By Tara Sprickerhoff
Harmonica sounds welcome visitors to the Parkside Art Gallery, where The Days of Augusta exhibit will open on Saturday, Jan. 14.
Walking into the exhibit, Mary Augusta Tappage Evans’ harmonica and stories fill the air, transporting visitors back to her cabin in Soda Creek in the 1960s.
While the pictures of Augusta, taken by Vancouver photographer Robert Keziere, are captivating, Augusta tells her stories in her own voice through audio and visual recordings made by Keziere and Jean E. Speare
Born in 1888 in Soda Creek, Augusta was the daughter of a Shuswap chief and a Métis woman. She attended the St. Joseph’s Mission residential school south of Williams Lake and was married at 15. Widowed as a young woman, Augusta taught herself midwifery skills and, alongside her own children, helped raise many other children in the area.
Parkside is working in partnership with the Stemete7uw’i “A Gathering Place” Friendship Centre to put on the exhibition. All donations will be given directly to the Friendship Centre.
Rob Diether, Stemete7uw’i Friendship Centre co-ordinator, knew Augusta before her death in 1978. He says the exhibit “reflects exactly” what Augusta was like. “She was very outspoken and she was a great conversationalist,” he says. “It is really pretty neat to think back and appreciate that’d met somebody like that in my life.”
The Friendship Centre is bringing their own work to the exhibition – bringing the feel of Augusta’s cabin to Parkside through the installation of a cook stove and other décor.
Diether says the Friendship Centre was pleased to collaborate with Parkside on the exhibit. “We thought it would be something that would be valuable for people to learn a little bit more about Shuswap culture. The story of Augusta is quite remarkable,” he says.
“There’s some history to be learned and it gives people something to think about with the residential school experience. We hope people come away feeling they’ve learned a little about that experience from an elder such as Augusta.”
An opening reception hosted by the Stemete7uw’i Friendship Centre will be held at the Parkside Art Gallery from 1-3 p.m. on Jan. 14. Elders and volunteers from the friendship centre will be present and tea and bannock will be served.
The exhibition will run from Jan. 14 to Feb. 4. at the Parkside Art Gallery.
