A Workshop for Healthcare Professionals: Creating Visual Narratives of Care and Cultural Safety with Lisa Boivin

On October 4th, Creating Visual Narratives of Care and Cultural Safety, with Lisa Boivin was held for current and future healthcare professionals at the Two Rivers Art Gallery in downtown Prince George. Community members who were in attendance included Northern Health practitioners and policymakers, staff and faculty from the University of Northern British Columbia and College of New Caledonia, First Nations Health Authority (FNHA) employees, physicians, social workers, teachers, medical residents, dieticians, nurses, graduate students, and more!

The afternoon begun with a tour of the Two Rivers Gallery exhibit: REDRESS: Sacred Obligation – Indigenous Voices on Reconciliation. This exhibit involved a broad range of art forms and media from Indigenous artists, predominantly from BC, who shared their views on the lasting impacts of residential schools and expressed their voices on the process of reconciliation.

Following a lunch for participants, Lisa began her three-part, arts-based workshop. Lisa first provided a personal account of Canada’s colonial history as it relates to the health outcomes of Lisa and her family. This part of the workshop involved participants viewing vibrant digital painting art pieces created by Lisa that inspired reflection on cultural safety, cultural respect, and cultural humility in healthcare.

The second and third parts of the workshop involved reflexive, arts-based exercises that used image-based storytelling to explore nation building in the workplace and to create a visual narrative of the clinical and personal self. Thank you to all participants who attended and contributed their thoughtful reflections and creative personal visual narratives. View some of the visual narratives created and shared by participants in the gallery below! 

About Lisa Boivin
Lisa Boivin is a member of the Deninu Kue First Nation in Northwest Territories, completing her Doctoral Studies at the Rehabilitation Sciences Institute within the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine. Lisa utilizes Indigenous pedagogical techniques, specifically image-based storytelling, to educate current and future healthcare professionals on the obstacles Indigenous patients face in navigating through the Canadian Healthcare System. Lisa strives to humanize clinical medicine as she situates her arts-based practice in the Indigenous continuum of passing knowledge through images.

Thank you to Elder Darlene McIntosh for her grounding words and welcoming to the traditional territory of the Lheidli T’enneh. Thank you to Two Rivers Art Gallery for their willingness to host the event in their welcoming creative space, offer exhibit tours to participants, and provide exceptional support to make the workshop run smoothly.

This workshop was organized by the Health Arts Research Centre, with help from the National Collaborating Centre for Indigenous Health and Northern Health (NH).

This workshop was supported by funding through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.