Under the theme “Man and His World,” Expo 67 dazzled over 50 million visitors with 90 pavilions showcasing feats of technology and displays by 60 participating nations. But the late 1960s was a time of great social change, and not all corners of Expo shared in the prevailing mood of optimism.

Domestic spaces have long served as sites of encounter between Indigenous Peoples and colonial powers. Under colonial conditions, the home can become a refuge, but also a site of oppressive state intervention in the most intimate details of daily life.

We spent six hours a week in our first term learning about the Holocaust from one of the world’s foremost experts on Auschwitz, even as a powerfully tangible reminder of Canada’s own genocidal history stood, silently, a half-hour away. I’d visited Auschwitz, or Oswięcim, as it’s known in Polish, the summer before starting university. It wouldn’t be until graduate school that I would walk through the doors of the Mohawk Institute.

Conference paper on residential school architectures in Canada, USA, Australia, and New Zealand at SAHANZ 2017.