This installation and the accompanying video explore the systemic erasure of Indigenous culture resulting from the residential school system.
This installation and accompanying video explores the systemic erasure of Indigenous culture resulting from the residential school system. Portraying a colonial classroom, the exhibit includes nine rebuilt residential school desks with photographs of children’s families inside. As you move further in the rows, the images disappear, representing the loss of identities, family, culture, and language.
Tom Wilson is a musician, visual artist, and writer of novels and non-fiction. At the age of fifty-three, it was revealed to him that he was adopted, and his parents were Kahnawake Mohawk. Since then Wilson has explored what his white upbringing means against the juxtaposition of his family and culture.