This past week I visited the Belkin Gallery exhibit on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I found that the theme of “life narratives” was a particularly relevant one to consider while observing the work. It struck me that many of the artists chose to portray their work as a direct replication of the horrors of residential schools.These pieces effectively and precisely relayed experiences of victims to their audience, in short a broken series of stories that, as a whole, encompassed the disturbingly vivid abuse, suffering, and oppression of First Nations students over more than a century’s time.

The first work I saw was a replication of a classroom in a residential school. Rusty chairs and desks were tied together with rope, upon each rested a dark red apple punctured with a dirty metal hook. On black walls there was scratched in chalk a brief history of First Nations and European imperialists in Canada, along with numerous accounts of experiences in classrooms involving standardized curriculum, punishments, etc. The combination of harsh objects and brutal words created an aura overflowing with struggle and despair, themes which recurred throughout the gallery. There was also a piece that showed an actual bed and windows from a residence school, rusty and clouded, with an animal fur-covered cocoon-like object that rested face up on the bed. Instinctively it reminded me of a casket and a corpse, however not deserving of a funeral but lonely and forgotten. Assumedly the artist felt hopeless and morbid during his or her duration in residential school; abuse is presented not only by physical abuse but also in the form of neglect. Isolation, specifically cultural isolation, is a psychologically severe abuse; this piece represented both physical isolation and ideological isolation from forbiddance of practicing indigenous culture.

Similarly, the film entitled “Touch Me” addresses the psychological detriments of lack of love and care normally given in a family but which was absent in residential schools. As the indigenous woman washed the white woman’s hands, she began to cry and caressed her hands, intertwining them with her own. An individual is influenced dramatically by their upbringing, and attachment disorders are likely in brutal, restrictive environments such as the First Nations residential schools. Poor attachments and relationships in childhood act as a base and directly affect relationships in adulthood; the indigenous woman likely was still vulnerable from childhood abuse and longed for maternal touch. This film considered the permanent repercussions of residential schools on later adult life which is an additional element of a life narrative, as opposed to a reflection of the past.

These three works of art fit well into the theme of life narratives, as they directly relate either past or present interpretations of the horrors of residential schools. I noticed that these pieces all portrayed a story that the audience could read, watch, or even imagine in regards to the given aesthetic style. The gallery was an empathetically effective way of showcasing the trauma of residential schools because of its personal and emotional draws.