Everyone is going to have their own opinions, there is no questioning that, but many people, including myself, often tend to view themselves as the good guy and always think theyβre the ones in the right. However, after taking a deeper dive into three historic wrongs in Canadaβs history, I can tell you that thinking that way isnβt always true.
The last few weeks have been busy with our PLP 10 class discussing the power of apologies and how we can memorialize past events in our Ology of Apology project; with the question βhow can we create a public memory of past wrongs so they are not repeated today?β always coming back to our attention. At first glance, this question might seem near impossible to answer but after going on six unique field studies Iβve come to an answer. We can create a public memory of past wrongs so they are not repeated today by telling the bigger story and connecting the audience to the event to the point where they feel a sense of empathy for those affected.
As I said, we went on six trips to learn about three different historical wrongs, those being the Komagata Maru Incident, the Chinese Head Tax, andΒ Japanese Internment. You donβt realize how much more you learn from actually seeing things with your own eyes compared to reading it in a textbook having to imagine what it looked like. You understand the topic in more of a personal way and feel attached to the whole event. It wasnβt until after our field studies that I realized how big of an impact they had on my learning, but it was when we had the chance to sit down and comprehend everything weβve just experienced. I felt that I was just able to speak without really thinking and genuinely understand what other people were saying which is something I havenβt been able to do for a while.
As this project fell from October 25th to the 15th of December it meant that this would be our Winter Exhibition topic and weβd be creating a memorial that fits the criteria of the driving question on one of the three events studied. We were assigned groups and I found myself collaborating with Annie and Nathan on the Komagata Maru incident in 1914. Usually, when I get given a topic from multiple options I tend to have one in mind that I would like to work on, thatβs because I know more about one than the others, but for this project, I had no complaints with any of the events. Since I knew so much about all three historical wrongs I felt that I could do as good a job on any of the three. When we started brainstorming potential ideas that could be incorporated in our memorial, there was always one thing that we must include and that was some sort of piece that would catch the publicβs eye. Whether that be a sculpture, a drawing, or any other form of memorial was yet to be decided. As a team, we kept on pitching ideas and bouncing off each other, talking about what we think makes a good memorial and how we could take inspiration from the ones we saw on our field studies. In the end, we came up with a few key aspects in creating a powerful memorial, it must be interactive, tell the story of the event from start to finish, and be unique. All the memorials we saw on our trips were a bit too conventional, our goal was to design something that is more modernized so the younger generation could still learn about our past.
Coming up with this base idea was definitely the most difficult and time-consuming part, but in the end, our red and blue 3D glasses art checked off all the boxes. When creating our memorial we had very little time, which is why I felt more proud about it than other projects I have done in the past, we came together as a team and played to our strengths which had a significant impact on the amount we got done.
At the exhibition everything went to plan, our PLP 10 class had created six completely different memorials that were all immensely thought out. When the public started coming in I found myself just talking about our memorial, the field studies and the Komagata Maru incident all very confidently without any sort of script or prior practice, and after talking to a few of my peers they could all say the same and we agreed that the sheer amount of time learning was the reason for this. To make our exhibition more exciting we had a little competition, since there were two groups creating memorials for the same event we had our audience vote for which they thought was better. Now Iβm quite a competitive guy so when we tallied up the votes and I kept on seeing just one vote for our opposing memorial, I knew something dodgy had happened. Even though we lost our competition it didnβt take away how proud I was in my group and everyone in the class.
However, hearing some feedback during and after the exhibition made me think about how we could make our memorial better. Our original idea for a location was to put it in the same spot as the already existing memorial in coal harbour, but after some thought and going to see the memorial, I realized that that location wouldnβt be the best. Since our memorial heavily relies on having a dark space you can imagine that it wouldnβt work during the daytime, so what I think would be better is to have an indoor space where it can always be dark and experienced to its full potential.
Understanding where we went wrong and apologizing is the first step in resolving conflict and in this project that is exactly what we did. An apology shouldnβt be what ends something, however, itβs the place to start making a difference.
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