ANDPVA’s Mosaic Project to Commemorate Indian Residential School Survivors launched September 17, 2022 at Todmorden Mills Heritage Site in Toronto, Ont. The beginning of the community-based activity emerged from the design of Naomi Smith, Chippewa artist and educator. Smith and our partners Toronto Council Fire Native Cultural Center and Red Pepper Spectacle Arts culturally support us, the Association for Native Development in the Performing and Visual Arts (ANDPVA), conceptualize and produce the project which is now a series called Resilience.
We spoke about reflecting on the decimation plan of the colonizers and how a timeline started with their landing. Removal of our peoples, plant lives, the buffalo jump, and the gifting of smallpox blankets are just some examples of their attempts to annihilate us. We’re still here today assuming our roles and responsibilities including the recognition and appreciation of all relatives including our medicine plant life.
As we create awareness of who we are as Indigenous peoples and Survivors of colonization, we look to our medicines for grounding. One of these is the odeyimin or strawberry of which Smith made a beautiful design for ANDPVA’s first Resilience mosaic project.
We spoke about reflecting on the decimation plan of the colonizers and how a timeline started with their landing. Removal of our peoples, plant lives, the buffalo jump, and the gifting of smallpox blankets are just some examples of their attempts to annihilate us. We’re still here today assuming our roles and responsibilities including the recognition and appreciation of all relatives including our medicine plant life.
As we create awareness of who we are as Indigenous peoples and Survivors of colonization, we look to our medicines for grounding. One of these is the odeyimin or strawberry of which Smith made a beautiful design for ANDPVA’s first Resilience mosaic project.
Fourth National Gathering on Unmarked Burials: Upholding Indigenous Law
For the second Resilience mosaic project, Naomi Smith designed an ininatig or maple tree. In the springtime, people ready their taps for the medicinal sap water. The maple tree is the leader tree, the first one to provide support to us.
On March 28 – 29, 2023 in Toronto, ANDPVA’s Resilience mosaic projects was presented to hundreds of Indian Residential School Survivors to view and participate in at the National Gathering on Unmarked Burials: Upholding Indigenous Law.
ANDPVA partnered with Toronto Council Fire Native Cultural Centre to host an Elders Lounge.