Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

The objective of this project is to illustrate the need for cultural safety in the practice of biosceintific medicine. Clinical research is often overflowing with the statistical demise of Indigenous Peoples. This project exposes Canada's dark colonial history, while illuminating the resilience of Indigenous Peoples. It demonstrates the need for cultural safety in bio scientific medicine, while creating a space for healing. Within the arts based methodology of image-based storytelling, I invoke the Indigenous tradition of image making to disseminate knowledge through intergenerational teachings. For thousands of years, images were used to impart knowledge about traditions, laws and ceremonies. Visual communication continues to play an important role in Indigenous cultures. I utilize this artistic medium to both understand and assert Indigenous worldviews, which promotes individual and community learning. A portion of my thesis is being used in a video teaching module for medical students as the university of Toronto. This video facilitates cultural safety by explicating the colonial history of Canada and highlighting Indigenous concepts of health and wellbeing illustrated in my paintings. The goal of my research is to humanize biosceintific medicine through image-based storytelling as I situate my art in the Indigenous continuum of passing knowledge in images.