About

This virtual exhibition is a work in progress. It was elaborated as a protoype by a group of students from the University of Ottawa between January and April 2019 in the context of AHL4900: Amélie Fecteau, Sean Lewis, Robin Mcleod, Megan Morash, Pooja Paturi, Randy Schmucker, under the direction of professor J.-F. Lozier.

AHL4900, “Seminar in Interdisciplinary Study in the Arts”, is a class which aims to offer students an unconventional experience centered on creation, collaboration, and interdisciplinarity.  Our topic during the Winter 2019 term was the historic connection between the University of Ottawa and Indigenous peoples.  Founded on ancestral Algonquin territory, this institution of higher learning was for over a century led by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, one of the religious orders that happens to have been among the most active in the administration of missions and residential schools.  In the twentieth century, the university began to research and teach Indigenous subjects, before in time admitting its first Indigenous students.  What is this historical legacy, exactly, and what should we do with it?  The objective of the class was thus to uncover as many facets of this history as possible and to explore the best ways to interpret it for the present and the future – not only in intellectual terms, but through artistic and digital creation.  Each student was expected to contribute their individual strengths and disciplinary training to meet this group challenge, all the while deepening their understanding both of the history of the University of Ottawa in particular, and more broadly of the interplay of education and colonization in Canada.

The interpretations offered in this virtual exhibition was developed in the context of this class, but are not endorsed by the University of Ottawa itself.

A word of thanks goes out to all those who assisted with the research and reflection that went into this project: Nick Bridges, Tracy Coates, Timothy Foran, Brenda Macdougall, Émilie Pigeon, Jean-Luc Pilon, Michel Prévost, Daniel Rück, Timothy Stanley, Sydney Steele, Nicole St-Onge, and Darren Sutherland, and Thomas Van Dewark.