Whisper’s Painting – MMIWGTS – I choose to create an art piece that embodied a feeling of peacefulness and hope for the victims and survivors. All we can do is remain hopeful, that one day they are found and have their cases solved while also having justice. I didn’t want to create a piece that had elements of the perpetrators, (red hand over the mouth etc) not that there’s anything wrong with those art works. For mine, I really wanted to focus on the victims, because they are sometimes overshadowed when talking about MMIWG. I added in flowers and leaves to symbolize the connection to nature. As some of you know, nature and wild life play a big role in Indigenous culture. We respect nature and wish to protect its beauty. For myself, whenever I thought about the outdoors, I’d feel serene, so I wanted to add that element to my piece to really get the message through.
Ikwe’s Podcast – Healing Turtle Island’s Peoples – For my project, I have decided to do create a podcast on issues affecting Indigenous peoples and communities, but this episode focusing on residential school survivors and residential schools. Essentially, I have chosen this topic because residential schools are a subject that significantly impacted my family but learning about them thoroughly emotionally moved me and I wanted to create awareness regarding residential schools and survivors. My podcast is called “Healing Turtle Island’s Peoples” and this particular episode is called “Residential School and the Children”.
Valentina’s SIMS Residential School Build (above)
Clarelle’s Painting – MMIWG & Sex Trafficking – I used a black canvas, red paint and printed out text messages that I retyped from real online predators. The text messages are the online method of sex trafficking and the red handprint represents Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
Ryleigh’s Painting – No child or family should worry about how they’ll afford food, but this is exactly what many families face on a daily basis across Nunavut. Nearly 70% of homes face food insecurity and are left with little to no nutritional affordable foods in grocery stores. I was inspired after watching Angry Inuk to do my final project on food insecurity and their traditional practice of hunting.
Eliza’s Video – In the video, I included the life before, during and after residential school, a map of residential schools over time, events that had happened from the opening of the first residential school till now and how residential impacted First Nations. I hope more people who don’t know about this part of history will be informed of it and get interested and hopefully would like to do something to help with the issues that the indigenous community are facing.
Sophie’s Video – Food Sovereignty – I decided to research the topic of food sovereignty in Indigenous Peoples communities after watching the documentary Gather on film day. Prior to watching this film I did not realize how much of an impact food can have on one’s health and culture. Then I became more curious about food sovereignty. What exactly is food sovereignty? This is something I wanted to discover through my research in my Individual Inquiry Project.
William’s Short Story
My name is Eagle Flies and our people have been devastated, I do not remember much of my childhood…only my parents and the open fields where we played and lived. We once went across the land hunting for food and shared the land with our kin, but then THEY came, in THEIR big dark steel ships. THEY’VE now been here longer than my generation and the three before, and slowly over the years the land changed, THEY were of far higher numbers and had built things that my ancestors would never had thought possible. But although THEY possessed things unimaginable to my people, THEY knew little about caring for our fragile world. Instead, THEY built permanent settlements around our planet which disrupted the migration of animals and would ceaselessly consume all around THEM only to grow THEIR settlements and numbers more, and even more would come down through the ships. When THEY first came, on accident as many found out THEY appeared friendly and despite THEIR different clothes, language, and customs. We traded with THEM where THEY gave us some of THEIR weapons and goods while we gave simple yet effective remedies for diseases THEY suffered. But as THEY grew in number and THEIR hold on our world became firmer, THEY began to turn, and the weapons and goods THEY brought began to take a tole. Soon we began fighting among ourselves far more than we did before as the THEY would also fight among themselves and use us in THEIR fights. The drink THEY brought somehow showed the ugly side of everyone who drank it and the disease and famine came. My grandmother told me untold numbers died as some tribes simply vanished and every one of our people felt the death and violence around us. Then came the assimilation.
Gr. 9 Truth & Reconciliation 