Our Dreams Matter Too
Tired of going to school each day in crumbling buildings, First Nations children and youth across Canada created a report about their right to equal education. The multicoloured bubbles represent children's dreams — their optimism and their fragility. The red, yellow, white, and black bubbles on the cover of the report bear the colours of the medicine wheel and are separated from the other bubbles. The artwork asks whether the dreams of First Nations youth are as important, and therefore should be as well nurtured, as the dreams of non-Native youth.
Our Dreams Matter Too was submitted to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in 2012 and the resulting press attention and international scrutiny led to a motion for equitable and culturally based education being passed unanimously by the Canadian House of Commons. The report appears in acclaimed documentary filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin NFB film, Hi-Ho Mistahey!, which followed the national campaign from Attawapiskat to Geneva. Hi-Ho Mistahey debuted at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival.
Client: Ontario Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth