Dionne Paul’s Illustrates Indigenous History Through Art

The photographed artwork, ‘His First Day of School’ and ‘Her First Day of School’ by Dionne Paul is hung up in the Multi Diversity Gallery at the Museum of Anthropology. These photographs display a momentous period in Canada’s history, which, to this day impacts Indigenous communities. The large images emphasize on the history and modern context behind Canadian children’s first day of school. Starting school is presumed to be a very joyous day for both the parents and the children, but these images recall the sinister era of residential schooling. The first day of school for the Indigenous youth was terrifying and foreign, coinciding with the parents who were forced to legally send their children away to be assimilated to Western culture. Dionne Paul’s work captures modern Indigenous children overlapped by images of residential school uniforms worn by the past Indigenous children.

Dionne Paul is a member of the Nuxalk Nation and Sechelt Nation and is a proud Indigenous artist. Her courage to educate an audience on Canada’s atrocious past is signified when she presents the somber time through her simple but powerful artwork. According to Robert Houle’s definition of artist-warrior, which explains the bravery of artists who “create artworks that respond to and sometimes appropriate the language of the western art world” (Kramer, pg. 173). Dionne Paul does exactly as she presents Indigenous art in a Western museum. Not only did she present Indigenous artwork, she presented a piece of artwork that does not emit a peaceful feeling. It recaptures a frightful time where First Nation children were taken from their families and were forced to strip away their culture. These residential schools were thought to be good for these children but what happened in these schools are unforgettable; as these children were abused if they spoke their native language, sexually assaulted and were forced to practice Christianity. With all these reasons in mind, Dionne Paul boldly captured what colonizers did to First Nations and displayed their wrongful actions in a Western museum for the Western world to see. Her memorable art piece takes the power of western culture in the museum and draws that attention to showcase the hardships faced by the First Nations children, which leads me to believe that she is an artist-warrior.

This art piece resonated with me as it reminded of a film I watched called, “We Were Children” by Tim Wolochatiuk. I grew up in Ontario where I do not remember learning much about Canada’s history with the First Nations. We were taught in the point of the view of the colonizers and therefore did not know the truth behind Canada’s race problem. The history of treating the Indigenous the way we did has lead to there being a grand race problem in Canada. The Indigenous peoples are still suffering to this day because of our actions. Canadians are not educated on this issue and I believe the education system must teach the youth at a young age about this problem.

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