Impact. We often associate this word with the big names. Martin Luther King Jr., Albert Einstein, Amelia Earhart, John Lennon and Yoko Ono. The “Crazy ones” as referred to in the 1997 Apple ad. Someone who pushes the world forward and goes against the grain. Everyone will recognize these people and what they have done for the world.

But there is more to that word. “Impact” is defined as having a substantial effect on someone or something, and it goes all the way to the small community we live in. 

Do you know who founded Deep Cove Kayak, who created the Dollarton Lumber Mill, founded Harvest Project or the people who allowed us to connect to nature through skiing, hiking or climbing? Vancouver is built from these Community Impact makers, and this exhibition is here to thank them. A community is a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.

This was the last project of the year and our exhibition project; we were anxious to see what was in store. We would be creating a portrait to represent our impacter maker. I chose the former Belcarra mayor and author of many books that hold our communities history, Ralph Drew. You might have never heard of who he is, which was the case for me before this project, but his impact is undeniable. Inspired by Ralph’s writing, I made his portrait out of paper. Paper that was cut by a Cricut in strips of different thicknesses to form his image. Combining my creative and technical side through my design and creation of the portrait, I adhered to my love of trying to learn everything. I love the concept of doing many different skills in both creative and technical aspects, and it is something I want to experience through jobs later in life.

Additionally, the image reveals itself when taking a photo of the portrait. The contrast and zoom come together to form a fantastic shot.

But the exhibition is more than just the artwork. We needed something for the entrance, and Angelo, Matthew, Asha, and I made a video to explain the project. In the equivalence of a day, we put together a video combining VFX, animations and editing. It tested our time management and how well we could pull off a last-minute video. As always, it was nice improving my video skills and learning new technology (Google Earth Studio), which I often try to bring into projects.

To understand who is and what a “crazy one” does, we watched three movies to discuss in Socratic seminars. Hidden Figures, Amadeus and Gandhi. All including “crazy ones” but in drastically different mediums.

Over the year, Socratic Seminars have come and gone, but this one capitalized on everyone viewing the entire film. Starting at extremely confined sentence starters to free reign, we grew in our conversations alongside our quickly dropping restraints. It seems straightforward enough to watch three movies, take notes, then discuss them. Anything But! Taking notes isn’t just watching the movie and writing what they say. It requires forethought and external research, distinctly something we are not known for. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say I improved. Bringing outside information was imperative in our conversations, but it should have been used more. When the restraints were dropped, I contributed more by mentioning quotes, asking questions and responding to others.

All in all, I had a blast putting together this project — everything from my artwork and our video to our art theme in our exhibit. It was a great way to end the year, and hopefully, we can follow up next year with something even better.