Cultural roots celebration at Yukon College

The ethnic diversity and cultural roots of Yukon College staff and students will be on display and celebrated in the coming week. The Roots Project is an interactive installation of sound, text and images, collected by Yukon College student, Jude Wong. This project is a result of her own personal exploration of her cultural and ethnic background.

Jude Wong is the recipient of the W. Garfield Weston Award, which is supporting her full-time schooling in Business Administration at Yukon College. This award requires Wong to coordinate a community project while she is attending school. Inspired by the exploration of her own cultural roots of Chinese, Danish and German ancestry, she decided to explore the roots of those at Yukon College.

Wong believes in the importance of discovering, exploring and sharing one’s ethnic, spiritual, and cultural identity and practices. “Remembering our roots can give us a sense of grounding, identity and empowerment, and connect us with each other in a deep and meaningful way”, said organizer, Jude Wong.

The project involves audio and visual recordings of some forty interviews with both staff and students at Yukon College and members of the Whitehorse community at large. These collections will be shared along with the creation of several communal word collages, and a daily universal prayer led by Randall Tetlichi, the First Nation elder on campus. The Roots Project runs from Tuesday, March 22 to Friday, March 25, from 12 to 1pm, in the Pit at Yukon College. The Tuesday opening involves a welcome with bannock and tea.