The artifact I chose was Yuxweluptun’s painting “I’m Having a Bad Colonial Day.” According to Yuxweluptun, the ovoid form, which is a formal element typical of Northwest Coast Native art, represents an Aboriginal person’s sense of identity, as well as his or her cultural background. By scattering different colours of ovoids around a black background in a chaotic matter, Yuxweluptun’s painting emphasizes the frustration, the struggles, and the confusion of one’s identity that happened in an Aboriginal person’s mind throughout the colonization of Canada.
I chose this painting because I feel like I can relate to the confusion of one’s own identity. When I first moved to Canada, I found it very challenging to adapt to the Canadian culture. It took me nearly 2 years to overcome the culture shock, and it took me another year or so before I could embrace myself fully to the Western culture. I cannot even start to imagine the frustrations and the struggles the Aboriginal people must have felt during Canada’s colonization.