I produced the visual essay Isolation on the architecture of ‘Indian’ Hospitals in Canada and their tuberculosis patients. The essay is annotated with academic writing, written in a fragmented narrative style. I undertook the self-led project in a history course on Problems in the History of Aboriginal Peoples (Indigenous Health) while completing my Bachelors in History.

Isolation examines the experience of Indigenous patients in the more than twenty ‘Indian’ hospitals in operation by the Indian Health Service in Canada between the 1940s and 1970s, hospital architecture and the motivations and reasoning behind their creation.

The illustrations are made with acrylic, ink, pencil crayons, charcoal, found 3D materials, and primary and secondary sources printed on various paper types. I used visual and textual material from multiple sources including legislation, government publications, academic research, movies, stories, illustrations, newspapers, postcards and atlases.