Soaring Eagles: Indigenous Youth Speak Out!
Peter Vietgen – Project Developer and Curator
The Soaring Eagles Indigenous Secondary School Program of the Niagara Catholic District School Board strives to provide an alternative learning environment which focuses on the inclusion of cultural knowledge and teachings in the curriculum to support Aboriginal students and to provide education and awareness to non-Aboriginal students. This exhibition is a collection of artworks created by students from the Soaring Eagles Indigenous Secondary School Program. Challenged to use visual arts as a vehicle to explore the Calls to Action laid out in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report of 2015, these artworks critically reflect what these Calls mean to the students as Aboriginal youth and their peers, in 2017, the 150th year after Confederation.
Pekupatikut Innuat Akunikana / Pictures Woke the People Up
Wendy Ewald – Photographer & Artist
In 1969, the Innu people became the last indigenous group in Canada to gain suffrage. That summer Wendy Ewald – then a high school senior – went to Sheshatshiu, an Innu reserve in central Labrador, to work with young people. In the decades that followed, the change from nomadic life to life in the community took a toll particularly on the Innu youth. In 2007, at the request of people involved with the Innu community, Wendy was invited back. The suggestion was raised that, in a time of wrenching change, pictures might point a way forward and raise questions of importance: Where are we from? What happened? How do we adapt our ways of seeing and learn to see farther? Where do we go from here?
Peter Vietgen – Project Developer and Curator
The Soaring Eagles Indigenous Secondary School Program of the Niagara Catholic District School Board strives to provide an alternative learning environment which focuses on the inclusion of cultural knowledge and teachings in the curriculum to support Aboriginal students and to provide education and awareness to non-Aboriginal students. This exhibition is a collection of artworks created by students from the Soaring Eagles Indigenous Secondary School Program. Challenged to use visual arts as a vehicle to explore the Calls to Action laid out in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report of 2015, these artworks critically reflect what these Calls mean to the students as Aboriginal youth and their peers, in 2017, the 150th year after Confederation.
Pekupatikut Innuat Akunikana / Pictures Woke the People Up
Wendy Ewald – Photographer & Artist
In 1969, the Innu people became the last indigenous group in Canada to gain suffrage. That summer Wendy Ewald – then a high school senior – went to Sheshatshiu, an Innu reserve in central Labrador, to work with young people. In the decades that followed, the change from nomadic life to life in the community took a toll particularly on the Innu youth. In 2007, at the request of people involved with the Innu community, Wendy was invited back. The suggestion was raised that, in a time of wrenching change, pictures might point a way forward and raise questions of importance: Where are we from? What happened? How do we adapt our ways of seeing and learn to see farther? Where do we go from here?