Installed in the Centre Block hallway of Parliament in Ottawa, Giniigaaniimenaaning (“Looking Ahead”), is a powerful expression of Canada’s Apology for the culturally devastating residential school era, created by the Winnipeg Métis artist Christi Belcourt in 2012.
This section of the window includes the artist’s replication of a photo taken at the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School in Nova Scotia, an image typical of many surviving photos of Indigenous children in schools across Canada. That school was in operation from 1930 to 1967, and was the only such residential school in the Maritime provinces.
The window celebrates the profound continuity of the feminine in Indigenous cultures.