Arts organizations mark National Day for Truth and Reconciliation 2024
Special programming at several local venues is in place on and around September 30
Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre.
THE NATIONAL DAY for Truth and Reconciliation is on September 30. Several local arts organizations have special programming to honour the date, which recognizes the children who never came home from Indian residential schools as well as survivors. Here’s a glimpse at a few upcoming events.
Shelley Niro: 500 Year Itch at Vancouver Art Gallery
The Vancouver Art Gallery hosts the first major retrospective of work by multimedia artist Shelley Niro, who hails from the Six Nations of the Grand River Reserve near Brantford, Ontario, from September 27 to February 17. While advocating for self-representation and sovereignty, she represents Indigenous women and girls and draws from Kanyen’kehá:ka (Mohawk) philosophies in her work.
“The Ballad of Crowfoot”.
Films Witnessing Truth And Reconciliation at The Polygon Gallery
The Polygon Gallery is marking the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation through a series of short films on September 29, which is broken up into two programs that reflect the naming of the date. Truth, running from 10 am to 11:30 am and 12:15 pm to 1:45 pm, features Willie Dunn’s 1968 “The Ballad of Crowfoot”; “PowWow at Duck Lake” by David Hughes from 1967; “Indian Relocation” by Hughes and D’Arcy Marsh from 1967; and Michael Kanentakeron Mitchell’s 1969 “This Is Indian Land”. Reconciliation, running from 11:30 am to 12:15 pm and 1:45 pm to 2:30 pm, consists of Asinnajaq’s 2017 “Three Thousand”; Alanis Obomsawin’s 2021 “Honour to Senator Murray Sinclair”; and Duke Redbird’s 1969 “Charley Squash Goes to Town”. The films come courtesy of the National Film Board of Canada.
Culture Club at Museum of Anthropology
The monthly series at UBC’s Museum of Anthropology has a special program on September 29 with xʷmәθkʷәy̓әm (Musqueam) artist Rita Kompst, who will lead a hands-on cedar weaving workshop in honour of National Truth and Reconciliation Day. Kompst learned to weave from her father, Joe Becker, a former Musqueam chief, and now teaches cedar weaving full-time.
Sugarcane.
Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre
While Whistler’s Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre is normally closed on Mondays, it will be open on September 30 to commemorate National Day for Truth and Reconciliation with free admission. Live carving that’s part of the Salish Summer Carving Series has been extended through late September, featuring master carver Jonathan Joe (Lílw̓at7úl) and apprentice Redmond Q̓áwam̓ Andrews (Lílw̓at7úl). The two are carving the story pole that incorporates designs that honour the Declaration of the Lillooet Tribes, which is also the name of a feature exhibition now on display. The story pole will rise to stand alongside the house post carved by Xwalacktun (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh/Kwakwaka’wakw/Namgis) and Brandon Hall (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh of the Squamish Nation) in 2023 outside the entrance to the centre on Lorimer Road.
Guests can take in the feature exhibition Chief Dan George—Actor and Activist, along with a full lineup of programming specific to the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. The moving National Geographic documentary film Sugarcane, by co-directors Julian Brave NoiseCat (Tsq’escen’/Lil’wat) and Emily Kassie, will be shown on September 27 at 7 pm and September 30 at 3 pm.
Truth and Reconciliation Day: NFB Film Screenings at the Museum of Vancouver
Admission to the MOV is by donation on September 30 with proceeds going to the Indian Residential School Survivors Society. It will be screening WaaPaKe (Tomorrow) by Jules Arita Koostachin, a deeply personal documentary about residential-school survivors, at 10:30 am; and Our People Will Be Healed, Alanis Obomsawin’s film about the Helen Betty Osborne Ininiw Education Resource Centre in Norway House north of Winnipeg, at 1 pm. Prior to the films is a screening of “Orange Shirt Day is Every Day” by 3 Crows Productions, a short film featuring elders and residential school survivors who return to the grounds of St. Mary’s Indian Residential School in Mission, B.C.
Downstream Where the Waters Mix, a season of Honouring Our Grandmothers Healing Journey, at New Westminster Museum
Curated by lead artist Nadine Spence, the free exhibition running to December 13 features works by 13 artists from communities along the Thompson and Fraser Rivers. The creatives share their colonial realities through their work and convey the significance of grandmothers, mothers, and aunties in their lives. Downstream Where the Waters Mix is presented as part of a multi-year movement called Honouring Our Grandmothers Healing Journeys created by Further We Rise Indigenous Arts Collective with support from Sacred Rock.
Finding Your Voice: National Day for Truth and Reconciliation
On September 30 from 1 pm to 4:45 pm at Coquitlam’s Place des Arts, Indigenous artist Christine Mackenzie will be leading participatory workshops on using different techniques for people to create a small mixed-media art piece. Mackenzie will also speak to her own experience as an Indigenous woman, as well as the universal importance of truth and reconciliation. 
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