As our most recent humanities 11/12 project comes to an end it is time to reflect on my growth as a learner as I progressed through this project. This project was based around three cornerstone ideas, historical Significance, conceptual art and the Manhattan project. These three ideas came together to create the Manhattan project, project. This project ended in the presentation of a conceptual art piece to the public at our winter exhibition that represented the atomic bombs historical significance and impact. For our entire class to be ready to create something to present to the public we underwent one of our most interesting and subversive projects yet.

We started with the first cornerstone, historical significance. Immediately we learned what historical significance is and how history is different from the past. We then learned that There were many different types of criteria by many different people for what should remembered, but I thought they all had a few of the same principle ideas, and the one that I thought best described the criteria was Partington’s Criteria, which had all the major ideas covered.   

With what we had just learned we were asked to practice our knowledge by creating a short blog post. In this post I argued that the battle of Vimy ridge in WW1 was historically significant due to its impact on Canadian independence. If you want to read the full post it will be linked here. Once we successfully learned about historical significance we continued to expand our knowledge.

To continue to expand our knowledge we read a book called Hiroshima (by John Hersey). While reading this book we were asked to participate in Socratic seminars. I participated in three Socratic seminars that had been prepared by my teachers. The purpose behind these seminars was to challenge our ideas about the book Hiroshima, and for us to express why we thought certain things about the book, however the most important part was that we could back up our reasoning with evidence from the book. In addition to having to argue opinions and back them up we also had to ask ourselves about historical significance constantly throughout the process of reading said book. Alongside reading the book and participating in the Socratic seminars we learned about the history of the Manhattan project.

The final cornerstone came in when we were introduced to conceptual art and its history. It all started with the question “what is art”, and we decided there are many different answers to this question, but overall “art” is something that communicates the artists emotions and provokes a reaction from its audience. I agree with this statement, but what I found difficult was understanding and accepting the ways in which artist created this art. We learned as well that conceptual art, which we would be creating, is a form of art that rejects the traditional canvas paintings and sculptures. The purpose of conceptual art is for the concept or idea behind the piece to be more important than the physical object. 

To fully grasp conceptual Art and what it is our class went on a field trip to the Vancouver art gallery to see the Yoko ono art exhibit. Yoko ono is a famous artist who is known worldwide for her crazy and absurd art pieces. The experience of seeing conceptual art pieces in real life changed how I thought about conceptual art in a positive way.

In conclusion I think this project taught me quite a bit. I learned all about the Manhattan project but in addition I also learned about what art is and how it is interpreted in many different ways by all sorts of people. Know that the project is over I can say I now appreciate that this art has influenced and loved by many around the world, however I would still not consider myself one of those people. I can now appreciate the art, but personally I still dislike it, and I think the main reason is because conceptual art values the idea behind the art, where as I value the final product. 

Thank you for reading my post.