11 First Peoples in 11 Words at Laval University

Discovery, wild, Indian TimePocahontas, bannock, God, family names, obey, reserve, school and reconciliation… These are the words that the exhibition revisits 11 words, 11 First Peoples – Let us tell our territory, presented at the Laval University library.

I feel really proud to be able to see all these texts, objects and images in a real entity, because it has always been nebulous. I have always seen the scripts, but now I see, and I feel very proudsays one of the co-curators of the exhibition, Moïra Ashini, an Innu from Pessamit.

However, the realization of the exhibition – which took two and a half years – was laborious for her, because she does not come from the world of museology.

All these words that we have given importance to, which could have a very colonial aspect, here, we are trying to re-appropriate these words to show, to educate people who may be ignorant because ignorance is not a fault.

Not knowing is not a flaw. It just makes room for learning. That’s the wonderful thing about it.

The Innu co-commissioner was selected through a competition notice among the university’s Indigenous student population. It was posted, I jumped in with both feet with the aim of having fun discovering a subject that interests me a lot, that is to say the First Nations.explains the former musicology student.

A duo that complements each other

Moïra Ashini teamed up with Marie-Kim Gagnon. In this duo, Marie-Kim Gagnon brings more technical skills to the exhibition since she is a trained museologist.

For me, it is a lesson in humility for all the people who will come because it is about knowing, it is about deepening our knowledge of the issues, of the stereotypes, in short, of the world of indigenous people, therefore of the First Nations, here.

The creation of this exhibition allowed the curators to go and meet the 11 nations themselves in their territories. They had to adapt to their interlocutors throughout their work, to the point of involuntarily experimenting with the concept of their exhibition.

[Il y avait un] distance issue and [de] time, because there is also a timeline, so we were talking about one of the words which is “Indian time”take the timesays Marie-Kim Gagnon.

In a sense, to know is also to learn to recognize. To come and recognize their rights, to come and recognize the wounds caused by colonialism, so the exhibition brings together words that echo all of that.explains the anthropology graduate from Laval University.

The exhibition, a collaboration between Université Laval and Terre Innue inspired by the podcast Let us tell you : the crooked story, is on display until September 21, 2025.