Artist Describes Quest for Witness Blanket

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Artist Carey Newman and the Witness Blanket. (photo courtesy CMHR, by Doug Little)

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights will host the national launch for a book that explores an artist's quest to gather items from the sites of more than 130 Indian residential schools.

The items were incorporated in the Witness Blanket, an art installation by master carver Carey Newman (Ha-Yalth-Kin-Geme).

Newman and co-author Kirstie Hudson will speak with CBC broadcast journalist Shelagh Rogers, about their book, Picking up the Pieces: Residential School Memories and the Making of the Witness Blanket. 

It takes place at 7 p.m. on Nov. 20. A free ticket is required, available online at humanrights.ca.

Newman, a renowned Kwakwaka'wakw and Coast Salish artist, began the project to honour his father, a residential school survivor. He and his team travelled some 200,000 kilometres across Canada, meeting thousands of people. They collected more than 800 pieces of history, from bricks and doors to shoes and dolls that were embedded in the Witness Blanket. 

Source: Canadian Museum for Human Rights