An Examination of Children’s Artworks from Canadian Indigenous Residential Schools

Residential school students within Canadian schools created imagery that was recently collected by the National Truth and Reconciliation Commission (NTRC). Five works were selected from numerous artworks archived. Compositional interpretation and discourse analysis were employed in this study. Using art as historical recovery, it was found that these cultural artifacts provided records of the children as witnesses regarding their experiences at residential schools. Additionally, these visual pictures reveal these young students’ personal lives, and emotional, political, and societal perspectives. In this research, the images allow viewers to comprehend this historical period full of struggle and allow these cultural artifacts to be communicated to future viewers. Finally, the findings reveal these indigenous children communicated both joy in nature and discourse of powerlessness and oppression by nonindigenous peoples in the face of Canadian colonialism.