Artwork for Truth and Reconciliation at The Grand Theatre

“Mush/Whole”

Artwork Installation by Katie Wilhelm, in Collaboration with Summer Bresette

2021 – 2022, The Grand Theatre in London, Ontario, Canada

Artist’s Statement

Artwork by Katie Wilhelm, in Collaboration with Summer Bresette, 2021

“Storytelling is ceremony, and each time we share the universe inside of us, we become part of the collective dreaming of those around us.” - Summer Bresette

About The Artwork

The title is a play on words - with the ‘Mush Hole’ being a place of disconnection and the word ‘Whole’ in reference to the healing of being reconnected to Land, Language, and Self.

Art is healing. This piece asks a question of the viewer through the eyes of the faceless stolen children. The background holds imagery of a cold building against the freedom of the dancing ribbon skirt wearer. The message, plastered in a ‘post-no-bills style,’ echoes back the calls from Indigenous people, almost lost in the noise. The text areas hold this region’s contrived Land Acknowledgment, which occupies the water areas of a map of Turtle Island, where East is North, as in some Indigenous maps. The land is gone.

About the Mush Hole

The Mush Hole (Mount Elgin Industrial School) was located just outside London and was attended by Summer’s great-grandmother, whose lullaby provided the inspiration for Love Song for the Thunderbirds.

The song locates us on this land that is shared by the descendants of the children who attended the Mush Hole and who held on to their traditional knowledge despite the horrors.

_________ Back?

As Indigenous peoples, we know that we are connected to the land, not as euphemism or metaphor, but as direct kin to the ground beneath our feet.

Like our mothers and grandmothers, Aki, the Earth is our first teacher. Land Back is also: Language Back. Culture Back. Stories Back.

Testimonial