How can art and text reflect both the history and our current place in time? That was the driving question for my last humanities project of grade 10. We combined the idea that art is not just something to look at because it’s something you can engage with to learn about and the historical/present day relationship with the Canadian government and Indigenous Peoples.
To start we each created an I am from poem to start thinking about our relationship with the world around us. Here is mine:
I Am From Poem
I am from beautiful places
I am from clear blue skies And cloudy rainy days
From both the flat prairies and the tall mountains
The smells of farmland and pine tress
The peaceful quiet acreage
The busy city roads
I am from a jumbled crazy and large family
Siblings always shouting, throwing, showing our insanity
A brother whose teasing humour I know well
A sister who is off on her own adventures farewell
Another who is with me everyday
Parents who’s safety I can never repay
I am from the back and forth sways of a boat on the waves
The speed, Chaos, adventure I crave
The peaceful rest with barbecue smells
Diving into the deep collecting shells
Rapidly Skimming across the water
Crashing down into the sea now swimming like an otter
I am from big family Christmases
fondues with cheesy sauce and chocolate
None of us knowing when to stop eating
I am from the laziness that follows
groans, huffs, puffs, slow movements
Excitement, music, we can open only one
Shapes of our gifts not matching reality
5 mattresses stuffed into one room
Dog jumping, sister singing, pillows flying
No chance of sleep
I am from Little cousins running all around
Screaming, kicking, acting like clowns
Baby laughing, toddlers singing
I am from overwhelming joy
I am from many amazing friends
All around the picnic tables Laughing,
From volleyball circles
To whales named Gary
I am from Joyful, fun, kindhearted friends
I am from beautiful places
I am from A jumbled crazy and large family
I am from the back and forth sways of a boat on the waves
I am from big family Christmases
I am from Little cousins running all around
I am from many amazing friends
I am from chaos, peace, laughter, and love
I am…
I really liked mine.. Thinking about what makes me Faith Scheewe made me think about where I lived, what I do, and who is in my life. I found that it was fun to write and a good start to this project. We used a website to collaborate on what we already know about Indigenous people and issues that are relevant to them for this project and what we still need to know. While doing this I realized how much general information I had but not very many specific information.
This brings us to when we started reading our class novel Marrow Thieves, by Cherie Dimaline. While it was set in the future, it reflected on issues shown presently and in the past. For example it referred to residential schools as part of the past and also as something happening again in the book. While reading the book, I would analyze what I was reading and make connections to issues being brought up today. For example we listened to a podcast on the Indian Act and read articles on topics like cultural appropriation and indigenous resurgence. Every couple of chapters we did a reflection. We called this a contribution as we needed to bring those thoughts to class. Sharing those contributions helped to see other peoples points of view. I did a poem, an image, list of questions and drawings. In the end, after we finished the book, we did a quick write reflection for 15 minutes about the connections we saw from the book to the past and to right now.
The next keystone introduced us to analyzing images and we had to make decisions about what we thought the artists were trying to communicate about Indigenous perspectives. Our teacher would introduce some issues and we would take notes. I am proud of the notes I made from class and from my own research. These prepared me for when it came to writing. The artwork was created by Indigenous Artists. It was a way to express their opinions on important issues like MMIWG and intergenerational trauma. I actually found it hard to keep my responses to 250 words as I had lots of notes. The different styles were really interesting to me such as the beading over top of the Indian Act. Here is a link to the three art pieces I talked about.
After doing so much research, analyzing art, and learning about different perspectives, we went back to our own point of view and thought about if they had shifted from the beginning to now. Our keystone was a short reflection on Truth and Reconciliation. I think I realized that Indigenous issues are current and not just in the past. It is important to understand how much needs to be done.
Finally we got to the final product which was a photo or art collage about one or all of the issues we wrote about for keystone two. There was a lot of flexibility in that’s this could look like I chose to do it digitally on SuperimposeX. I really liked the art I found for my MMIWG reflection so I wanted to include that, and I also wanted to have images from the past and present. It took a while to get a starting idea but with a focus on MMIWG I created a collage I’m proud of. I used historical images and art about residential school that I made black and white to show how Indigenous Peoples were treated in the past. I made the images about the present more colourful and used red to highlight the issues I was focusing on, MMIWG. The red handprint was one part I really love. The app allowed me to place the palm of the hand behind the images while I could put the fingers on top of other images. This feels to me like people reaching out. I also like the feathers from the dream catcher. The dreamcatchers are symbolic for Indigenous people and the feathers fly over the residential school images as well as the artwork and protests to show dreams leached away. From the Marrow Thieves, I chose a quotation about schools leached away dreams. It was not just us looking at art and saying what it is about. We needed to try to understand what the artists were trying to say and then we needed to take our knowledge and made our own art. Art is engaging and helps people represent important topics and express their opinion.