Imagine a Canada art by Catterie Wood, Jade Larocque, Journey Irvine (Fluttering Butterfly Girl), Grade 7 Gonzaga Middle School, Winnipeg.
CBC: Students use art to shed light on Canada’s dark past
Three students from Gonzaga Middle School, a Jesuit private school in Winnipeg’s inner city, are shedding light on Canada’s dark past through art.
Journey Irvine, Jade Larocque and Catterie Wood created a painting they call “The truth” to represent Residential School Survivor and reconciliation.
“We were searching birds on a branch because I have done that type of painting before [then] we realized it had no meaning,” said Irvine.
She and Larocque decided to look up the seven sacred teachings and decided to paint the turtle “because it represents the elders telling their truth about what they went through when they were kids,” said Larocque.
The students entered their painting into “Imagine a Canada,” a youth leadership program by the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.
They were selected to represent Manitoba out of more than 450 submissions nationwide.
“The general idea of this was peace for Canada, for everyone,” said Irvine.
The girls said they thought about survivors and their experiences while painting.
“The turtles are all walking the same path even though they’re all different colours and stuff,” said Larocque. “They’re all going to go towards the light in tell their story eventually.”
Larocque said she’s learned first hand about residential schools through an elder she visits twice a week.
Read the full CBC story here.