Dr Andrea Walsh | Principle Researcher and Smyth Chair in Arts and Engagement
Hello! my work in the Visual Stories Lab (VSL) is anchored by my training visual artist, anthropologist and curator. Projects I work on through the VSL use arts-methods with a focus on visual storytelling. Much of this work culminates in art exhibitions and educational programming. I am presently working on two graphic novels through which I’m bringing together the work of drawing, archival research, and community engagement. My past and present projects focus on curatorial projects with contemporary Salish artists, and the repatriation of children’s art to Survivors from Indian Residential and Day Schools. I work with Survivors, their families, and communities, to co-create exhibitions and education opportunities with their returned childhood artworks. I have had the privilege to work in collaboration district and civic museums in B.C. and the Canadian Museum of History in Hull, Que. to share stories and artworks around repatriation as a form of reconciliation. Our work includes families from the Osoyoos Indian Band over 24 years focusing on artworks by children who attended the Inkameep Day School during the WWII era, and since 2012 I’ve collaborated with Survivors of the Alberni Indian Residential School, who were at the school during the early 1960s.
Photo credit Taylor Baptiste.