'Witness Blanket' art installation shares Canada's aboriginal residential school experiences through found items

They are simple objects: a piano key, a pair of ice skates, a tree branch -- and each one tells a story about one person's experience at Canada's Aboriginal residential schools.

Now, dozens of these objects have been brought together as a massive art installation. It's called Witness Blanket, and was unveiled yesterday at Victoria's city hall.

"It's made up of so many things from so many different parts of the country, from so many different materials," artist Carey Newman tells Carol. "Each piece has its own energy and power."

The installation marks the end of a long journey for Newman, whose father was a student at residential school.

"The majority of the items were collected from residential school sites or contributed by survivors," he says.

See some of "Witness Blanket" items followed by a description from the artist:

Newman: "There's a really wide range [of objects] but some of the ones that stand out from me are a show that was collected in Carcross at the site of a burned down residential school. It was just a small child's shoe that was weathering away in the forest. It really, really touched me when I held it in my hands."

"The door came from St. Michael's school in Alert Bay, which a lot of my family went to. I personally collected the door and it was from the boy's infirmary and from the stories that I know, a lot of terrible things happened behind that door. So one of the first things I decided to do was put it into the blanket, to transform it someway. I added overlays of images and words so that somebody walking up to it doesn't see it as that exact same thing... that door will never be closed when the blanket is on display."

Newmna: "There's a piece of an apple tree (pictured centre with a photo of his father in the middle) that my dad and I cut together, we cut a little branch off. It's because the last year of residential school, he was sent away and told not to come back because he and some of his friends had taken some of the holy wine and they drank it under that apple tree."