Chief Henry Speck’s watercolour Father Forgive Them (1958). | Photo courtesy of Belkin Art Gallery

The current exhibition at the University of British Columbia’s Belkin Art Gallery, Witnesses: Art and Canada’s Indian Residential Schools, shares with the public a collection of visual art that expresses stories of abuse and suffering while also pointing to the future and the potential for healing and reconciliation.

Witnesses presents perspectives from those who have directly experienced Indian Residential Schools, as well as those who are witnesses to the traumatic legacy.

“The history of residential schools in Canada is one that is still being lived by many survivors and their children,” says Tarah Hogue, co-curator of Witnesses.

The idea for this exhibition arose out of the intent to increase the public’s awareness of the history and legacy of Indian Residential Schools in Canada.

“Engaging with the issues and becoming educated about the history are important steps toward healing from the residential school experience,” says Hogue.

Witnesses reveals these histories through the work of 22 artists from British Columbia and throughout Canada whose disciplines range from installation to photography to painting.

Responding to traumatic histories

The works in Witnesses include images that centre on religious symbolism, the human body, language, and, more specifically, confinement to the infirmary bed and the classroom desk. In participating in this exhibit, the viewer is witness to disturbing and complicated details that are part of Canada’s history.

“The exhibition is powerful and many visitors respond emotionally to what they are seeing, hearing, and experiencing,” according to Naomi Sawada, Public Programmer at Belkin Art Gallery.

The exhibit at the Belkin Gallery explores unreconciled histories that are a crucial part of Canada’s history; visitors’ comments, made at a kiosk at the gallery, illustrate the strong impressions that are left on the viewer. The words sad, powerful, and horrifying are included by several of the commentators.

“The gallery visitor will hopefully have a variety of experiences when viewing the exhibition and be brought through both darkness and trauma as well as hope and healing,” says Hogue.

However, according to Hogue, this process does not happen in isolation, but rather through the interaction between the artworks and the gallery’s public programming.

The exhibition runs at the University from Sept. 6–Dec. 1, 2013, with an accompanying symposium taking place on Nov. 15, 2013.

Addressing questions of artistic practice and beyond

The symposium, titled Traumatic Histories, Artistic Practice and Working from the Margins, seeks to address some difficult and critical issues, which include the relationship between artistic practice and the process of healing; challenges faced by the curatorial team in organizing works that focus on trauma; and current practices in art and art history with relation to Indigenous/Aboriginal Art.

“[The symposium will] speak as well to the larger issue of how we, as indigenous and non-indigenous people, as Canadians, memorialize, commemorate or, more simply, remember the residential school system. How will this history be taught to and remembered by future generations?” says Hogue.

In relation to the Government of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the symposium will also examine the concept of ‘reconciliation’ and its connection to artistic exhibitions such as Witnesses.

The symposium is organized by Shelly Rosenblum, the Curator of Academic Programs at Belkin Art Gallery, and will be held at the University of British Columbia.

Witnesses “has generated awareness and meaningful discussion,” says Sawada. “Though the exhibition closes on Dec. 1, 2013, the works of art created by the 22 artists […] will continue to ‘live’ as a force in social and political change.”

Witnesses: Art and Canada’s Indian Residential Schools

Until Dec. 1, 2013

Traumatic Histories, Artistic Practice and Working from the Margins

Friday, Nov. 15, 9 a.m.–5 p.m.

For more information, please visit http://www.belkin.ubc.ca/current/