For the next couple of months my work will be hosting the Archives of Ontario travelling exhibit A Lifetime – Day by Day, Five Women and Their Diaries. I booked that particular exhibit with the knowledge that we have lots of material relating to women in the archives that would be excellent to showcase along side the travelling exhibit. But other than that general idea I hadn’t really started to think about specific content until last month.
When I started speaking with a few people on campus our ideas around a companion exhibit quickly evolved into featuring the lives and work of Indigenous women. This idea evolved partially out of the fact that the Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre preserves a lot of content relating to Indigenous communities and women. It was also partially inspired by the knowledge that the AO travelling exhibit panels all feature content focused on white pioneer women. We hope our companion exhibit would help provide a more balanced glimpse at women’s history in Canada.
This week we setup the first display case (below) of our Indigenous Women Rebuilding A Nation companion exhibit. I feel incredibly lucky to work with such strong and inspiring Indigenous women on a daily basis and to have their help in putting together this initiative. In addition to this single display case next week we plan on installing a larger exhibit highlighting the Mother Earth Water Walk and the women involved in running the water walks.
