{"id":35484,"date":"2024-11-28T17:21:21","date_gmt":"2024-11-28T22:21:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=35484"},"modified":"2024-11-28T17:21:23","modified_gmt":"2024-11-28T22:21:23","slug":"youth-exhibit-poignant-takes-on-what-it-means-to-remember-at-skylight-gallery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/youth-exhibit-poignant-takes-on-what-it-means-to-remember-at-skylight-gallery\/","title":{"rendered":"Youth exhibit poignant takes on what it means to Remember at Skylight Gallery"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

They might not know what it\u2019s like to live through a World War, but that doesn\u2019t necessarily mean they\u2019re strangers to conflict \u2013 and now local youth are showcasing their different perspectives on what it means to Remember in an exhibition hosted at Aurora Town Hall\u2019s Skylight Gallery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On through to the end of the month, the exhibition is a showcase of youth art and prose collected by the Aurora branch of the Royal Canadian Legion in last year\u2019s Remembrance Day Poster Contest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From traditional depictions of cenotaphs the world-over and doves of peace, to very personal portraits of specific soldiers past and present, youth let their imaginations run wild and the imagination naturally guided them to a place of reflection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe main theme is Remembrance and, of course, they\u2019re encouraged to examine it in either a historical perspective by either writing poetry, essays, or creating art in terms of historical events in the past or simply in terms of what does it mean to remember,\u201d explains Claude Arcand, who heads up educational programs on behalf of the Aurora Legion. \u201cWhen we remember during Remembrance Day, there are those who died, those who were left behind, and a lot of the poetry evoked a feeling of loss and things of that nature. But often they were tempered by the hope that this would end, and it did; basically, we were given the sacrifice and we\u2019re able to move on in a situation of peace and love.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Major (Rtrd) Stephen Boyne, who chaired the local Legion\u2019s 2024 Poppy Campaign said he found the works \u201cremarkably insightful, particularly as you\u2019re talking about kids who are in Grade 3 or 4.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey have demonstrated a heartfelt grasp and understanding of the sacrifices that go along with war and the importance of peace,\u201d says Boyne. \u201cThe art component of it takes some of the sterility of the history. You\u2019re not reading the facts in the textbook; it reflects more the emotions, the feelings that go along with things in history.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pointing to one highly-visual poem that incorporates the entirety of John McCrae\u2019s In Flanders Fields written in curves and loops to spell out the word \u201cRemembrance,\u201d he adds, \u201cIf you look at some of the poetry, it\u2019s not necessarily written from the perspective of the traditional Western World War 1 and World War 2 experience with war; there are students from countries who have much more recent experience with war than we do, and I think some of that is reflected in some of the work that has been put forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is important not just for the students, but for other people who read it. Remembrance Day tends to be seen in a World War 1, World War Western context and it helps to broaden the reality of war to other countries with much more experience with warfare that maybe don\u2019t necessarily get taken into consideration when people think about Remembrance Day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the current exhibition showcases the work of 2023 entrants, Arcand and his team are hard at work this week evaluating 2024 entries and seeing which ones might go to the next level, which culminates in a Legion contest at the National Level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They hope that the spoils from this year\u2019s contest will feature again in the Skylight Gallery in 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re all part and parcel of creating that theme of Remembering. A young person nowadays will not necessarily relate to something that happened 100 years ago, 80 years ago, 75 years ago, but when exposed to it in various courses in school, it provides an opportunity to realize that people in the past were heroes, people in the past sacrificed so they may have the kind of life they have today,\u201d says Arcand. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have to be their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents; it might have been in my generation, but a lot of kids don\u2019t have military ancestry. This helps open their eyes that there has been that effort on the part of society to try and create peace for all in the world \u2013 a peace where we are free to be able to do what we wish and celebrate the way we want, and have the rights that some of us take for granted that we shouldn\u2019t really take that for granted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They might not know what it\u2019s like to live through a World War, but that doesn\u2019t necessarily mean they\u2019re strangers to conflict \u2013 and now local youth are showcasing their different perspectives on what it means to Remember in an exhibition hosted at Aurora Town Hall\u2019s Skylight Gallery. On through to the end of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":35485,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/2024-11-28-05.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-9ek","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-20 10:32:52","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35484"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35486,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35484\/revisions\/35486"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}