Kuujjuaq painter portrays truth and reconciliation through new eyes

Scene portrays children coming home, says artist Hannah Tooktoo

Hannah Tooktoo stands with her new painting at the Isuarsivik Recovery Centre in Kuujjuaq, where it will be framed and displayed. (Photo by Cedric Gallant)

By Cedric Gallant - Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Kuujjuaq artist Hannah Tooktoo says she wanted to paint an image of truth and reconciliation, but not one that focuses on trauma.

“To come home, knowing that you are welcomed and loved, I wanted to capture that moment,” she said of her painting, titled Anirraanijuq.

The image, which took her nearly three weeks to complete, depicts three children returning home from residential schools. It will be framed and displayed at the Isuarsivik Recovery Centre in Kuujjuaq.

More than 150,000 Indigenous children across the country were removed from their families and home communities and forced to attend the government-funded institutions, which were meant to strip away their culture and language. Canada’s last residential school closed in the mid-1990s.

“You can’t tell if it is a girl or a boy on purpose, so anyone can put themselves in there,” Tooktoo said of the children in her painting.

They could even be those who “were killed, were trying to run away and died, whatever it may be.”

The piece, Tooktoo said, is also for today’s children to have their own version of a homecoming.

While the scene is happy, the children’s faces have a distinct red glow that symbolizes the different trauma or pain each individual carries from their experience at the schools, she said.

It took a collective effort from multiple Isuarsivik employees, including an elder and a translator, to come up with the name Anirraanijuq, which means “going home after a long journey.”

Tooktoo said she had a hard time coming up with a name on her own, because she felt too close to it.

The namesake journey is in some ways literal. Many Inuit were sent to Churchill, Man., which for some of them required days and days of travel, said Tooktoo.

It also symbolizes the journey of navigating residential schools as a kid, with all of the trauma and abuse.

“It was such a good name for the painting,” said Tooktoo.

She said her inspiration came from her own experience with her parents, who were residential school survivors. She called it a “small little tribute” to them.

“I may not know the whole story,” she said, “but the silence is very loud.

“I did not want [the painting] to be so traumatic, I took very good care in making it welcoming.”

Tooktoo said popular representation of truth and reconciliation is often about slamming down the trauma, which can also be retraumatizing.

“These are real experiences and we can’t just use it as trauma porn,” she said.

“[My painting] is a peaceful little scene … I wanted it to feel like a safe space.”

 

Anirraanijuq, which in Inuktitut means “going home after a long journey,” is a painting that portrays children coming home from residential schools to their family in Nunavik. The painting was done by Hannah Tooktoo. (Photo by Cedric Gallant)

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