May ’14 The Art of Reconciliation Workshop Call for May 12th

Exploring Reconciliation

Reconciliation is both a personal journey and a public process. Anne Burrill is inviting artists to participate in an interactive workshop to explore reconciliation and then create a piece of artwork that is reflective of their experience, thoughts and ideas following the workshop. A second workshop will be held in late June for artists to share their work and the process of creating each piece. Artists will then be invited to contribute their work to a show at the Station House Gallery during the month of September.

The workshops will be co‐facilitated by Sheila Dick and Anne Burrill and are open to equal numbers of First Nations and non‐First Nations artists. We ask that you register in advance so that we can better plan the workshop for participants. Lunch will be provided and health supports will be available on site.

For over 100 years, Aboriginal children were removed from their families and sent to institutions called residential schools. The government‐funded, church‐run schools were located across Canada and established with the purpose to eliminate parental involvement in the spiritual, cultural and intellectual development of Aboriginal children. The last residential schools closed in the mid‐1990s. During this chapter in Canadian history, more than 150,000 First Nations, Métis, and Inuit children were forced to attend these schools some of which were hundreds of miles from their home.

The St. Joseph’s Mission (Cariboo) Residential School operated for nearly a century on the Williams Lake First Nations lands with students drawn primarily from the 15 First Nations in the Cariboo Region. The ‘official dates’ for the school are July 19, 1891 to June 30, 1981.

The multi‐generational impact of residential schools is a legacy of unresolved trauma passed from generation to generation and has had a profound effect on the relationship between Aboriginal peoples and other Canadians. Collective efforts from all peoples are necessary to revitalize the relationship between Aboriginal peoples and Canadian society – reconciliation is the goal. It is a goal that will take the commitment of multiple generations but when it is achieved, when we have reconciliation ‐ it will make for a better, stronger Canada.

In the spring of 2013, the community of Williams Lake hosted a historic series of events to commemorate the history of St. Joseph’s Mission as a tragic part of our past, and to encourage our communities to work together toward reconciliation. Multiple events were organized by First Nations and local government, as well as the School District. We installed monuments at the school site, and in Boitanio Park. We witnessed the stories of residential school survivors and their families. We talked about reconciliation. We hold Orange Shirt Day in September to honour the children who survived the Indian Residential Schools and to remember those that didn’t. Also, to keep the focus on the importance of creating a new future for the children of our communities and to ensure that this history is never repeated. Despite recent conflict and differences over mining development, we are determined to heal these differences and move forward in a positive way for the future of all our communities.

This event is sponsored by the Orange Shirt Day Committee with the support of the City of Williams Lake, Cariboo Regional District, School District 27 and the Central Cariboo Arts and Culture Society