Hello everybody, welcome back to my blog! This is my final post of grade 9, which is crazy to think about. It feels like just yesterday I was writing my first blog post of grade 9. Anyways, this post is all about my latest project, Dulce et Decorum Est, and the spring exhibition, where I showcased the work I did in that project.

Dulce et Decorum Est was all about World War I. We also learned about museums and how to create an exhibit. These two ideas were brought together for the exhibition, which I’ll talk about later in this post.

Our first keystone was research on museums. Part of this was a quick field trip to the Museum of North Vancouver to get a tour and talk to the people working in the museum about how the exhibits are structured and how they’re built to appeal to the audience. Here’s a picture of us at the museum:

Another major part of this keystone was looking at online resources including an article about how to make your own exhibit, an actual online exhibit, and so many more. Through all of that, we took notes about how we could use this information to create our own exhibit. Finally, we had to write a paragraph reflecting on what we learned through this research. Here’s mine:

How do museums tell stories? A proper exhibit is a compilation of thoughts and events, organized either by time period or how it’s presented. A curator can guide the audience to look through it in a certain way, and the audience still has the freedom to go through it in their own way, at their own pace. Museums tell stories by organizing thoughts and feelings through works of art or artifacts. They also explain stories behind said works of art or artifacts, allowing the audience to learn all about what the exhibit may be about. This is actively telling a story to the audience. An effective exhibit could also be interactive, where the audience can choose to use different senses other than sight, such as touch or hearing. This is vital to engage the audience so that they can be invested in the story you’re telling. These are just a few ways that museums tell stories.

I’m happy with how my paragraph turned out, even after multiple revisions. I think it accurately represents what I learned.

Our second keystone was a paragraph on the contrasting narratives of war. For this, we researched about World War I, and a lot about propaganda in war. Here’s my paragraph:

When we think of war, specifically the First World War, we think of death and pain. We think of the worst things that happened. We think of the huge numbers of lost soldiers, the horrible diseases spread, and the idea of living for years in muddy trenches. We can’t stop thinking about trench foot, families alone at home, and famine. Rarely do we think of the valuable things that came out of it. We forget how good it was for the economy, and how white women got more rights out of it, thanks to so many amazing female nurses who contributed to the war. We forget about the technological advancements. Part of the reason that we forget these things is that we have to respect the people that went through the hard, treacherous parts of the war. In that, we forget all of the important good things, because the two contrast each other so much. They are so far apart on the spectrum of good and bad it’s almost like we can only choose one to talk about. Women getting the right to vote is so far away from the 8.5 million soldiers lost. It’s hard to believe they even happened on the same planet, let alone at the same time. It definitely demonstrates great contrast.

I’m satisfied with how this paragraph turned out. I don’t think it was my greatest work, but I definitely could’ve done worse and I think it’s still pretty good.

Our third and final keystone was our museum exhibit. This was the exhibit we put up for the exhibition, and I was really happy with how it turned out. I chose to do a painting that represented poetry made from WWI, following our theme of creation and destruction, choosing the creation side. Choosing to do a painting is not something I would naturally do. I’m not super artistic, and painting isn’t a strong suit of mine. But I decided I wanted to try something new, something out of my comfort zone. While my finished product may not look as great as I wanted it to, I’m glad I tried something new. I set up my big painting on the wall, writing out the poem “In Flanders Field” next to it, and recruiting Evangeline to help me draw poppies around it. Here’s what my exhibit looked like:

That’s it! See you in grade 10,

Susan