Into the Light wins Lieutenant Governor’s Ontario Heritage Award!

We are thrilled to share that “Into the Light: Eugenics and Education in Southern Ontario” has received The Lieutenant Governor’s Ontario Heritage Award! This award celebrates individuals, groups and communities for their exceptional contributions to heritage conservation – cultural and natural, tangible and intangible.

The Ontario Heritage Trust is an agency of the Ontario Ministry of Heritage, Sport, Tourism and Culture Industries. The Trust identifies, protects, promotes and conserves Ontario’s heritage. The Trust conserves provincially significant cultural and natural heritage, interprets Ontario’s history, educates Ontarians of its importance in our society, and celebrates the province’s diversity. The Trust envisions an Ontario where the places, landscapes, traditions and stories that embody our heritage are reflected, valued and conserved for future generations.

Into the Light is co-curated by Mona Stonefish, Peter Park, Dolleen Tisawii’ashii Manning, Evadne Kelly, Seika Boye and Sky Stonefish. This exhibition of artistic, sensory, and material expressions of memory aims to bring one of Guelph’s dark secrets, as well as stories of survival, out of the shadows and into the light. Co-presented by Re-Vision: Centre for Art and Social Justice, Bodies in Translation, and Respecting Rights, Arch Disability Law.

The exhibition is now closed at the Guelph Civic Museum, but you can read this piece by Evadne Kelly and Carla Rice in The Conversation Canada that outlines some of the experience, “Universities must open their archives and share their oppressive pasts.”

Dolleen, Sky, Evadne, and Mona on stage receiving the award at Queen’s Park in Toronto.
Evadne standing behind Mona, with a number of other people sitting and standing around them. They are both wearing red and smiling. 
Sky, Dolleen, Evadne, Carla, and Mona smiling together.
Mona smiling, wearing braids and a beaded sheriff’s hat, holding the award.