Ri'pin'tsas ílti skv́lhta, ílti spl’úkwa muta7 i skcúsa. Raised in mud, wood smoke, and tears: Reclaiming Indigenous Identity Post Sixties Scoop

Raised in mud, wood smoke, and tears is a personal exploration through research/praxis that investigates ways of re-connecting to oral storytelling and land-based forms of knowledge that were ruptured by the Sixties Scoop. My praxis involves the unfolding of an intergenerational narrative that is presented: both my mother, Maria Mae Pascal, and my late grandmother, Theresa Attsie Pascal of the Lil’wat Nation are survivors of the Sixties Scoop which was the mass apprehension of Aboriginal children from their families into the child welfare system that began during the 1960’s and is said to have continued until the 80’s, but I believe it continues still today as our children are still being taken. This thesis is a response to the profound losses left from this part of my colonial history; the land-based elements are representations of these places of disconnection and reconnection. It is an MFA journey that grapples with the intergenerational effects of cultural genocide but is also a story about the reclamation of ancestral heritage. This thesis support document tracks the forces and processes of my research and final MFA project. It is a multi-sensorial installation that invites viewers to inhabit the space and feel the loss and hope that is being evoked through the work.