Students chip in to art memorial for Indigenous murder victims

An artistic tribute to missing and murdered Indigenous women, children and LGBT people is under construction in E-building’s AC Hub. The medium: Books, wrapped in Indigenous-made cloth.

Students were tasked with cleanly wrapping the books and then ironing on gold letters with the names of the victims. Algonquin College said in an Instagram video that “the installation visually represents the lives to be honoured and the collective grief of their loved ones.”

“It’s kinda tedious, but it’s important work,” said Samantha Therrien, who works on the event team, on wrapping the books. “It’s not just their books, it’s a representation of (the missing and murdered Indigenous people). We also have a binder with their stories.”

The binder lists the name of each victim to be honoured, their age, location and manner of disappearance or death. Some of the cases stretch back decades.

The concept is part of The Canadian Library project, which describes itself as a “living memorial to honour Indigenous women, girls and children … to help fellow settlers understand the past, the present and what must be done for the future.”

The project aims to collect 8,000 books and Algonquin College’s goal is 300.

But that may be a long ways off. Only 126 books were on the shelf at about 3 p.m. on Sept. 30. The event team gave out materials on two days, Sept. 26 and Sept. 30, which is the National Day for Truth & Reconciliation.

They plan to keep the installation up while accepting self-made contributions. After a few weeks, the installation will move to the Spiritual Centre, and then to an undetermined central collection of The Canadian Library.

And why books?

“I think it’s because these women’s stories haven’t been told,” said Joanne Cairns, events manager for the college. “There’s things we won’t know about them.” Many of the disappearances are still unsolved.

The art installation was the first part of Algonquin’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation events. It was a collaboration between the student events team, the college’s events team and their Department of Truth, Reconciliation and Indigenization. The supplies and books were contributed by Algonquin staff. They’re mostly children’s books, but the actual words are seen as unimportant. “They had to be a certain size,” Therrien said, “but other than that, whatever.”

The fabric was supplied by The Canadian Library, which buys it from Indigenous businesses using donated money.

The project can be seen in the AC Hub, alongside a sign which explains:

“(This is) a grassroots art installation that will serve as a memory of all Indigenous Women and Children that have been murdered or gone missing and for colonizers to learn the true history of Turtle Island, now known as Canada. TCL’s hope is to help bring about true reconciliation.”