Inside the Multiversity Gallery, the pieces His First Day of School and Her First Day of School by Dionne Paul, depict two young Indigenous children smiling while a cropped images of old residential school uniforms are pasted on their bodies. In this piece, the artist Dionne Paul expresses how the first day of school for most children and parents are filled with joy and excitement, yet this wasn’t the case for all Indigenous families during the 20th century. In Paul’s work, she juxtaposes these two feelings of the first day of school. She describes in the artist statement that her works reflect on the time when Indigenous families were forced by the Canadian government to send their children away to residential school as “visual manifestations of the crimes against humanity”. In these school, all children were stripped of their culture and language, and constantly mentally and physically abused by the school staff. Thus, this was a very difficult and heartbreaking time for Indigenous parents.
To the right-hand side of Paul’s work, was the piece by Hopokeltun (Shane Pointe), To Wash Away the Tears. In this art piece, Hopokeltun is depicting a more joyful and heartwarming time of family connections and togetherness, while Dionne Paul’s work is in harsh contrast to the canoe. In the canoe, there were many items; blanks, books, clothing and photographs. These pieces all together memorialized the artist sister Maggie (Tlopinup) as well as, encompassed the importance of family ties through culture and tradition.
As a Canadian born citizen, who has gone through the Canadian school system, I found this piece to be very reflective of the importance of recognizing the shameful past that was imposed by the Canadian government. I believe this piece does an impeccable job of expressing great emotion through simple photo manipulation. Yet, I admit if I didn’t attend a Canadian school, and learn about the significance of Indigenous culture in Canadian history, I would need prior knowledge to understand the deeper meaning of the pieces His First Day of School and Her First Day of School. However, in the artist statement, Dionne Paul gives a brief summary of what residential schools were and the hardship many parents and children faced at the time. In the end, having prior information about the history of residential schools and the mistreatment of Indigenous children at these school greatly aids in understanding the impact made from the juxtaposition of two very different first day of school.