On my Journey, I chose to explore more about the residential school and the effects that followed them, and I was blown away as growing up in school we were never taught about residential schools, we knew about them but it was never a topic that was elaborated on. It is truly heart-wrenching to know children have been ripped away from their family’s and told they no longer could speak their language. Children have to convert to a different religion. These young children were given numbers like they were just objects. Children were raped and abused and locked in cellars if they were to speak in their language.

For my aesthetic representation, I did a painting that shows how the kids were free before the residential schools and how they lived a carefree lifestyle swimming in rivers and playing on the land and being with their families. They were then stolen from their families and put in these schools, where they were told to undress and they cut the children’s hair and put them in “acceptable” clothing. These young children were punished if they were to speak in any other language then English. Kids were abused not only mentally but sexually. Children died of multiple diseases caused by residential schools because they were not giving good healthcare rights. I painted a side by side comparison of before and during residential school experiences, I included some things the kids were told and some of the things that were done to them. The other side was before the children were put in the schools, living in their homes with their parents living their carefree lives.