The Canadian Library Project

Taking part in Orange Shirt Day is a simple way for our CGS community to honour Canada’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Observed annually, we use this time as an opportunity to learn with our students; about the history of this injustice, to promote empathy toward Indigenous communities and a deeper understanding of their resilience.

We want to move forward in action to honour and support the steps toward healing. How can we do this?

CGS was able to welcome speakers from The Canadian Library Project; our own CGS educator, Dana Korba and her colleague and co-founder of the Library project, Shanta Sundarason.

After discussing the significance of Orange Shirt Day, Dana and Shanta performed a traditional smudging. They burned sweetgrass and sage to purify our minds, bodies, and hearts and helped us to “wash” the smoke over us.

They introduced swatches of fabric for us to touch and to examine the art and symbols within each pattern. Dana and Shanta explained what they do with these significant fabrics – which is to cover books.

Together, they spoke about their initiative as a living art installation where “micro-galleries” are created as a visual lesson to raise awareness, to help settlers learn, to support and respect Indigenous peoples in Canada. TCL’s goal is to cover 8,000 books in Indigenous fabric with one name on each of the bindings to commemorate the lives lost.

The micro galleries are in locations across Canada and North America: within schools, universities, libraries, multiple IKEA stores, even an espresso bar in Toronto’s Beltline, art galleries, and The Ontario Securities Commission.

Keep an eye out…once you see these beautiful installations your kids can help spot them too and make a real-world connection to their education at CGS while honouring this long journey toward truth-telling and meaningful reconciliation.

In the next few weeks, Dana will be working with our classes and educator teams to create our own CGS micro-gallery

Thank you to The Canadian Library Project!