A beautiful painting that honours residential school survivors and remembers the children who died has been unveiled outside the N’Amerind Friendship Centre.
The two-story, seven-panel mural is the result of a partnership between Ojibwe educator and artist Mike Cywink, residential school survivors, and Indigenous young artists. It is sponsored in part by the Friendship Centre, London, Ont., city officials, and the London Arts Council.
On Friday afternoon, the unveiling took place to commemorate the second annual National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
Although the piece is named We Are Still Here, each panel has its own name and significance.
The seven panels are labelled Story Tellers, Where We Were, Our Creation Stories, 215, Breaking The Cycle, Now, and Great Tree of Peace, and are arranged from left to right when gazing at the southern wall of the N’Amerind Friendship Centre from Horton Street.
Speeches, prayers, Jingle Dress dancing, songs, and a gathering of at least 200 people at the intersection of Colborne and Horton streets were also part of Friday’s unveiling.
The principal artist of We Are Still Here, Cywink, experienced a day of conflicting feelings.
“I understand that we are here to celebrate the good things, the effort, and other things, but it was still a difficult morning for me. “I consider the youngsters, the kids, the ones who never returned home from the residential schools,” said Cywink.
The tale behind We Are Still Here, according to Cywink, who is from the Whitefish River First Nation in Manitoulin Island, was greatly influenced by his firsthand conversations with residential school survivors. Cywink sees his art as storytelling.
“I’m sharing a tale that is partially mine; I never went to residential schools, but many of the people I love and care about did… In order for me to make sure that I present the tale accurately, I think that consulting (with survivors) was pretty crucial, Cywink continued.
“I feel like I’m partially representing a sizable portion of the Indigenous community, so I think there’s a lot of responsibility that comes with public artwork, especially Indigenous artwork. For that reason, making sure I tell the story accurately was such an important factor for me and then just making sure we did a good job.
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One of the three Indigenous adolescent artists chosen to assist in We Are Still Here is Sir Frederick Nicholas, 16, who views the chance as a huge honour.
“Being here today, I start to realise just how much this means to everyone,” Nicholas said. “I didn’t exactly grasp the magnitude of the project and how huge it would be in the neighbourhood; I just knew I’m producing paintings, they’re going to be on the side of the building, everyone’s going to see them.”
Oneida Six Nations of the Grand River Turtle Clan member Nicholas says Cywink is someone he looks up to and wishes to collaborate with again in the future.
Regarding the effort, he admitted that he was under a lot of strain before to the final product but is now happy with the results.
We can be certain that we got it right now that they are standing up.
Nicholas wore a shirt modelled by one worn by his late great-grandfather on Friday when the artwork was unveiled.
Nicholas says it was “not easy to do” for his mother to make the meaningful outfit in a single day.
He was covered in a shirt exactly like this one. I feel like I’ve become even more attached to him when I put it on. I have his name, and now I have one of his shirts,” Nicholas said, adding that his donations to We Are Still Here reflected this link.
“I feel like I left a bit of him in there too, a means for him to be remembered. Not only did I leave a piece of myself in these works of art.
Cywink and Nicholas both hope that the artwork will encourage viewers to learn more about the history of Canada’s residential school system as well as Indigenous history.
‘We Are Still Here’: A new mural honours victims of residential schools in London, Ontario
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