Similkameen Crossroads
2021 - website
In 2013, filmmaker Tyler Hagan was thrust into an examination of faith and identity when his father died – triggering a process that eventually led him to claim Métis citizenship. Hagan turned to the land, the Church, and the people of BC’s Upper Similkameen Reserve to help reconcile his upbringing with the Church’s blighted yet enduring relationship with First Nations people. The interactive photo essay, Similkameen Crossroads, was the result of that personal journey.
In early summer of 2021, St. Ann’s Catholic Church in Hedley, BC in was burnt to the ground in response to the discovery of hundreds of unmarked children’s graves at the site of a nearby ex-residential school. Many other Catholic churches located on Indigenous land across Canada were also burned and vandalized. In this context of violent emotion, Hagen returned to the community and once again spoke with Carrie Allison, the church’s caretaker, to get her perspective on what happened.
The website, originally built in Flash in 2013, was relaunched in 2021 in HTML5 with a new prologue addressing those events.
Managed design and execution of website update.
