Revealing our Histories 

Revealing our Histories is a community-engaged art inquiry led by local artist and master printmaker Julie McIntyre involving the entire student body at Tecumseh, that raises awareness of the changing historical landscape and heritage of the school and surrounding Victoria-Fraserview neighbourhood on unceded Coast Salish lands. Students were divided into 6 cohorts and each group of 3 classes focused on one aspect of their community. All were engaging in historical research, uncovering local knowledge, archival images and personal histories. The resulting collage of imagery is transferred onto a series of double-sided banners using a variety of printmaking and textile processes including serigraphy, relief, cyanotype and embroidery. The banners will be installed permanently on the main floor of Tecumseh Elementary this June.

The Grade 6 & 7s in the first cohort studied the story of Tecumseh and drew parallels and differences with historical innovations in teaching that helped shape their current classroom experience, such as the mandating of recess breaks in 1896, or the similarities of the pandemic of 1917-19 to the COVID closures. Working with cyanotype, monoprint and screen-printing techniques, they collaged the material together into tunnel books that represented their personal experience at Tecumseh.

The second cohort’s theme was immigration patterns of the Victoria-Fraserview area, so we asked students to mine their homes and find family heirlooms, portraits, and treasured regalia that together represent the unique culture of their household.  Some images from the completed tunnel books by both intermediate cohorts were transferred onto screens and printed onto the canvas banners.

The third cohort’s Grade 4 & 5s explored indigenous histories including place names, land topography, displacement and what reconciliation could look like. In late November, Squamish ethnobotanist Senaqwila Wyss presented 3 walking tours to these Grade 4 & 5 students and introduced them to the Indigenous ways of being in nature. In the art room, we studied Musqueam artist, Susan Point and those she influenced particularly with her spindle whorl research and contemporary approach. We created our own two-colour circular stencils with indigenous plants and animals and printed them onto paper and directly on our banners.

Our Grade 1s and 2s also attended a walk with Senaqwila Wyse this spring where she explained the healing properties of many plants and showed them how to give thanks for their offerings. In the art room, we studied Indigenous plants and tried to image this neighbourhood for 1000s of years before the settlers arrived. The students drew botanical images from herbarium sheets and created cyanotypes, serigraphs as well as positive and negative monotypes directly from indigenous plants. Drawing with watercolour crayons directly on embroidery hoops with screens stretched tight, students used a transparent medium and a squeegee to transfer their plant images onto paper and canvas banners.

Cultural Historian John Atkins led some of our Grades 2, 3 and 4 students on walking tours this spring to study changes in domestic architecture and urban infrastructure. In the art room we focused on creating period house styles and printed them in relief on paper and built up the banners. The 3 Kindergarten classes are mapping the evolving and sometimes disappearing trails, roads, railways and waterways in the Victoria-Fraserview neighbourhood using embroidery and stamping techniques.