Reconciling Home

From exhibiting artist, Theresa Williams: Reconciling Home is an exhibition of oil paintings inspired by my personal connection to the land and people of the middle Fraser Canyon where I grew up: people whose history, language, culture, and traditions reach back thousands of years, and whose identity is inseparable from their land.

My ancestry is mixed, European settler and Secwepemc, and although we lived immediately adjacent, our parents actively discouraged us from learning about our neighbours and closest relatives. Dad’s ancestry was unmistakable. He experienced discrimination throughout his long life and probably hoped to protect us as had his father before him. I thought receiving my piece of plastic would conclude a journey began many years before. Instead, I started asking myself, “Who are you, and where do you belong?” Identity and belonging are complicated and entail difficult work questioning the past and searching out answers despite incomplete records, family secrets, societal bias, and personal subjectivity.

My exhibition is presented at Leighton Art Centre in a gallery space with four corners, each pointing toward a cardinal direction. Clearly the Leightons built their home with intention. This alignment intrigues me, and my show responds to that. As Murray Sinclair tells us in his book, Who We Are: Four Questions for a Life and a Nation, identity work requires that we ask ourselves four questions: “Where do I come from? Where am I going? Why am I here? Who am I?” Four is important for many Indigenous peoples. Four cardinal directions, four seasons, four stages of life, and four core values. Four also symbolizes balance and completeness including the ways in which we are all connected to each other and the world around us.

Although the future worries me, I believe that if we learn to connect with and respect the land, then we can heal that relationship, and by extension, our relationships with each other. Seven generations is approximately 150 years and seven generations planning means considering how decisions made today may impact our community in the next 150 years. I invite you to stand in this space, reflect on your own roots, and consider the legacy you are helping to shape, not just for today, but for the generations yet to come.