Ology Of Apology? What Does That Mean

Hello, Josh here. I am excited to bring everyone another blog post 🥳. I have been on winter break and have been doing other things but despite the time we had, school is back. So I have to write this post regarding the project from last year’s Ology Of Apology. This project was a rollercoaster. We did a lot in such little time and it was an interesting project. Before I start my reflection let me give you some background on this project and what’s we have to do. 

So we were given a group and we were asked to make a memorial regarding one of these three topics. Japanese Canadian internment, Chinese head tax in Vancouver and the Komagata Maru. You might recognize the name Komagata Maru from my last post. I explained a lot about that event in that post you can check it out here. Moving on, let’s start to dive into the meat of this project. So we were tasked to design and present our idea for a memorial that memorializes one of the three topics I wrote above. My group got Japanese Internment. Quickly let me just tell you what I mean when I say (memorialize). I put it in brackets because this entire project is built on this. When I say memorialize I don’t just mean remember. I mean to use that event or topic to see the world from a brand new viewpoint, a new mindset if you will. I have seen the history of where I live through a whole new lens after completing this project. If you want to read more about mindsets I have a note about it click here. Anyway, know that. The little advertisement for my notes is over let’s keep rolling here. So that is the main goal of our memorials. Is to allow just regular people to learn and view their city. Let’s move on to what my group’s memorial was. 

Oops sorry, I forgot to mention my group. My group consisted of Keenan, Sofia and Nate. 

Ok, now that all the distractions are finally aside let’s get rolling. So we made a statue of a Japanese Canadian farmer with his face blurred out to show how they were never seen as people just slaves. We had a light shining on it to project a shadow of a soldier or farmer or miner to show that even they were treated horribly. They still worked hard and pushed through. We presented this at our PLP exhibition in December that was a year ago. Now we are doing

another project you can read about in a couple of weeks😉. 

Let talk a little bit about the milestones for this project.  

We only had a few one of which you have probably already read I have linked it earlier in the post. The other things we did I learned from were the few studies the museum’s restaurants and tours taught me a lot about these events. I have since changed my view on these events now knowing how important they are to Vancouver being what it is. 

 

 

To one of the last things, I want to cover in this post. My zettelkasten notes from this project I have many literature notes and permanent notes from this project. I have been writing notes during this project I have an entire archive of information and reminders. These notes help me not only with writing posts like this one but also with my personal life. Having a source of information right at my fingertips is super duper helpful. I will link some of my notes here as well as through out this post to give you guys little sources of information and headers that I have used writing this post and learning about these events. I really have learned alot using zettelkasten. No this is not an advertisment I really have used zettelkasten and liked it. It may sound boring and just a whole bunch of work but it really isn’t. 

Here are a couple of my notes on the Komagata Maru, Japanese Internment and Chinese Head Tax

Chinese head tax 

Link

Komagata Maru 

Link

Moving on to the last thing I want to mention as proof of my learning. It’s the driving question 

You thought I forgot, nope! Our project reflect the driving question in a way of showing how an apology can change things. We are again revisiting mindsets. A mindset is very important is can be the difference between success and failure. I truely believe that a mindset is everything. Back to apologies a sincere apology cannot always fix the wound a person may have caused trust me I know but there is the off chance that it can. It doesn’t happen all the time but when a apology is sincere and from the heart it can fix and mend a lot. So apologies play a big role in these type of things.

Conclusion 

In conclusion I learned a lot from this project, way more then I thought I would. This was super cool to learn about and interesting as well😀. As alway I have grown as a person and human. Now that I know the true history behind the place I was born. It is super cool to see what really built the land I live on and the culture I live in. The Vancouver culture is super cool and really interesting. When every do a project like this I always feel I grow as a person mentally and empathicly. I really want to have more opportunities especially as I only have 2 years left until im off to university. I assume I will be doing things similar in unversity. Only art related if all my future uni plans work out. I hope you have all enjoyed listening to me blabber on about these events an what a memorial is and why they are important. As well as what I’ve learned and realized along the way. I hope to hear from everyone in the future. I have to sign off but I will be writing soon, Goodnight