GOKOOM

DAYNA RAINVILLE

April 4th – 7th, 2013

Artist Talk: April 4th, 2pm

Opening Reception: April 4th, 7-9 pm

Intergenerational impacts of Indian Residential School are still a very harsh reality for First Nations people. The schools were set in place to kill the Indian in the child. The loss of language, culture, spirituality, traditional knowledge, lands, and resources is very detrimental to the identity of Native people. Learning about or reconnecting with one’s culture and traditions can become a significant part of the healing process.

Gookom, meaning grandmother in the Cree language, is a process based project dealing with a personal healing journey of the direct impacts of Residential School from a third generations experience.  Through the therapeutic use of arts in a holistic way (physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually) as well as the healing benefits of creative activity in general, mixed media such as, painting, sketches, and mono prints are used to help deal with the issues that arose during the project. This is just another form of telling the story of the Impacts of Indian Residential School. We need to keep telling their stories… otherwise, their suffering was for nothing.