(left) SORRY (Stephen Harper), SORRY (Kevin Rudd), from the SORRY series, installation view, 112 x 163 cm inkjet prints; (right) WE ARE SORRY, detail, 610 cm x 1402 cm text-on-fabric panel, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, 2010.
WE ARE SORRY, detail, two 610 cm x 1402 cm text-on-fabric panels, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, 2010.
WE ARE SORRY, detail, two 610 cm x 1402 cm text-on-fabric panels, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, 2010.
(left) SORRY (Stephen Harper), SORRY (Kevin Rudd), from the SORRY series, installation view, 112 x 163 cm inkjet prints; (center and right) WE ARE SORRY, installation view, two 610 cm x 1402 cm text-on-fabric panels, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, 2010.
WE ARE SORRY, detail, 610 cm x 1402 cm text-on-fabric panel, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, 2010.
WE ARE SORRY launch, (left to right) Stephen Borys (Director, Winnipeg Art Gallery); Justice Murray Sinclair (Chair, Truth and Reconciliation Commission); Cathy Busby (artist); Commissioner Marie Wilson; Commissioner Chief Wilton Littlechild, standing in front of WE ARE SORRY, 610 cm x 1402 cm text-on-fabric panel, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, 2010.
WE ARE SORRY, production detail, trimming polyduck fabric in preparation for sewing, text-on-fabric panel for exhibition at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, 2010.
WE ARE SORRY, production detail, sewing ten strips of fabric together as required for each text-on-fabric panel, for exhibition at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, 2010.
Eckhardt Hall before installation of WE ARE SORRY, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, 2010.
Eckhardt Hall during installation of WE ARE SORRY, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, 2010.
WE ARE SORRY, didactic information (PDF file) detail, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, 2010.
WE ARE SORRY publication, #10 Artists & Activists series, Printed Matter, New York and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, on display at Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, 2010.
Smudging ceremony lead by Calvin Pompana outside the Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, 2010.
Smudging ceremony lead by Calvin Pompana outside the Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, 2010.
Hoop dancer, Brian Clyne, performing a healing dance in front of We Are Sorry, 610 cm x 1402 cm text-on-fabric panel, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, 2010.
After the hoop dance in front of WE ARE SORRY, 610 cm x 1402 cm text-on-fabric panel, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, 2010.
WE ARE SORRY Winnipeg (2010)
WE ARE SORRY (2010) is an installation made up of two panels with edited excerpts from the 2008 landmark apologies to Indigenous peoples made by Prime Ministers Stephen Harper (Canada) and Kevin Rudd (Australia), along with two prints of their mouths at the time of these apologies.
This work commemorates the public apologies these heads of state made to Indian Residential School survivors in Canada and members of the "Stolen Generations" in Australia. By presenting edited versions of their words at a scale that competes with large outdoor advertisements, and in colours that match the tone of the men's skin, this work calls for accountability and follow through from their governments after these public acknowledgements of their wrong doings.
Presented by invitation from The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, this installation in Winnipeg followed WE ARE SORRY's debut in Melbourne in 2009 as part of the Laneway Commissions and was accompanied by a publication, WE ARE SORRY (#10 Artists & Activists series, Printed Matter, New York).