‘Zeal Without Wisdom’: Rushing for Reconciliation

“Creative expression supports everyday practices of resistance, healing, and commemoration at individual, community, regional, and national levels.… The arts help to restore human dignity and identity in the face of injustice.”
— Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, vol. 6, Canada's Residential Schools: Reconciliation

These words, found in volume six of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) final report, recognizes reconciliation achieved through the arts as a method integral to healing. Through its inquiry, the commission identified core problems within Canadian societal and government structures and released a subsequent 94 Calls to Action to implement systemic changes to policies and practices that discriminate against and harm Indigenous people. The Calls to Action are laid out with the intention to be implemented through personal, group, community, federal, provincial, territorial, municipal government and national action. As a result, commitments to working with Indigenous peoples were swiftly produced, such as the Government of Ontario’s “The Journey Together: Ontario’s Commitment to Reconciliation With Indigenous Peoples” in 2016, the Canada Council for the Arts’s {Re}conciliation project (May 2015 to June 2016) and Universities Canada’s “Principles on Indigenous Education” released in June 2015.

The University of Waterloo organized The Mush Hole Project in September 2016 in collaboration with 11 Indigenous and non-Indigenous organizations as