The Witness Blanket, a travelling exhibition from the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, features a full-scale photographic replica of the original Witness Blanket, a powerful art installation by Indigenous master carver Carey Newman. The art installation honours the resilience of Survivors of the Indian residential school system.
Inspired by a woven blanket, the installation incorporates hundreds of items from residential schools, churches, cultural sites, and communities across Canada. Each item represents an individual story, creating a strong collective narrative of loss, strength, reconciliation and pride.
The exhibition invites visitors to bear witness, reflect on the legacy of residential schools, and consider their own role in reconciliation.
The Witness Blanket, an exhibition based on the art of Carey Newman and developed in collaboration with, and circulated by, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (Winnipeg, Manitoba).
Explore the Witness Blanket at witnessblanket.ca.
Watch the documentary film at CINÉ+
Picking Up the Pieces: The Making of the Witness Blanket
Duration: 55 minutes
Presented in English with French subtitles.
Content Guidance: This documentary contains coarse language and detailed accounts of physical and psychological abuse.
The documentary film Picking Up the Pieces: The Making of the Witness Blanket follows master carver Carey Newman as he and his team travel over 200,000 kilometres across Canada, visit 77 communities, meet over 10,000 people. They welcome more than 800 objects into their care, which will become part of a 12-metre-long cedar artwork honouring the children of the residential school era. Collected from residential schools, churches, and government buildings, each recovered object has a story to tell, and each Survivor has something to say. Narrated by the artist, the film weaves Survivors’ stories with Carey Newman’s personal journey, examining how art can open our hearts to the pain of truth and the beauty of resilience.
Picking Up the Pieces: The Making of the Witness Blanket
Support: If you are a residential school Survivor or family member in need of emotional support, a national crisis line is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week: 1–866-925-4419.
Photo at top of page:
By Aaron Cohen, CMHR
