A Long Journey Home: Life After Residential School, to Sep 5

City:

Penticton BC

Country:

Canada

Penticton Museum’s newest exhibit “A Long Journey Home: Life After Residential School" represents the personal stories of First Nation survivors of the Residential School system in Canada. A Long Journey Home goes beyond focusing on the stories of the young children who were taken away from their families to attend schools far from their traditional communities. Instead, it centres on the experience of survivors in their adult years, a time of personal struggle to endure and reconcile the memories of their time at school.

A Long Journey Home traces the literal and the metaphoric journey the residential school student had to make to return back ‘home’, both as a child and as an adult many years after. In a literal sense, the journey home for the child was about returning back to the comfort and safety of family, home and culture. For the adult survivor, as visitors will hear from their personal video narratives, ‘home’ represents a symbolic place where the quest to find peace, reconciliation and redemption could be found. While home was supposed to be a place of healing, for many survivors it turned into a place of struggle, where dealing with everyday life was influenced by the legacy of abuse from residential schools. For many though, life after residential school was tempered by the soothing traditions of culture, language and the natural world.

For Caroline Pierre, a Syilx survivor featured in one of six personal video narratives, the experience is a call: “To the next generations and the generations after that…..don’t ever forget who you are and don’t be ashamed of who you are”.

A Long Journey Home is represented in 3 parts: Visitors will first encounter a comprehensive history of residential schools in Canada by the Legacy of Hope Foundation’s installation "100 Years of Loss". The second section involves a video series of six residential school survivors from the Syilx community of the Okanagan, all of whom share deeply personal stories of life after returning home. The recording and presentation of these stories were done by artist members of the Ullus Collective, who provide a cross-generational voice for survivors to share with the general public. The final section comprises illustrations and paintings from young students who attended the Alberni Residential School on Vancouver Island and the Inkameep Day School in Oliver. The arts pieces act as a lens into the culture and identity of the children who attended these schools. They reflect the inner voice of the student, a voice that would re-appear years later when as adults, the paintings would act as points of memory and as catalysts to renew their quest to heal and reconnect. The paintings were provided by the University of Victoria’s Legacy Gallery and the Osoyoos Museum on behalf of the Osoyoos Indian Band.

For Dr. Andrea Walsh, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Uvic, and who assisted in the curating of the exhibit, “All the paintings contain hope. The hope of the child, who in laying her paint-filled brush down on paper, felt confident that her ideas and feelings would be accepted, and the hope of the Survivor who has shared his/her childhood in the name of healing and reconciliation.”

The Penticton Museum would like to acknowledge the valuable assistance provided by Dorothy Ward, Caroline Pierre, Hilda Belanger, Audrey Baptiste, Joey Pierre, Richard Armstrong, Inez Pierre, Dr. Andrea Walsh, Lauren Terbasket, Peggy Joe, Rhonda Terbasket, Traci Bonneau, Victoria Baptiste, Mariel Belanger, Warren Hooley, Levi George, Keegan Baptiste, Evelyn Alec, Herman Edwards, The Legacy of Hope Foundation, The Legacy Gallery of Victoria, University of Victoria, Osoyoos & District Museum, Penticton Indian Band, Ooknakane Friendship Centre, Osoyoos Indian Band, En’owkin Centre, City of Penticton, BC Arts Council and Penticton Museum Exhibit Staff.

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The Penticton Museum & Archives is open from Tuesday to Saturday from 10 – 5pm. It is located at 785 Main Street, Penticton, BC. For more information, please visit www.pentictonmuseum.com. Please do not hesitate to contact the Penticton Museum at (250) 490-2454 or email : peter.ord@penticton.ca

Peter Ord, Manager/Curator – Penticton Museum & Archives

Now exhibiting in the Atkinson Gallery: The War of 1812 in the West – The Oregon Country Legacy

Find out more at www.pentictonmuseum.com