#HopeAndHealingCanada

Over the past 400 years, Indigenous people have employed different strategies to address the arrival of settlers, ranging from conflict to negotiation to friendship. They have shown incredible resilience in the face of displacement and dispossession by settlers. Hosting Indigenous artist interventions in the Arrival Zone of the Canadian Immigration Hall represents the importance of this ongoing conversation and our commitment to providing opportunities for it to be had. Every two years will provide an opportunity for an Indigenous artist to express their thoughts and feelings about arrival/colonization in the Canadian Immigration Hall.

This program will launch with an original piece from Métis installation artist and member of the Métis Nation of Ontario, Tracey-Mae Chambers’ #HopeAndHealingCanada project. Tracey-Mae writes, “Since July 2021, I have created over 100 installations at residential school historical sites, museums, art galleries and other public spaces. Many of these spaces present a colonial viewpoint and primarily speak about the settlers who arrived and lived here, but not the Indigenous people that were displaced along the way. The installations are constructed with red wool, silk, cotton yarn.

Red is the colour of blood. Red is the slur against Indigenous people. Red is the colour of passion and anger, danger and power, courage and love.

I hope to bridge the gap between settlers and First Nations, Métis, and Inuit by creating art that is approachable and non-confrontational and by starting a conversation about decolonization and reconciliation.”

Tracey-Mae’s intervention will be on display in the Canadian Immigration Hall exhibition.