The history of Canada is linked to settle colonialism and white supremacy. Only recently have elements of Canada come to truly think through what this means: Canada, and settler Canadians, owe their existence to the forceful removal of indigenous populations from their terrorities.

Toronto is currently hosting an art exhibit, “Built on Genocide.” It’s created by the indigenous artist, Jay Soule | CHIPPERWAR,¹ and provides a visual record of the link between the deliberate decimation of the buffalo and its correlation with the genocide of indigenous populations. From the description of the exhibit:

Built on Genocide is a powerful visual record of the 19th-century buffalo genocide that accompanied John A. MacDonald’s colonial expansion west with the railroad. In the mid-19th century, an estimated 30 to 60 million buffalo roamed the prairies, by the late 1880s, fewer than 300 remained. As the buffalo were slaughtered and the prairie ecosystem decimated, Indigenous peoples were robbed of their foods, lands, and cultures. The buffalo genocide became a genocide of the people.

Working from archival records, Soule combines installation and paintings to connect the past with the present, demanding the uncomfortable acknowledgement that Canada is a nation built on genocide.

What follows are a series of photographs that I made while visiting the exhibit on October 13, 2021. All images were made using an iPhone 12 Pro using the ‘Noir’ filter in Apple Photos, and subsequently edited using a Darkroom App filter.

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Canada is, and needs to be, going through a reckoning concerning its past. This process is challenging for settlers, both to appreciate their actual histories and to be made to account for how they arrived at their current life situations. There are, obviously, settlers who are in challenging life situations—som experience poverty and are otherwise disadvantaged in society—but their challenges routinely pale in comparison to what is sadly normal and typical in Canada’s indigenous societies. As just one example, while poverty is a real issue for some white and immigrant Canadians, few lack routine access to safe and clean drinking water. None have lacked access to safe and clean water for over 26 years but this is the lived reality of indigenous populations in Canada.