, the second half of the novel was very interesting to read. I don’t want to spoil too much, because I think you should go read the book. But I think it was very informative, even though it’s a fictional story. It shares bits of real Canadian history in it and their impact on Indigenous communities today (very fitting for this project.) Reading about these events from an Indigneous perspective is different compared to learning about them in a classroom, and I think it was very helpful to understanding the modern impact of these historical events.  However, my complaint is that the romantic interest was kinda bland, and their relationship with the main character wasn’t developed enough (eww teen romance.) 

Anyways… (moving on from complaining about a fictional character’s love life)… while we read this book in class, we recorded our thoughts in weekly entries (you can read about these through the picture above.) We were tasked to create a small contribution and write a short reflection for the group discussions we had. I found that I really enjoyed creating my contributions, and that they represent my understanding even further.  

Here’s my favourite contributions:

(A fancy moose and some angsty fan art…)

I found that by visually processing the chapters (and spending more time reflecting on them), I learned to appreciate the story. At first, I wasn’t too invested in the characters, but as I drew their stories, I understood them better. I don’t know if this is coming across or if I’m just rambling, so I’m going to move on! 

It was time to blast to the past… and the present! (which doesn’t make much sense, but I’m tired, so please just ignore it.) The main theme of this project is understanding the past and how it affects us today. So, we started by looking back at some historical and current Canadian events. 

(Click to Read!)

The historical event I researched was the “White Paper.” The white paper was a government document that attempted to address and redefine Indigenous treaties. However, it was met with a lot of backlash, because it didn’t include Indigenous input, even though the whole thing was about them????????? We also had to find some protest art that showcased this event, so I found this one (which would inspire my final product later on.) 

(Click to Read!)

My current event was the Mi’kmaq lobster dispute. Before I researched this, I didn’t know much about the dispute. Of course, I’d heard about it on TV (when my dad occasionally turns on the news and leaves it on for 3 hours on loop), but I didn’t really know what was going on. I found it really interesting to look into this issue, and I hope you read about it too! (Click on the image above.) 

(Click to Read!)

This was my last one, but it wasn’t about an event. We were also tasked to research one contemporary issue (like cultural appropriation, lateral violence, etc), and I chose to do stereotypes (mostly because I found this cool performative protest piece.) 

We then looked again at our relationship with our country through our “I am From” poems…

(Click to Read!)

Then, we were ready to make our final collages!

I knew from the start that I really wanted to draw something for the lobster dispute (mostly because I just tried my first lobster and I really wanted to draw one.) Also, I found the situation interesting and I wanted to bring awareness to it through my art. 

Originally, I was going to create a collage that incorporated all the topics I researched. However, after spending a lot of time drawing and painting the one lobster, I realized that I wouldn’t be able to create a whole collage to the same level of quality. So, I decided to just create the one art piece, and put a lot of effort into make it look nice. 

Here’s a rough draft:

I diverted a lot while making this protest artwork. I really wanted to include the hand, but when I tried to draw it holding the lobster, it looked really weird… so I had to drop it. But then, I was left with just a lobster! A gorgeous, beautiful lobster who I named Tom, but still, just a lobster. It didn’t really represent the event at all.

I did come up with an alternative idea, which included a lobster inspired by Indigenous artists. However, it didn’t feel right painting in a style I didn’t know much about, so I dropped that idea too.

Finally, I came up with this final artwork…

I included two lobsters, swimming in a circle around the Mi’kmaq star. Although, I still think I could’ve made my art more about the protest, I really like my lobster (the colours make me happy… is it strange that I really want to eat a painting?) I went through a lot of trial and error in this project, but I’m glad I made it out with a final product I liked!

Let’s return back to the driving question… ”How can art and text reflect both the history and our current place in time?”

Art means everything to me. It’s a way for me to tell stories and share worlds with just the brush of a pencil! I don’t even have to say any words, a picture could tell them for me. With art, anything is possible! You can create literally anything out of your brain. It’s incredible! (Or maybe that’s just me, I’m an artsy nerd lol…)

Anyways, through this project, I used art to reflect history/events and bring awareness to them. I was able to show a contemporary issue, just with a drawing! I find it amazing how anyone can just, draw something, and it can do so much. 

That’s the end of this blog post, I hope you enjoyed reading! (Seriously, because there’s like 3 more coming.) Stay tuned for more posts!