WIIKWEMKOONG—York University professor and health historian Megan Davies knows only too well how the COVID pandemic tore through the nation’s long-term care homes. As the creator and curator of COVID in the House of Old (CIHO), Ms. Davies has collected countless stories with the help of families, staff and residents.
Those stories are represented through the wooden storytelling chairs that sit at the heart of the exhibit. The chairs feature “powerful audio stories of frustration, outrage, care, love and grief that trace the fault lines that COVID-19 revealed in Canada’s eldercare system.”
COVID in the House documents the national humanitarian crisis and presents those stories to Canadians with an eye to taking action. The exhibit recalls the thousands of Canadian long-term care home residents and workers who died of COVID-19 or suffered extended periods of stress and isolation. Ms. Davies points out that 7,609 seniors in Canadian care homes died of COVID-19 in the first seven months of the pandemic alone.
CIHO will be installed at the Amikook Senior Centre in Wiikwemkoong and available from 9 am to 4 pm and from 6 pm to 8 pm from September 19 to 22, and in the Wikwemikong Nursing Home from 1:30 pm to 4 pm daily. The exhibit’s newest addition, Kayley’s Chair, will also be on exhibit at Wiikwemkoong High School from September 19-26 during school hours.
Attendees will be able to become part of the national project through telling their own stories and thoughts in the Story Space.
The exhibit is a truly national project touring numerous communities from coast-to-coast and the tour is funded through Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
