Abinoojiiyens Ogichidaa - Baby Warrior

Four-layer screenprint
30 x 22 in.
Edition of 10
2024

Abinoojiiyens Ogichidaa - Baby Warrior (2024) is a screenprint of a sculptural work that I created in 1997 as a component of an installation work entitled Just/Us (1997). The installation work consisted of 14 small framed digital prints of the Baby Warrior’s face that sequentially abstracted into a landscape and were mounted on the wall in a continuous line. Directly below the framed images, a scale of justice was installed that had on one side a copy of the federal government of Canada’s Indian Act legislation. On the opposite side, the Baby Warrior sculptural work was installed consisting of a plastic doll covered with clay and over-painted with Anishinaabe Great Lakes’ floral motifs with fragments of the clay encasement missing.  At that time, the work addressed the impact of Canada’s legislation and policies of assimilation on Anishinaabe culture. From birth, children were impacted by a loss of culture, spirituality and language as represented through the missing fragments revealing exposed flesh areas. Since the work was created in 1997, there has been a great change in cultural reparation, so the context of the work has also changed. The missing fragments are no longer simply representing cultural erosion but can also be read as potential areas that are to be filled in with revitalized cultural attributes.