In this Imagine... cover, I explore a world where residential schools did not exist.
I love this image in all its simplicity and hope.
Nk’essih means I care for you or I love you.
Oo tsoo ya nilh yi means one raised by her/his grandmother, a great honour in Tl’azt’en Culture.
This could have been my father. This could have been me
Title: No. 1ndians
This was the first cover I painted. I was reading about the Indian Act (again) in the very fine book “21 things you may not know about the Indian Act: Helping Canadians Make Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples a Reality” (by B. Joseph). I cannot recall the exact synthesis of the idea of the mash-up, but at some point, I was looking at one of the most famous comic covers of all time, Action Comics #1, and I saw in the title “The Indian Act in Comics”.
The question then was what if Superman was instead the Indian Agent? What if he was carrying a bus full of children, symbolizing the violence of the act and the powerlessness felt?
The quote “Kill the Indian, Save the man” is both particular to Richard Pratt, an individual in north america who helped establish the baselines for militaristic style Residential Schools, and a sentiment held by many in governance at the time.
Reluctance, fear, devastation, loss, sadness, grief, powerlessness.
I still feel these things, yet it was my father who attended the school.
Inspiration cover
DC Comics Action Comics Vol 1 #1
June 1938
Cover Artists: Joe Shuster, Jack Adler
Writers: Jerry Siegel
Pencilers: Joe Shuster
Inkers: Joe Shuster
Editors: Vincent Sullivan