Theme is not just a single word. It’s more than a topic. It’s a statement or argument about that topic.

For example: instead of just “power,” a theme may be “The pursuit of power can lead to corruption.”

values, and assumptions about the world, which shapes their

understanding of reality and influences their thoughts, actions, and decisions.

Douglas is a photographer, filmmaker, and artist based out of Toronto, and an Ojibway from Mnjikaning First Nation .

He completed his BFA in Photography at OCAD University and his MFA in Photography at the University of British Columbia. He currently works as an Assistant Professor and Interim Chair of the Indigenous Visual Culture program at OCAD University.

: an implied or indirect reference especially in literature

to a poem that makes allusions to classical literature

also : the use of such references

2

: the act of making an indirect reference to something : the act of alluding to something

https://www.reconciliationeducation.ca/what-are-truth-and-reconciliation-commission-94-calls-to-action

(Artist and sculpter Ron) Baird says Sky Woman (the sculpture) honours the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) creation story. Residing in the Sky World, where beings with more powers and strengthn than humans lived, there once stood the Tree of Life. When the Tree of Life was uprooted, a pregnant woman fell through the hole, clutching at the roots and dirt as she descended.

"Now imagine, she's streaking down out of the sky towards the ocean," says Baird, "and the Canada geese rose up in a great flock, and saved her and they eased her passage down. There was no place to set her, so a huge snapping turtle rose up and she was put down on the back of this snapping turtle."

Otters and muskrats brought earth from the ocean's bottom and packed it onto the snapping turtle. Upon the Great Turtle, Sky Woman planted seeds and gave birth to her child, bringing life to what she called Turtle Island, and we call North America.