Davidee Ningeok, Sr., Residential School Nightmare, 2015

In Residential School Nightmare by Inuit sculptor Davidee Ningeok, Sr. (b.1982), an Inuit child kneels as a suited authority figure, likely a teacher, is poised to strike the youth’s hands with a ruler. Resting on the adult’s lap is a small ivory book inscribed with the text “XYZ xyz.” This detail makes explicit that what was being beaten into the child was the Euro-Canadian curriculum itself: the alphabet, arithmetic, and foreign forms of literacy imposed at the expense of Inuit knowledge. In capturing this moment of confrontation, the sculpture presents a stark and unflinching commentary on the lived trauma of colonial education in Inuit communities.

Ningeok’s choice of materials is deliberate. Soapstone, long associated with Inuit carving traditions, here becomes a vessel for testimony rather than celebration. The contrast between dark stone and bright ivory draws attention to the book and ruler, objects transformed from symbols of education into instruments of harm. In this juxtaposition, stone suggests weight and permanence, while ivory—fragile yet sharp—underscores the violence of enforced lessons.

The title Residential School Nightmare situates the work within the traumatic history of church and federally run institutions across Inuit Nunangat and Canada. For generations, Inuit children were taken from their families, punished for speaking their language, and subjected to physical and psychological abuse. In residential and day schools, corporal punishment, including striking children’s hands, was a common practice in an attempt to extinguish Indigenous identity. By rendering this moment in stone, Ningeok condenses countless memories into a single, haunting tableau.

Stylistically, the figures are monumental and block-like, pared down to essentials. Their abstraction makes the scene archetypal rather than individual, a universal image of power and vulnerability. The child’s defensive posture contrasts sharply with the teacher’s elevated stance, making visible the broader system of domination that underpinned colonial schooling.

The inscribed book is especially potent. While recalling elementary primers meant to teach letters and numbers, in this context, it becomes a symbol of coercion. Paired with the raised ruler, it reveals the paradox of education for Indigenous children: offered as opportunity, it was delivered as cultural erasure and violence.

Ningeok’s carving is both remembrance and resistance. Anchoring painful memory in enduring stone, Residential School Nightmare transforms trauma into witness and honours the resilience of Survivors. Its economy of means—stone, ivory, and a few engraved letters—conveys an entire system of cultural violence. In giving form to the nightmare, Ningeok ensures that this history is neither forgotten nor ignored.