Krystle Silverfox's work, Apprehension, speaks to her mother's experience in the #60sScoop

 Krystle Silverfox uses beading to bring healing and care to mother's '60s Scoop story

Artist's series titled 'Apprehension' will comprise nearly 300 documents

Edzi'u Loverin · CBC News ·  October 20

Artist Krystle Silverfox redacts her mother's foster care documents by beading over the personal or traumatic information contained on each page. (Submitted by Krystle Silverfox)

Krystle Silverfox spends her days taping the back of 286 documents that record her mother's early life.

Silverfox, an east-Vancouver raised artist now based in Whitehorse, then redacts her mother's foster-care files by beading carefully over the personal or traumatic information contained on each page.

"I tape the back so that way it ... doesn't just rip apart easy," said Silverfox, a member of Selkirk First Nation in Yukon.

"I see beadwork as a way to convey care and, like, putting things together."

Silverfox's mother is a Sixties Scoop survivor, one of thousands of Indigenous children who were apprehended by child welfare authorities from the 1960s to the 1980s and placed with non-Indigenous families.

This document belongs to Krystle Silverfox's work, Apprehension, which speaks to her mother's experience in the Sixties Scoop. (Submitted by Matthew Hanick)

Her work is one of four artist's pieces to be highlighted by United Contemporary gallery in Toronto during the 27th Art Toronto fair, which runs Oct. 29 to Nov. 1.

It's called Apprehension, which Silverfox said not only represents the Sixties Scoop, but also speaks to how she felt while looking at documents that share her mother's experiences.

"I'm apprehensive reading these because it's such a difficult thing to go through," said Silverfox.

"But then as I'm doing the work to redact things, it feels a little bit more empowering or more, I guess, healing."

She said she's beaded 23 of the 286 documents so far.

'It's a little bit educational, but it's also something that honours ... an experience that so many people have,' says Krystle Silverfox. (Submitted by Matthew Hanick)

"Beading on paper, it's a little challenging," said Silverfox.

"Paper is very delicate, right? So it's easy to rip. So it does take a lot of care and time to make sure I'm doing things correctly."

'Like viewing the receipts'

This year's Art Toronto has more than 100 exhibitors, including galleries, project spaces, and cultural institutions from Canada and around the world. Nearly one third of participating galleries will show work from Indigenous artists.

Melanie Trojkovic, gallery director at United Contemporary, said five or six documents from Silverfox's Apprehension series will be on display at the gallery's booth.

"We wanted to really celebrate female identifying artists at this time, and all of them who look to, research, archive, and honour family histories, as well as generational trauma," said Trojkovic.

"I'm hoping that majority of people will be able to access this history through her beautiful work."

Trojkovic, who is originally from Australia, said that history made her emotional.

"Here in Canada, the Sixties Scoop specifically was something that I was learning through Krystle's work," said Trojkovic.

"It's like viewing the receipts.... It just brings home all these lives that were impacted by this institutionalized scoop and apprehension of Indigenous children."

• The Sixties Scoop

• Q&A

  Krystle Silverfox moved from B.C. to the Yukon — to a town so small it doesn't have an art supply store

That education is one part of what Silverfox was hoping to accomplish.

"Talking about what happened is really important not only for myself and other Indigenous people to relate to it, but also people who don't even know what the Sixties Scoop is," said Silverfox.

"It's a little bit educational, but it's also something that honours ... an experience that so many people have."

Silverfox said another work that contends with four fragments of a Hudson's Bay blanket will also be featured at United Contemporary's booth during Art Toronto.

"On the blanket there's beaded text, and the text is inspired from early treaties and the Indian Act," said Silverfox.

"[It's] about the connection, what it was supposed to mean to have these contracts between early settlers and Indigenous people."