Sonny Assu, A Celebration of Resilience on September 20th, 2013
Channel: Emily Carr University
Date: 2015-09-01

Sonny Assu
Interdisciplinary Artist
 
Through museum interventions, large-scale installations, sculpture, photography, printmaking and paintings, Sonny Assu merges the aesthetics of Indigenous iconography with a pop art sensibility in an effort to address contemporary, political and ideological issues. His work often focuses on Indigenous issues and rights, consumerism, branding and new technologies, and the ways in which the past has come to inform contemporary ideas and identities. Assu infuses his work with wry humour to open the dialogue towards the use of consumerism, branding and technology as totemic representation. Within this, his work deals with the loss of language, loss of cultural resources and the effects of colonization upon the Indigenous people of North America.

Truth and Reconciliation: A Celebration of Resilience
For more than 120 years, thousands of Aboriginal Children in British Columbia were sent to Indian Residential (boarding) Schools that were funded by the Federal Government and run by the churches. The first residential schools were established in the 1840s and the last residential school closed in 1996. For over 100 years, until 1948, Residential School was compulsory by law for status Indians under 16 years of age. Mortality rates at residential schools ranged from 30% – 60% and included epidemics of tuberculosis from poor living conditions, compulsory sterilization as well as nutritional and other experiments.

In March 1998, the Government made a Statement of Reconciliation – including an apology to Aboriginal people who were sexually or physically abused while attending residential school.