Carey Newman
January 15 to April 10, 2022
The Front Project Space
Detail from a panel of The Witness Blanket travelling exhibition, Kelowna Art Gallery, 2022.
The Witness Blanket is a large-scale installation by artist and master carver Carey Newman, inspired by a woven blanket. The Kelowna Art Gallery is honoured to exhibit a 40-foot-long reproduction of The Witness Blanket, constructed from cedar with photographic panels to represent the original artifacts.
The Witness Blanket stands as a national monument to recognize the atrocities of the Indian residential school era, honour the children, and symbolize on-going reconciliation. The original piece is made from hundreds of items reclaimed from Indian residential school survivors and their families, band offices, churches, government, friendship centres, and other cultural organizations, which were borrowed from 77 separate sites across Canada. Each item tells a story of loss, strength, resilience, and pride.
The Witness Blanket is an exhibition based on the art of Carey Newman and was developed in collaboration with, and circulated by, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (Winnipeg, Manitoba).
View on interactive online version here: https://witnessblanket.ca/blanket
The Gallery would like to acknowledge the many community partners who assisted with the presentation of The Witness Blanket in Kelowna: Central Okanagan Public Schools, Kelowna Museums, Okanagan Indian Band, sncewips Heritage Museum, syilx Okanagan Nation Alliance, Westbank First Nation, and UBC Okanagan.
Organized and circulated by:
Exhibition supported by:
VIDEO
Join us for a special evening with artist Carey Newman and hear more about the creation of The Witness Blanket.
