Celina Ritter addresses her experiences of assimilation and genocide from a personal perspective in The Indoctrination of Natives in Residential Schools . Her recollections as a child growing up in a residential school dramatize that, for Ritter, education meant dislocation from her family and her culture. Edward Poitras also contemplates the effect of assimilation policies on Aboriginal people. Strips of prairie grass and domesticated grass were exchanged between Gordon's Reserve and the Mendel Art Gallery. In this work, Poitras subtly questions the effect of assimilation policies.
Some artists express the sense of loss and confusion that results from dramatic change.
Dennis Bruce grapples with the changes forced by colonialism in his work. Things to Come depicts the effects of foreign diseases on Native peoples, while Born into this Culture points out the inapplicability of Hollywood stereotypes as a source of Native cultural identity. Other artists comment on the ability of First Nation's people to adapt and adjust to change. Janice M. Morin's series of photographs of the annual powwow at the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College documents the incorporation of new technologies into a traditional cultural expression. More than a survivor - a Warrior captures the Native woman's suffering and strength.