Photo of the Week
The statue of Egerton Ryerson, the architect of the residential school system, along with the statue of John A. Macdonald and King Edward VII were defaced in an art-based BLM protest in Toronto on July 18th. The statues exalt figures who have historically contributed to the oppression of BIPOC in Canada; as such, protesters demanded they be taken down.
These monuments to figures that have negatively shaped our society have always been there, but it took the act of defacing them for their current context to become visible.
Residues of the past have remained, emerging in new forms that continue to oppress BIPOC communities. These figures have inflicted intergenerational trauma, and their presence is a continuous reminder of that.