Carl Beam, on his art: “I play a game with humanity and with creativity. I ask viewers to play the participatory game of dreaming ourselves as each other. In this we find out that we’re all basically human” (Witnesses 34)
Walking in to MOA’s current exhibit “Speaking to Memory: Images and Voices from St. Michael’s Residential School,” I was struck by the enormous present-day photographs of the school that covered the museum’s walls. They were huge, life-size, tinted yellow, and grim. Inviting, ushering, confronting. They are the first objects an observer encounters upon entering the gallery, providing a powerful framework in which to view the rest of the exhibit. Words by the Indian Residential School Commission and the Deputy Minister of Indian Affairs overlay these images, and both excerpts speak on policies of aggressive assimilation. Dr. Duncan Campbell Scott, Deputy Minister, is quoted: “Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic.” I then wondered how these gripping images, in conjunction with words of assimilation, worked together to elicit a reaction from witnesses: are we, for a moment, absorbed in these visual spaces as well? What are the implications of such an absorption? How do they change our reception of testimony? I found the prominent use of visual and physical mediums in “Speaking to Memory” to be a powerful method of collapsing barriers between listeners and speakers/witnesses and the witnessed, essential to the successful reception of testimony.
One critique of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) is that it privileges a “talking cure,” and emphasizes a verbal re-telling of traumatic experience as the most effective method of healing (Whitlock 79). A large part of the TRC is the collection and sharing of survivor testimony. While many survivors have found this process to be beneficial, critiques of the TRC highlight how this emphasis on talking and listening can also work to reinforce the divides between those who divulge their experiences of trauma and those who bear witness. In her article, Naomi Angel draws on Paulette Regan’s scholarship regarding the relationship between settler-listener and Indigenous survivor-speaker. Regan asserts that empathetic reactions to survivor testimony can be “colonial in nature” (qtd. in Angel 13). A deconstruction of this problematic relationship can be achieved by “unsettling the settler within” (Regan qtd. in Angel 13). This includes the settler’s recognition of their involvement in causing the trauma. After viewing the “Speaking to Memory” exhibit, I wondered how visual mediums, like the images of St. Michael’s, could serve to unsettle viewers, and thus open them up to receiving testimonies in a more effective way.
They command attention. Unlike small text on a page, these images visually confront observers; as they walk into the gallery, viewers not only see these life-size images, but are taken in to them, and the space of St. Michael’s. In the small enclosure featuring the bread mixer, this visual and spatial transportation is most evident. Here, observers can literally step inside the physical space of testifiers as they read survivors’ stories about this mixer on the wall. There is something disturbing about tangible evidence and in this small space, the mixer’s presence, and all of its connotations, cannot be ignored.
Our class discussion on Tuesday touched on how testimony is received differently in varying contexts. How reading a history of Indian Residential Schools at home in one’s pajamas is a vastly different experience from walking through a gallery exhibit of survivor testimony, in MOA, at UBC. I think the use of visual and physical materials in “Speaking To Memory” effectively unsettled viewers as we were taken out of our familiar, comfortable classrooms and placed in the classrooms of St. Michael’s. As students, we were confronted by a school very different from our own. And it is anything but comfortable. For those of us who come from backgrounds of privilege, such images may have made us uncomfortable with our pasts and even our present – we attend class on unceded Musqueam territory everyday. Even if this unsettling only lasts for a moment, a brief glance through a survivor’s eyes, it is enough to cross that divide between speaker and witness.
While I do not mean to trivialize the trauma experienced by those who attended residential schools, the phrase “To walk a mile in someone else’s shoes” comes to mind. It is often said that to best understand someone else, one must see from their perspective. This attempted understanding is crucial in the production and reception of testimony. Whitlock asserts that in order for testimony to be successfully received, and hopefully acted on, it must generate “the affective response of witnesses who will respond empathetically and intersubjectively” (80). Through visual mediums, observers can glimpse through a survivor’s/artist’s/speaker’s perspective, thus opening the possibility for a productive dialogue. Overall, I found the multi-media format of “Speaking To Memory” particularly effective in presenting new ways of seeing/hearing/witnessing and understanding survivor testimony.
I find your comment “the mixer’s presence, and all of its connotations, cannot be ignored” compelling. I had not thought of the mixer in terms of a mixing of perspectives, positions of power and understanding. The mixer provides its own testimony, and emotional response. Commanding space and attention, along with its task to combine ingredients, the mixer could be seen as a metaphor for the original intent behind the creation of Residential Schools, as you stated in the quote by Dr. Duncan Campbell Scott, Deputy Minister: “Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic.”
Ammilan, thank you for your comment. I also think the mixer, in the context of “Speaking to Memory,” can function as testimony in a number of ways. Paired with the survivor stories on the wall (which speak on dangerous electric shocks and maggots), the mixer is a physical, tangible reminder of the conditions in St. Michael’s. It elevates these written testimonies to higher level of “reality,” as observers can see, even touch, the mixer. In relation to the quotes of assimilation featured at the entrance to the exhibit, the mixer also participates in a representation of this “mixing,” as you mentioned – taking different ingredients, and combining them into one homogenous substance. All individualities erased. I didn’t include this in my original post, but the text overlaying the first large image underscores this theme. Speaking on the students of the residential schools, the Indian Residential School Commission stated, “They are of different tribes, yet they come to school, fit in together. And so combine into one big family” (1934).
Hi Anna,
I agree that the exhibition’s visual materials confront us, the viewer, in a very direct and engaging way. They were certainly effective in the way that they present us with the testimony, especially the images of St. Michael’s. As you stated about the mixer enclosure, it visually and spatially transports us, and I feel like the enlarged photographs do the same thing. Your mention of spatiality, however, made me reflect on the larger implications of the arrangement of the exhibition space in general, and how the placement/organization of these materials might’ve worked to inform each other. For instance, in terms of the wall of testimonies, I thought that having them presented in a kind of grid formation reinforced the similarities and differences among the survivor testimony, which ultimately helped me gain a more comprehensive understanding of each speaker’s experience(s). The sense of repetition among some of the written testimonies, such as repeated abuse, also makes the exhibit all the more unsettling and uncomfortable.
Ashley, thank you for your comment. I agree that viewers must observe the exhibit as a whole and analyze how each part informs and contextualizes one another. The grid formation of the testimony wall was an interesting presentation choice, both in terms of its visual reception and meaning. As you said, it emphasizes individual voices of students, yet also makes viewers aware of some patterns (eg. mentions of abuse, and also an ignorance of abuse). A student in class today made a compelling observation of this presentation, specifically how each testimony is on a separate piece of paper, yet some obviously come from the same source (the same student’s account). The question of why these excerpts were separated from each other is a relevant one. Why did curators choose to physically disconnect these testimonies? What purpose does it serve? Perhaps it makes the wall look more diverse by including more voices (when actually they’re the same voices, disjoined)?
Thoughts?
(Hope you don’t my late response, since the questions you posed certainly warrant a reply!)
The questions you raised are definitely important to consider, since the decisions the curators made in terms of presenting the exhibit ultimately informs our experience and how we engage with the materials. I think part of the reason why the testimony from the same source was separated was to fill the space on the wall—but, as you noted, to also make it appear like these testimonies were coming from different students as opposed to the same one. There is the possibility that the curators purposely cut and pasted different segments from the same testimony because they were working with a limited number of testimonies from St. Michael’s Residential School? It’s hard to say what motivated the curators to disconnect these testimonies—perhaps, though, they also chose to use testimony from the same student in order to better represent the breadth of their experience during their time at the residential school.
Hi Ashley, thanks for your comment, your response is certainly welcome! When I was viewing the testimony wall, I noticed that many of the excerpts were from the same sources. I recorded that 23 of these passages came from named sources, but the same names were listed under multiple passages; 50 passages were anonymous contributions. I agree that curators probably wanted to present viewers with a full wall of testimony. The visual aspect of this alone is enough to overwhelm viewers – an effect that is likely intentional. As a student mentioned in class a while ago, many of the excerpts came from longer testimonies that could be found in the bound journals and folders on the wooden table in the exhibit’s centre. What I found peculiar about this presentation of testimony (the wall) is why these longer testimonies were cut, pasted and separated from each other – and what became lost or ignored in this process? Was it perhaps a problem of accessibility? While I did sit down at the wood table, I felt much less inclined to read through the folders than glance at the wall before me. The visual confrontation of an entire wall full multi-coloured text certainly evokes a response from viewers and perhaps this is just what the curators were aiming for.