Students create sculpture inspired by Indigenous stories via online classes

A group of high school students brushed finishing oil onto a sculpture at a ceremony in Vancouver Thursday, after several weeks of online video classeswhere they imagined and planned outwhat the sculpture would look like.

Students from various Vancouver high schools were originally supposed to carve the piece together, butCOVID-19 restrictions sidelined those plans.

Instead, they had to wait until the past few weeks tohelp carve and sand parts of the piece with their instructor, Indigenous education teacher David Robinson, as someCOVID-19 restrictions were graduallylifted.

Robinson said he held onlinemeetingsfor students to come up with a theme and vision for the piece.

"I would share some stories that my mom has shared with me ... from Indigenous histories," Robinsonsaid. "From that, they would share ... what they heard and they would say what they saw."

Robinson, who is from TimiskamingFirst Nation in Quebec, led students, teachers and their parents in a ceremony in Sahalli Park in East Vancouver, where they spread oil on the carving in front of an audience.

Robinson said the shape and texture of the piece represents all theideas students shared with each other oversix weeks.

"What the piece represents is transformation: transformation of the education space, of the carving process, and of ourselves within that process," said Robinson.

Grade 11 student Dakota Whonnock was a student in the class. She said the process was strange at first but she was happy to see the finished piece.

"It was really awkward to position the sculpture and put input in," she said, noting that the best part of the experience was seeing a work of art created during a pandemic.

Robinson introduced students as they came up one by one to oil the sculpture. When Whonnock was called, she introduced herself using her Indigenous name, Walk'ine'ga meaning "she is the one we've been waiting for" for the first time.

"I felt really proud," she said.

Six to 10 students participated in the class,which was run by the Vancouver School Board and the East Van Education Centre. The sculpture will eventually live at the board's head office.