Healing Together: New sculpture at Brandon University dedicated to truth, reconciliation
Chelsea Kemp | CBC News | Posted: November 26, 2022 11:00 AM | Last Updated: November 26, 2022
Project raised surge of emotions for Cree artist Kevin McKenzie
A new sculpture dedicated to truth and reconciliation in southwestern Manitoba is also a symbol of personal healing for the artist who helped create it.
Cree artist Kevin McKenzie, who hails from Cowassess First Nation on Treaty 4, led the team that came up with Healing Together, Brandon University's new art installation, which was dedicated Friday.
The sculpture, which will be illuminated at night, has been placed across from the Healthy Living Centre on Louise Avenue on one of the busiest footpaths at the university.
McKenzie, an assistant professor at the university, wore his grandfather's buckskin jacket with Northern Cree floral beading to the official unveiling and smudging. He says designing the sculpture was a personal healing journey.
"When I was challenged to design the sculpture, there was this whole spectrum of emotions that popped up," he said.
The first was revisiting his father Robert's experiences at the Lebret Industrial Indian Residential School in Lebret, Sask. Even though he died many years ago when McKenzie was 17, the artist says his father's teachings have been a big part of his research at the university.
"It was quite a long time ago that he passed away … these are all kinds of repressed memories that I had to bring up," McKenzie said. "It was quite an emotional roller coaster for me. But, at the same time, it did have this healing process as well … It was a double-edged sword."
He says his grandmother, who died two years ago at the age of 102, was also traumatized. While she did not attend residential school, two of her siblings did. One never returned.
During the design phase of the sculpture, McKenzie worked with the people across Brandon to better understand how they interpreted the model. He received descriptions of it being a wound, a birthing wound, a constellation or a river among other things.
Mackenzie says it showed him the different interpretations people can have about reconciliation.
The sculpture is to meant to heal the community, McKenzie says. It was kept abstract in design because the concepts of truth and reconciliation are themselves abstractions. It's up to those who view the sculpture to explore their own path of healing and reconciliation, he says.
"Art is very powerful in that sense where it can speak for the unspoken, and it can address concepts and ideas that are that are hard to verbalize or to think about."
Reconciliation on campus
Healing Together joins different spaces, installations and actions dedicated to reconciliation on campus, says Chris Lagimodiere, Indigenous adviser to university president David Docherty.
He describes the sculpture as part of a larger drive to foster a united community.
"We want reconciliation to permeate through all of the spaces, not be centralized out of one office," Lagimodiere said. "We wanted people to be thinking about … what does it [the sculpture] mean? — and reflecting on their commitment to reconciliation on campus."
As an educational institution the university has the responsibility to be a leader in reconciliation, Lagimodiere says. They want all faculty and staff to have opportunities to engage in reconciliation initiatives or to reflect on their role and responsibility as individuals, departments and units on campus.
This is an important step because the university plays a larger role in the larger community, he says.
"We know residential schools played a large part in the genocide of Indigenous people," Lagimodiere said. "It's our responsibility now to … do what we can do to help support reconciliation initiatives."
Barb Blind, the Anishinaabe knowledge keeper at the university, appreciates that people will see Healing Together every day because it will remind them reconciliation is an everyday action.
"This is a good time to let everybody know that reconciliation is every day, not just the one week or the one day," Blind said. "It's every day … in becoming more aware and then we have people wanting to have more of a presence. Indigenous students, they feel welcome here."