‘His First Day of School’ and ‘Her First Day of School’ by Dionne Paul are two large photographic representations of Canada’s dark history regarding the education system,placed in the Multiversity Gallery at the Museum Of Anthropology. A young boy/girl (depending on which art piece) stands in the center of the photo. His/her smiling face and lower legs are in color, while his/her torso and upper legs are surrounded by a rectangular black & white, X-ray type image on top of the the color picture. Inside the rectangle he is wearing a neat suit coat, pants and tie, hands joined behind his back while she is wearing a neat white buttoned jacket that reaches to her knees and hands clasped together in front.
“These two pieces juxtapose the atrocities of the residential school experience with the modern school experience” (Paul, MOA)
The artist’s statement talks about how the first day of school for most parents is filled with nervousness yet the good kind of excitement for their children,whereas the first day of school for First Nations was a heartbreaking and tragic experience for parents who were legally forced to send their children for the entire school year, The children were subjected to an extremely unsafe environment. Cases of malnutrition,sexual abuse and unwanted pregnancies were quite common.
Dionne Paul fits the definition of an “artist warrior” (Kramer,173) as she is brave enough to create a work of art which explicitly depicts the atrocities faced by the young children due to inequalities in the education system for the indigenous people. And like explained by Robert Houle in his definition of ‘artist warrior’, this piece of art remains hung in a western and otherwise contemporary museum, where it has the ability to bring about a strong cultural and political change.
Being an Indian myself ran chills down my spine to see the kind of atrocities faced by the indigenous Indians in Canada. I believe that displaying this dark piece of art among other indigenous objects was a rather brave move on the part of the curation staff, because it shows how even the traumatic parts of history ultimately do end up making the historic indigenous culture. And by displaying it, i feel like they are accepting it and taking it in their stride.
These two pieces are visual manifestations of the crimes against humanity committed in the 139 residential schools in Canada and are relevant imagery when discussing a community as it is important to acknowledge all aspects of the history of a community