Threads of Truth
A storytelling and photography project, allowing students to document truths about our shared colonial history and its impact.
Threads of Truth
A storytelling and photography project, allowing students to document truths about our shared colonial history and its impact.
Threads of Truth is a project designed to give youth an opportunity to share their knowledge as well as their emotional and spiritual growth by actively creating images and telling stories through photography.
As students processed curriculum (the reality of our shared colonial history and some of the Contemporary Issues facing Indigenous communities) it became critical to give them an outlet to work through their feelings while allowing them to contribute to creating a new narrative for their peers and community.
Indigenous Knowledge doesn’t just engage the intellect, it also engages the heart, spirit and body. It acknowledges the importance of respectful and reciprocal relationships, personal experience and perspective and a sense of agency in order to shape the world around us through our thoughts, actions and feelings.
Debwewin means to speak the truth from your understanding and position.
For the past five years students across District School Board Ontario North East have been challenged to use these principles as they explored the role of storytelling through photography. The resulting images were curated into an exhibit called Debwewin: Threads of Truth, with each photo representing a new thread in which we can explore the truth of our shared colonial history. It is our hope that honouring this truth will lead to meaningful action for reconciliation.
For information on our guiding principles and how to being creating images for an exhibit in your local community, please email threadsoftruths@gmail.com.