Art Installation Honours Sixties Scoop Survivor – 91.9 The Bend

Months of work by Grade 8 students at Quispamsis Middle School culminated in a massive art display at the qplex on Friday evening.

More than 14,000 hand-painted cardboard squares were assembled to create a mosaic, measuring 18 metres by 18 metres, depicting a portrait of Sixties Scoop survivor Minda Burley as a child.

“My favourite word today is overwhelmed,” Burley said after Friday’s unveiling. “All the work they did was unbelievable.”

During the Sixties Scoop, about 20,000 Indigenous children were taken from their families and placed in the child welfare system for fostering and adoption. As a result, many of these children were deprived of a connection to their land, culture, and heritage.

Burley was taken from her Cree family in Saskatchewan as a young child and moved to New Brunswick with her adopted family.

Now living in Sussex, Burley only learned that she was a survivor of the Sixties Scoop a few years ago.

“I had a good life, but when I came upon knowing I was a Sixties Scoop survivor, then I’m thinking ‘OK, I’ve lost a part of my life now.’ It bothers me a lot, but I can’t dwell on it. What I have to do is move forward, inform people what’s going on,” she said.

Minda Burley stands near the mosaic depicting a portrait of her as a child. Image: Brad Perry

Heidi Stoddart, a visual arts teacher at Quispamsis Middle School, said the point of the project was to have cross-curricular learning through the arts.

Combining subject areas like visual arts and social studies, the students learned about the historic roots and modern-day impacts of the Sixties Scoop by exploring it through the visual arts and hearing stories of survivors.

Stoddart reached out to Sussex artist Bonny Hill, who is friends with Burley, and asked if she wanted to help create an art installation recognizing the tragic history of the Sixties Scoop and bringing awareness to the Every Child Matters movement.

“To see it here today, it’s been incredibly emotional for all of us involved to see that happen and to see Minda’s reaction,” said Stoddart.

“From starting off with piles and piles of old used cardboard getting stocked in the school as we collected from people’s recycle bins to the cutting and the measuring and the painting, there were a lot of logistics to it.”

Every Grade 8 class at the school — about 180 to 190 students — was involved in the project, said Stoddart.

“Hearing some of our students being interviewed today and hearing them speak so eloquently and compassionately, it really hit home how meaningful this project and what they learned is and the impact they’re having on our community,” she said.

The cardboard squares will now be passed on to Rothesay High School so they can create another portrait of a Sixties Scoop survivor.

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