CANTICO OF RECONCILIATION
A Journey Home - The Last Feather - Cantico
Exhibition Project
curated by Gigliola Foschi
The climate crisis and the pandemic catastrophe should urge us to recognize and re-consider the interconnections between cultures, life forms, and ecosystems that our way of life has relentlessly destroyed in the past centuries.
One of the scopes of responsible Art is to mend the broken ties between humans and the environment. Art should attempt to reweave relations, cooperation, and reciprocal exchanges.
Today, an author like Daria Cipriani is committed to listening and being inspired by Canadian First Nations people, their cultures, and socio-economic systems that are more in tune with the needs and the preservation of the Planet.
'Cantico of Reconciliation' is a tribute to the First Nations culture, history, Spirit, and resilience. As an artist-magician, Daria Cipriani makes their stories and history re-emerge in the present; she embraces and identifies with their way of seeing a 'talking' nature, beautiful and majestic. She portrays faces steeped in experiences and the disasters caused by the oppression and denial of Indigenous people's culture.
In fact, by suppressing their culture and way of life connected to Nature, by forcibly segregating their children in residential schools, by taking away their identity, the Canadian Government's attempt of assimilation failed abysmally. It resulted in trauma that still affects First Nations people. The Cantico series addresses an area of Vancouver where those consequences are sadly tangible.
The good news is that the wind of Reconciliation is blowing in the right direction. In 2008 Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized to all former 'residential school' students, acknowledging the damage to their culture, history, and language.
He also recognized the First Nations' culture's contribution to the Country's future, especially their respect and perennial gratitude to the Earth.
