Peel Art Gallery, Museum and Archives hosting events to mark Indigenous History Month

By Zachary Roman

A series of upcoming events will give people a chance to celebrate Indigenous history and culture.

During the month of June, which is Indigenous History Month in Canada, Peel Art Gallery, Museum and Archives (PAMA) is hosting events to mark the month.

From 2 to 7 p.m. on June 1, Métis artist Tracey-Mae Chambers is creating a site-specific art installation at PAMA in Downtown Brampton. It will then be on display until September 1 at PAMA, which is located at 9 Wellington Street East.

Since July 2021, Chambers has created over 100 art installations at places like residential school historical sites, museums, and art galleries. She said many of the places she's created installations are places that “serve to present a colonial viewpoint and primarily speak about the settlers who arrived and lived here, but not the Indigenous people that were displaced along the way.”

Chambers' installations are constructed with red wool, silk, and cotton yarn. She said red is the colour of blood and a slur against Indigenous people. She also said it's a colour of passion, anger, danger, power, courage, and love.

Chambers said the goal of her work is to bridge the gap between settlers and Indigenous people by creating art that is approachable and non-confrontational. Through this, she hopes to start conversations about decolonization and reconciliation.

From 1:30 to 3 p.m. on June 11, Kim Wheatley will hostg an event called “Strawberry Moon Teachings.”

Wheatley is an Anishinaabe grandmother who is Ojibway, Potawatomi and Caribbean in ancestry. A band member of the Shawanaga First Nation, she carries the spirit name “Head or Leader of the Fireflower.”

Wheatley has over three decades of experience as a speaker, and has won awards and appeared in books, on TV, and in the news. In addition to this, she is a published author, hand drummer, singer, water walker, artist, ceremonial practitioner and ancestral knowledge keeper.

Committed to forging good relationships, Wheatley's goal is to create reconciliation that honours the past, connects the present, and contributes to the future. 

At PAMA, in the sculpture atrium, residents can view art made by Inuit carvers that represents the legend of Sedna, Inuit Goddess of the Sea.

Also on display at PAMA now until October 1 is an exhibition called Generations Lost: Healing the Legacy of Residential Schools.

It focuses on the enduring impacts of the residential school system on survivors, their descendants, and society as a whole. The exhibition is being made possible thanks to the Legacy of Hope Foundation, which is a national, Indigenous-led charity. Its goal is to “educate and raise awareness about the history and existing intergenerational impacts of the Residential School System and subsequent Sixties Scoop on Indigenous (First Nations, Inuit, and Métis) Survivors, their descendants, and their communities to promote healing and Reconciliation.”