On the week before winter break we had an exhibition about our driving question “What does James Cameron’s fantasy world of “Avatar” reveal about our own society?”. We work on two aspects for this exhibition, our own project, and the design and flow of our room. 

First, I’m going to explain how I made my own project about Avatar. Our projects need to show a theme that is covered in Avatar. Some of the themes were militarism, racism, humans vs nature, and corporate greed. For my project I focused on militarism, and how that is in colonialism. I had a long rectangle base that was split in two, on one side it showed what it looked like before colonialism, and on the other it’s after. I had my box be a machine of militarism that was plowing over the country turning it into a wasteland. I had trees, houses, infrastructure, and parks on the “before” side, and I had soldiers, tree stumps, barbed wire, and fires everywhere on the other side. It was a good example for militarism, and put into perspective the difference between the two sides.

The second part was the room, and this part was almost harder then the project itself. We were put in rooms based on our theme, so I was put in the colonialism room. We had to decorate the room to look like Risk the board game, and we needed to try and cover the walls so it doesn’t look like a classroom. We made cutouts of different countries in different colours and put them on the walls. On one wall we made the Risk logo and put it on the wall. We also got snacks for guests, and even though we had a lot of food we ran out in the end. To make the room more dramatic we put yellow coloured lights highlighting important places in the room, and it added a very nice vibe to the room and projects.

In the end I am glad I had the opportunity to get to do this. It helped build my presentation and explanation skills, and it got me to work on a timeline and get my goal done by a set day or time.