INDIAN RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL'S "SILENT HARBOR" by James Simon MISHIBINIJIMA

Indian Residential School's "Silent Harbor,"

Acrylic on Canvas, 20"x29", © 2014 James A. Simon MISHIBINIJIMA

/Click on image to Enlarge/ ! AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE !
 

Legend:

Canada's historical and tragic events allowing Indian Residential Schools project was destined to fail right from it's beginnings. 

I remembered many times my mother spoke about Indian Residential School in pain often ask "why" did they allow this to happen.

Her comment used be, " IT WILL NEVER BE THE SAME" because what happen there. Our people walking through life with two religious cultures and being torn apart in spiritualism with a culturaly damaged mind and direction.

"How can I embrace these people," she use to scream over the kitchen table, as we stood there at awe many times as she explain events.

Some forty years ago she shared me one event where she spoke one word to her friend in native tongue which was "hello" and got punished for it. She was taken to a room where a brother and a man in a brown suit stood.

She told a story about being hit in her private part five times with a fist, " I can't go to greater detail about this event "

I placed nine separate teachings, she spoke about, in this painting and see today's tragic events in First Nations directly related to Indian Residential Schools.

I wish I were there confronting these man face to face, never ending thoughts arise every morning, I want no one to forget what happen there and maybe, you just might paint these events and show the world what they did.

© James A. Simon MISHIBINIJIMA

-

-

Source: M I S H I B I N I J I M A

/Text & image used with permission of the artist/


>>> Reference posts:

- Great Anishinaabe/Woodland Artists (Part XI)

-/Ref.: James A. Simon MISHIBINIJIMA; ARTIST STATEMENT/,

- Anishnaabe Art, Meaning and Knowledge,

- Homage to Norval Morrisseau (Part V),

- The Art of James A. Simon MISHIBINIJIMA (Part I),
- The Art of James A. Simon MISHIBINIJIMA (Part II),
- The Four Nations on Earth &

- THE HELEN E. BAND COLLECTION.

-