Canada's residential school system was an utter failure. That it lasted as long as it did - nearly 150 years - to the detriment of First Nations peoples, remains one of the most shameful periods in Canada's history. Essentially camps that offered children a sliver of academics among a life of physical labour, the schools were often mired in physical and sexual abuse, and stripped a generation of people of their history. As Isabelle Knockwood writes in her memoir Out of the Depths, detailing her experiences in a residential school located in Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia, "The punishment has continued all our lives as we try to piece together who we are and what the world means to us within a language many of us have had to re-learn as adults."

Adrian Stimson's Old Sun, on display at Truck Gallery until November 8, 2008, is a haunting exhibition that confronts the ghosts of the residential school system. Truck's space is suited to the somber yet angry exhibition, with muted lighting and bare walls creating a tomb-like place. The exhibition features two of his older works, "Old Sun" (2005) and "Sick and Tired" (2004), accompanied by a new video work, "Inhumation" (2008).

The film plays simple footage of an old, innocuous-looking residential school (Chief Old Sun, located in Alberta's Siksika nation, the reserve Stimson is originally from), interspersed with black and white stills taken from the period when the school was open. Young boys smile at the camera and children stare open-mouthed at teachers. The phrases "suffer the little children" and "inhumation" appear onscreen. Above the screen is an inverted banner reading "All one in Christ Jesus." Flipping the sacrament is a defiant message of anger, one akin to a grade school teen's demonic stab at subversion.

The noise of excavation - digging, scraping - fills the space; exhuming the dead, the past. It begins to sound like creatures gnawing and nibbling on bones and gristle, stopping briefly to sort through the ephemera. In front of the projection is a simple scaffold, with a hairy bundle clinging underneath. Its shadow looms over the video, creating beams of light that absorb into the floor.

Beside the video projection lies "Sick and Tired", consisting of a single bed, framed by three cloudy windows. (All of the items are found objects from the Old Sun school.) The rusty bed lies still and dessicated, a cold light illuminating it from above. Set against the projection, one wonders what history is stored in the bed - a child wanting to go home, too scared to get up and use the bathroom for fear of a whipping? Rape? On the bed lies the shape of a figure, made from curly buffalo hair. It appears ready for autopsy. It appears as both sarcophagus, a memorial of the dead, or a chrysalis, slowly healing from age-old wounds.

In front of the bed lies "Old Sun", a dome made from spindly metal frames, illuminated from above by a lamp. Inside the otherworldly mini lodge is a mat made from soft buffalo hair. Rather than the confrontational nature of the other two pieces, "Old Sun" is an inclusive space, inviting discussion and healing.

The longer one stays in the space, a hypnotizing effect takes place, confronting viewers with the ghosts of the residential school system, deathly and chilling. It reminds one of the systemic abuse that, as Knockwood writes, "taught [children] racism long before [they] even knew the word."

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*Knockwood, Isabelle. Out of the Depths: The Experiences of Mi'kmaw Children at the Indian Residential School at Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia. New Extended Edition. Nova Scotia: Rose Way Publishing, 2001.

Old Sun at TRUCK

Postscript:
Old Sun is in marked contrast to Stimson's recent performance in Calgary as part of the Mountain Standard Time Performative Art Festival (M:ST). Buffalo Boy's Battle of Little Big Horny, the presumed last appearance of the eponymous hero, was fashioned as a wake, during which audience members were encouraged to walk to the stage and pound shots of whiskey. Stimson's performance (which stumbled briefly due to a winged contraption that refused to work) was accompanied by a video that turned the proceedings into something akin to a murder mystery, where various culprits who may have caused Buffalo Boy's demise appear before the camera. Although punctuated by moments of humour, the "wake" was a rather dour affair. An auspicious end to the fishnetted prairie outlaw.

Buffalo Boy's Battle of Little Bighorny