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October 19, 2018Redacted
As Jane Griffith says, “archives are sites of power.” (2) I think of them as the transactive memory of a society. They influence the way people think about themselves in the present and the future, by referencing the past. Hegemony is built upon carefully curated archives. And oppression can be disrupted by countering the national archivist’s handy-work.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) recognized the importance of the archive. That is why the TRC established the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR), a permanent archive of residential school history. As mentioned in section 0004 The Indian Act and the Filing Cabinet, this was the TRC’s method for filling in the absences of Canada’s history of Indigenous oppression and genocide. Through this process of compiling for the NCTR, the TRC attempted to acquire documents from Canada’s federal archive, Library and Archives Canada (LAC). They soon discovered that the LAC was not open to everyone. Getting access to the archives was met with significant resistance, and eventually resulted in a legal suit. And when access was finally granted, the TRC discovered that many of the documents had been “destroyed,” “culled,” or “redacted.” (3)
Governments tend to make sure that their filing cabinets are kept bureaucratic. And when it comes to filing documents regarding the criminal body, these bureaucratic cabinets function repressively. In this way, I see the state’s apparatus of control operating like a two-way mirror: the government has a clear view and those being watched just see a warped reflection of themselves. And when an establishment associated with the repressed class, like the TRC, requests to see the other side of the mirror the government has a habit of shattering the glass.
This process–of colonial activities committed by the government; their attempt to erase the oppressive history; those oppressed demanding to see the evidence of the history; and the government further obscuring the evidence–is the core of what initiated the creation of Redacted. At its core, it’s a project that explores archival erasure.
As outline in the didactic hung in Gallery 310, Redacted is:
“A performative intervention that confronts Canada’s history of legally justifying oppression and genocide. Redacted, as an embodied process, allows the artist to work through the Canadian history of colonialism and archival erasure. This work specifically points to the enduring violence of the Consolidated Indian Act of 1876, and the Canadian government’s institutional
apparatuses aimed at erasing this history.
The gallery contains images, newspaper clippings, and letters the artist has gleaned from various national, corporate, and indigenous archives. On the opposite wall, there is a 2017 Supreme Court of Canada decision, Canada v. Fontaine, that brings the notion of archival erasure to the present. Between these visuals, using video projection, the artist is shown reading and redacting the Indian Act; attaching it to the wall; and covering the archival material.”
This exhibition has four main components:
1) The collection and presentation of archival material that points to the history of Canada’s oppression and genocide of Indigenous people. A large portion of this history is represented by images of residential schools–as they were and as they are now. Many buildings have been demolished, but several still stand. Those that still stand bring up the conversation of physical spaces and objects representing a history. Many newspaper clippings show the divisive nature of this history, with survivors disagreeing as to whether the original schools and other relating evidence should be saved and kept for history. Some say that the history is too painful and should be destroyed. Others say that this history must be preserved so that we never do it again.
The archival material documenting the history of colonialism is countered by images that show Indigenous communities fighting against the long-standing oppression. Key images of this resistance are represented by photographs documenting the Oka crisis, a two and a half month stand-off between Mohawk protesters, police, and the army over the expansion of a golf course on a Mohawk burial grounds.
2) The performance of reading and redacting the Consolidated Indian Act of 1876. Reading the document in its entirety felt necessary. This document legally justified oppression and genocide in Canada. The text haunts our country. And for me to understand this spectre, I have to confront it directly.
Further, the act of redacting as I read is another symbolic gesture that points to the government’s history of record destruction and archival erasure. What I redact on each page is of minor significance. It is the act of reading and redacting a history that is important here. Once read, each page is then attached to the gallery wall, covering the archival images. This speak directly to way the document erased millions of people from time, by smothering them with colonial bureaucracy.
3) Across from the Indian Act hangs the Supreme Court of Canada decision, Canada v. Fontaine. This document concerns the destruction of records related to the settlement of claims arising from residential school survivors. The claims were all held through the Independent Assessment Process (“IAP”) of the TRC. These documents, consisting of roughly 37,000 testimonies, are the largest collection of records compiled under the TRC. The testimonies are filled with survivors recounting the horrors they experienced during their time at the residential schools.
The obvious reaction to this is that the government is attempting to silence the voices of the oppressed, yet again. But it is actually the government who intended to keep the records. The law suit came from a faction of residential school survivors. Ultimately, though, the decision is contentious–not unlike the conversation to preserve the physical buildings of the residential schools. Those survivors who want the records to be destroyed say they had given their testimony under the assumption that they would be kept private. Many survivors do not trust the government and would rather not have their sensitive information kept by the LAC or the NTRC.
Further, the argument has been made that 7,000 former residential school students gave their stories and experiences of the brutal history through the TRC, with the full knowledge that their documents would be archived. It is then argued that the history will not be erased with the destruction of these IAP testimonies. Not all former residential school students think this way, though.
Other survivors think that the records are an important part of history and should be preserved. They argue that names and other vulnerable information could be redacted in order to maintain privacy. Then all the records could be preserved to help give voice to more of the silences in the archive.
Regardless, there is such an absence in the history of residential schools that destroying the largest collection of records accumulated under the TRC does raise some concerns.
Ultimately, the Canada v. Fontaine decision declares that after 15 years all the records will be destroyed, unless the individual who gave the testimony requests their claim to be preserved. This of course has some logistical issues. Firstly, some survivors who gave testimony has since passed away. Their records will be destroyed. Secondly, the procedure for preserving the claim may seem too arduous or troublesome to many. Their records will be destroyed. Finally, communicating the requirement to request preservation to all 37,000 individuals is bound to encounter issues. Some may not receive the notification; others may dismiss the notification. Collectively, this could result in thousands of destroyed documents that could have added a significant depth and richness to the vast void in the history of Canadian oppression and colonialism.
Needless to say, this document raises many interesting questions regarding archival erasure. And when it is positioned across from the Indian Act the tension between these two documents creates an interesting space for reflection.
4) The final component of Redacted is shredding. All the documents in the gallery–the archival material, the Indian Act, and the Canada v. Fontaine decision–are taken from the walls and put through a shredder. The action of shredding the documents serves as the final punctuation of the embodied performance of reading and redacting the Indian Act.
The performance collective references the two steps of archival erasure. First, a moment, or collection of moments in history needs to happen, such as the enactment of the Indian Act. My reading of the Act represents the existence of this history. Second, the history needs to be deemed unsavoury, in regard to the hegemonic narrative. Thus, government agents destroy, cull, or redact the evidence of the history. My redaction and shredding represent this attempted erasure.
The pile of shredded paper is left in the centre of the gallery at the end of the exhibition. This represents the fact that even when the pens of the redactors and the blades of the shredders are large, sharp, and seemingly endless, the fragments of the history are always still present.
0002 Conceptual and Practical Issues with the Archive
0004 The Indian Act and the Filing Cabinet