LEST WE FORGET: HOW WE WILL REMEMBER

Muse News | Michelle Wright

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In honour of our past, present and future soldiers, today’s article will take pause to look at Remembrance Day and how you can pay your respects to their sacrifice. This year marks the 100th anniversary of Remembrance Day.

 

War Memorial by Wiborg. Source. 

Last year marked the 100th anniversary of the signing of the armistice between the Allies and Germany in Compiègne, France, marking the end of hostilities of the First World War. This armistice took effect “at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month” and on November 11, 1919 the first annual Armistice Day Ceremony was observed at Buckingham Palace. During World War II many countries changed the name to Remembrance Day. Ceremonies happen today all over the world in honour of the brave men and women who gave their lives and those who continue to serve in areas of conflict.

But where do these ceremonies take place? They happen at cenotaphs, in schools, community centers and parks, but they also take place in museums. Museums that first come to mind are military or war museums, for example the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, which has events all day today. There is a growing concern that once the generation who can remember the war firsthand pass on, how will their stories be told and how do we preserve them? Museums call upon those who remember and their descendants to help tell stories. Two examples of this are right here in Toronto at the Mackenzie House Museum and the Spadina House Museum, with another coming to Museums of Mississauga in September 2020.

From now until January 31, 2020 the Mackenzie House will host the exhibition Eaton’s Goes to War: Family, Memory & Meaning. The exhibition shows the lives of some of the 3327 employees of the T. Eaton Company from Toronto and Winnipeg who enlisted in World War I. John Craig Eaton, the president of the company, offered to pay his employees wages to enlist. Each time one of these employees did so, their photo was taken and displayed in the Toronto store. About 2000 photographs of these men survive and are preserved in an online gallery created by the Archives of Ontario. Last year, a call was put out to the public to visit the collection and share personal stories of these soldiers and their families. The response was overwhelming and the museum could not display all of them, however the Archives of Ontario are working to publicize them through their stories online.

Eaton's Goes to War, Mackenzie House Museum. Source.

Today from 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm the Spadina House Museum is hosting a pop-up museum-style event, inviting the public to bring mementos and stories about conflict to share them with others. This type of event is an invitation to the public to become a part of the museum. All are welcome, even if they do not have a keepsake or story. Following the event, there will be a special tour of the Spadina House’s involvement in World War I, particularly Percy Austin's experiences as a solider and Margaret Constance Austin's experiences as a nurse.

Coming back to the GTA September 15 to December 15, 2020 the Museums of Mississauga will be host to the traveling exhibition called WAR Flowers. This exhibition made its way to Toronto  January 24 to March 16, 2018 at the Campbell House and was written about by Serena Yplaar & Amy Intrator as a Weekend Edition called INTERPRETATION IN BLOOM: WAR FLOWERS AT CAMPBELL HOUSE MUSEUM. The exhibition is a collection of letters and pressed flowers from Lieutenant-Colonel George Stephen Cantlie sent to his infant daughter Celia during World War I. Cantlie would pick a flower, no matter where he was on the front, whether it was a dandelion, rose, or a poppy, and press the flower to send to his daughter. The letters that accompanied them were often short with a small description of where the flower was from and he would sign it to his “Wee Celia”. The collection was passed to the Stewart Museum by Celia’s niece and has become the center of a multi-sensory experiences, telling this story along with that of ten other Canadians who were involved in the War. These stories show the ability to find beauty and hope, even in the darkest of times.

One of the original flowers featured in the WAR Flowers exhibit. Photo courtesy of Amy Intrator.

These three exhibitions are just the tip of the iceberg for what is going on today. For other ceremonies and events you can visit the Cit of Toronto, Ontario.ca, or google events near you.

I will leave you with some well known words;

In Flanders fields the poppies blow 

Between the crosses, row on row, 

That mark our place; and in the sky 

The larks, still bravely singing, fly 

Scarce heard amid the guns below. 

We are the Dead. Short days ago 

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, 

Loved and were loved, and now we lie, 

In Flanders fields. 

Take up our quarrel with the foe: 

To you from failing hands we throw 

The torch; be yours to hold it high. 

If ye break faith with us who die 

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow 

In Flanders fields. 

                                                       -In Flanders Fields, John McCrae 

INTERPRETATION IN BLOOM: WAR FLOWERS AT CAMPBELL HOUSE MUSEUM

WEEKEND EDITION

BY: SERENA YPELAAR & AMY INTRATOR

This past Tuesday, we had the privilege of attending the media preview for WAR Flowers - A Touring Art Exhibition at Campbell House Museum. The exhibition runs until March 25 and presents a fascinating new interpretation of the First World War through a century-old flower collection. Displayed alongside the work of multiple artists, WAR Flowers is a fresh take on a popular historical topic.

The exhibition is travelling across Canada, having already stopped at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. WAR Flowers was developed in a collaboration between filmmaker Viveka Melki and Alexander Reford, historian and Director of Les Jardins Metis/Reford Gardens in Grand-Métis, Quebec.

During World War I, Canadian soldier George Stephen Cantlie sent flowers home to his young daughter Celia in Montreal. A century later, the preserved blooms teach us how flowers can hold meaning, and more strikingly, how they embody the emotions that form the human experience of war.

Exterior of Campbell House Museum. Photo courtesy of Amy Intrator.

New Perspectives

Bringing a new perspective to Canadian involvement in the First World War may sound like a near-impossible task. From memorials, to museums, to history class, most Canadians are familiarized with our country’s monumental role in the war. WAR Flowers, however, manages to bring a new, human perspective to a familiar piece of history.

As the exhibition's curator, Viveka Melki explained that her background as a filmmaker partially informed the exhibition, but her perspective was also defined by her identity as an immigrant. Melki stated that she didn’t grow up with the same familiarity with Canadian history. Canadian icons like A.Y. Jackson and John McCrae have their place in the exhibit, but these figures are featured alongside Julia Drummond, Percival Molson, and other Canadians involved in the war effort.

The exhibit doesn’t rely on a familiarity with Canadian history. Rather, the exhibit reframes familiar and unfamiliar stories in a new light. The flowers featured in the exhibit are examined using floriography, a Victorian method of exploring emotion through flowers; this unusual approach allows new narratives and themes to emerge in the exhibit.

One of the original flowers featured in the WAR Flowers exhibit. Photo courtesy of Amy Intrator.

Integrating Art and Artifact:

The flowers from the archive of George Stephen Cantlie are some of the most striking pieces in the exhibit. Sent from Europe to Montreal during the First World War, the 100-year old collection is extremely valuable as one of the largest wartime flower collections. The flowers are important artifacts in their own right, but in the exhibit, each flower also becomes a way for multiple artists to explore themes related to war. For example, the poppy, which has often been viewed as a symbol of sleep, explores the theme of “Eternal Sleep.” The theme is addressed through a short anecdote about John McCrae, along with an optical crystal sculpture created by Mark Raynes Roberts, and a customized scent created by Alexandra Bachand.

The "Eternal Sleep" section of the WAR Flowers exhibit. Photo courtesy of Amy Intrator.

Each of the ten flowers in the exhibit inspired artists to come together and create thoughtful pieces reflecting on war. Melki said that she tried to let each artist “have their voice,” which is especially important in filmmaking. Melki described the process as four artists coming together to “make a statement,” and this comes across as the exhibit weaves together the four artists’ individual but complementary impressions of war. The artists' creations work harmoniously, but individually each of the pieces engages the viewer differently. For example, the optical crystal sculptures created by Mark Raynes Roberts are literally illuminated by the lighting in the exhibit, which gives each of the detailed sculptures an even greater sense of depth and emotion.

The crystal sculpture featured in the "Resolve to Win" section of the WAR Flowers exhibit. Photo courtesy of Amy Intrator.

Sensory Innovation

The exhibition uses scent and sound to captivate visitors. Individual alcoves - reminiscent of a gothic church's vaulted ceilings - feature each flower alongside stories of Canadian individuals involved with the war. We were transfixed by the individual scents Bachand created for each flower and its meaning, activated by pressing a button (see below)! This non-intrusive feature gave visitors the chance to engage directly with the experience; the use of scent is particularly evocative as it can trigger personal memories. Melki stated that the use of scent was important to her because it allows the exhibition to reach every visitor in a unique way. Given that smell is a powerful tool of remembrance, we found it fitting that WAR Flowers uses it to great advantage. 

The exhibition also uses sound to transport visitors, from a buoyant classical score to sound effects evoking a sense of conflict - the music shifts seamlessly, interspersed with bouts of silence that we didn't notice until the music started again. One of the most memorable sounds is the skylark, which Melki explained is the national bird of the First and Second World War for Canadians. Melki chose not to include sounds like gunfire, as these could be triggering to certain individuals. She therefore strikes a careful balance, setting the mood with great sensitivity. 

New Directions 

We were both engrossed in the various aspects of interpretation the WAR Flowers team synthesized to capture our interest and foster connections to the flower collection and the war stories. This multi-sensory exhibition demonstrates how exhibitions aren't merely the display of artifacts, but rather an experience inviting the visitor to engage emotionally with stories of real people. 

After its Toronto run, the exhibition will travel to the Visitor Education Centre at the Canadian National Vimy Memorial in France. 

A SYMBOL OF SACRIFICE: REMEMBRANCE AT THE TOWER OF LONDON

THROWBACK THURSDAY

BY: SERENA YPELAAR

“We shall not sleep, though poppies grow …” (John McCrae, “In Flanders Fields”, 1915)

Each November, we pin bright red poppies to our lapels to remember the sacrifice of war veterans. Since tomorrow is Remembrance Day, I wanted to look at an example of commemoration in which visual art illustrates the magnitude of loss caused by war.

In summer 2014, one of my favourite historic sites, the Tower of London in England, unveiled a commemorative art project to pay tribute to war veterans. Coinciding with the centenary of Britain’s involvement in World War I, the Tower’s grassy moat was filled with ceramic poppies in a striking visual display. Titled Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red, the installation was created by artists Paul Cummins and Tom Piper, and remained at the tower between July 17^th and November 11^th of that year. 

Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red, the commemorative art installation at the Tower of London in 2014. Source.

Poppies were added progressively for the duration of the project, increasing in number to show the war’s growing death toll in a wave of red. After the installation was removed, each ceramic poppy was sold to raise money for six charities providing support for veterans.

I was fascinated to see how the poppies illustrated the sheer number of casualties in the First World War alone. A total of 888,246 poppies were placed in the ground by volunteers and represented British and Colonial military fatalities in World War I. When you realize that such a sizable number of fatalities still only accounts for a portion of the lives lost in WWI, the installation puts the reality of the war into perspective. 

In keeping with the poppy campaign's purpose of raising funds for veterans, all of the poppies were sold after the installation was removed from the Tower. Source. 

While I didn’t get to visit the Tower during the commemoration project, I had looked at a number of photographs at the time it was ongoing. An estimated five million people saw the memorial. Seeing this installation span the length of the Tower (which itself is located right on the River Thames in central London) is a testament to the visibility of the project and its accessibility to the public.

I’ve gone back to look at pictures of Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red numerous times in the last two years – it captured my interest because of its visual impact and historical significance. The symbolism of the poppy brings the public commemoration of WWI to life and fosters shared and personal reflection.

Memorial crosses and poppies outside the Tower of London. Public commemorations evoke remembrance and offer a space for personal or shared reflection. Source.

This commemoration of the WWI centenary made me reflect on the enormity of war and the reason we take time each November to reflect. Amidst our busy lives, it’s important to take a moment to look back on elements of our history. Visual commemorations in museums, heritage sites and public spaces offer a gathering place for communities to remember personal and shared experiences - lest we forget. 

Have you seen any visual commemorations that left an impression on you? How did they represent public memory?

MUSEUMS AND MODERN MOURNING

RESEARCH COLUMN

BY: KASEY BALL

Vera Brittain as a Voluntary Aid Detachment Nurse (1915)

With the centennial anniversary of the outbreak of WWI just behind us, I often find myself reflecting on the way Testament of Youth - a WWI auto-ethnography by acclaimed novelist, pacifist and feminist,Vera Brittain - transformed my nostalgic enthrallment with the War into a consciousness of the political and ethical implications of cultural heritage sites - implications that are, as I have since discovered, a condition of their very existence. Having been long fascinated by the uniquely alluring literariness of the Great War, during my previous MA I brought to Brittain’s memoir an emotionally charged admiration for Rupert Brooke’s collection of WWI sonnets - a poetic project that ennobled the British cause through its linguistic beautifying of both death and the soldiers’ exploits.While in no way ignorant to the horrific actualities of the War, I undoubtedly experienced the intended affect of the sentimentalized visual field that Brooke created in his sonnets, deeming their narratives of honour and patriotism sufficient justifications for, and triumphant immortalizations of,WWI’s fallen. So when I first encountered Testament of Youth’s incredulity towards Brooke’s poems, I was both unnerved and intrigued.

Rupert Brooke (1913)

For Brittain, the poems - consoling and poignant as they may be - were dishonest elucidations of history, sheathing the horrors of war in euphemisms that were as beautiful and impenetrable as language could allow (Fussell, 220). They exalted violence, destruction, death, and the arguably insubstantial cause for which a generation suffered, assimilating the unique and tragic circumstances of each and every wartime experience into an overarching romantic narrative about heroism and sacrifice. To rely on these aggrandizing narratives for a consolatory understanding of the War was to psychologically turn away from the dead. And for Brittain - who lost her fiance (Roland Leighton), brother (Edward Brittain), and two friends (Victor Richardson and Geoffrey Thurlow)- forgetting the dead was not only undesirable on the part of the mourner, but actually precarious for society moving forward. In collective cultural consciousness, violence would be valourized, suffering would be justified, if not forgotten, and the questionability of the cause would remain unexamined, leaving European society susceptible to repeatedly engaging in similar atrocities, the ultimate implication being that their future was entirely dependent upon how effectively they remembered their dead. Brittain, I think, believed that for individuals and societies to heal from the trauma of WWI, they had to continually move forward with their ghosts, and in my understanding this prescribed mode of healing involves a revolutionizing of the traditional “work of mourning.”

Brittain's fiance Roland Leighton

The contemporary body of thought on mourning is remarkably extensive, but what matters most is its general challenging of Freud’s seminal 1917 essay,“Mourning and Melancholia,” in which Freud claimed that for mourning to be successful, the griever had to emotionally detach from the lost person and reattach to a substitute. Unsuccessful mourning, marked by a resistance to substitution and a subsequent disinterest in the world, he pathologized as melancholia. Up until quite recently,Western conceptions of grief were still very much informed by this theory of consolation via substitution. Grief was considered to be a finite pain, one that was worked through and eventually alleviated through a cognitive erasure of the dead. But if Brittain’s memoir is any indication, for those who have experienced loss an end to grieving equates a relinquishing of love - which is as impossible as it is unwanted. And while this unbreakable bond with the deceased was once regarded as detrimental to the mourner, newer theories (like R. Clifton Spargo’s) suggest that it is conceivable to harbour that love and resume life. In fact, retaining that connection is arguably the only way for a mourner to truly reconcile with their loss.

Brittain's brother Edward Brittain

With Brittain’s memoir seemingly informing my research in Museum Studies, I am interested in the way cultural institutions are enabling mourners to maintain this trans-corporeal connection. The 9/11 Memorial Museum’s Beam Signing in Foundation Hall proved to be an interesting case study. Each table allows visitors to use their finger to handwrite a message of remembrance onto a digital touchscreen. Immediately upon submission, the messages are projected onto a 24 foot screen, overlaid with a world map to illustrate the boundlessness of 9/11’s impact.

Interactive Beam Signing in Foundation Hall

Jordan Fearon, in an interesting dissertation about mourning and social media, suggests that mourners keep faith with their dead through “post death rituals” (20).“The ritual,” she suggests,“must be identified in some manner as separate from the norm, establishing the sanctity of the event. Second, a core symbolic act must be completed.The third component is time to absorb the meaning of the act and the relationship with the deceased. [And] finally, it concludes with a return to normalcy” (20). In essence, the interactive tables in Foundation Hall can be said to encourage this very ritual.The tables exist in a designated space, constituting their use as an “event [that] is separate from the ordinary” (Fearon, 20). The inscription of a digital message to a loved one is the core ritual - an expression of grief - and having completed it, the individual is able to reflect on what they have done before returning to life outside of the Museum.With the incorporation of these tables, the Museum seems to have acknowledged the conceptual shift regarding a mourner’s need to maintain a trans-corporeal connection. It has provided the means for a mourner to cathartically work towards a reconciliation with what they have lost - to carry on with their ghosts in tow.

Have you encountered installations such as the Beam Signing? And if so, how effective was it? Can museums carry out the cultural work that is often prescribed to memorials? How effective are they at commemoration? In what ways are they limited?

Editor's Note: Kasey Ball is a first year MMst student with an MA in Literature at McGill University and BAH in Literature at Queen's University. This research was for a paper titled "Attenuating Distortion: New Media & The Redemption Of The 9/11 Memorial Museum" that looked at the various ways the 9/11 Museum was attempting to minimize the experience of distortion for mourners. If you are a Museum Studies student engaged in research for a work, volunteer, or school project that you would like to share, please contact Robin Nelson.

This year's iSchool Student Conference, Share Connect Discover, is March 6th and 7th, and we are looking for volunteers for both days. To sign up to volunteer, please fill out this form: http://goo.gl/oqcP0n. Please sign up before February 20th. Registration for the conference itself is separate from the volunteer sign-up, and it is available here: http://goo.gl/DH1ojI. If you have questions about volunteering, please send them to Catherine, the volunteer coordinator.

FORT YORK'S VISITOR CENTRE

EXHIBITION REVIEW

BY: KATIE WILSON

September has been an exciting time for Toronto museum lovers as it is not very often that two massive cultural institutions open in the same month. The Aga Khan Museum opened its doors to the public this September as did the brand new, highly anticipated Fort York Visitor Centre. Last Sunday after walking around the Word on the Street Festival, I (and my newly purchased books) decided to hop on a streetcar and head down to Fort York. The rain looked like it was going to stop and I hadn’t been to the Fort since a Grade Six class trip. 

A beautiful day to visit Fort York 

While I entered off of Bathurst Street and had trouble finding the Visitor Centre (a problem I was assured would be remedied with the inclusion of signs) I had no problem wandering about the grounds. Turns out the Centre is located directly under the Gardiner Expressway making it easy to access for those coming along Lakeshore Blvd but difficult to find otherwise.  

The Visitor Centre underneath the Gardiner Expressway 

The barracks-like Visitor Centre is quite stunning from the outside, and is designed to resemble the original embankment. Unfortunately the Centre is not quite finished yet and only had a few galleries open for public viewing; The Great War – In Your Cellar, Closet or Storage Locker; Charles Patcher’s “1812: The Art of War” Series; Outfitted For War; an Art and the Great War: A Toronto Perspective

Art and the Great War: A Toronto Perspective 

While the exhibits all contain interesting artifacts, especially The Great War – In Your Cellar Closet or Storage Locker, which broadened its scope to include decorations and souvenirs form other countries to remind us that “the war to end all wars” was truly global, the collections themselves are rather small. The Art in the Great War exhibit contains a few cases and framed photographs and the Outfitted For War collection is placed in a room called “The Vault” which is roughly the size of a large walk in closet. The objects in this collection include iconic uniforms and weapons worn and used by Torontonians during the Great War, but the size of the gallery space makes it difficult to appreciate the display.

The same weekend, the Visitor Centre played host to Toronto’s Great War Attic a series of Pop-Up Museum-Style events taking place around Toronto this fall. Residents of Toronto are encouraged to bring their stories, heirlooms, and photographs from the First World War to be saved and documented on the forthcoming website. These events are a great way to engage the public with museums and are going on until November 28. You can check times and locations here. 

"Fine Cakes" being baked in the Fort York kitchens

Having spent enough time looking at the galleries in the Visitor Centre I decided to call it a day. No trip to Fort York would be complete, however, without a visit to the kitchen where I sampled a “fine cake” before heading home.

While Fort York's Visitor Centre is incomplete and a little sparse at the moment I feel that it holds real potential, and not purely as a site to celebrate Toronto’s military accomplishments. While most of the upcoming exhibits, including a “Battle of York immersion experience,” pay tribute to the city's military heritage, the Fort York Visitor Centre may be able to branch out into celebrating other aspects of Toronto's rich history. There is currently no museum space that focuses solely on the history of Toronto, which is a role that Fort York may be able to at least partially fill. With the centennial of the First World War however, it is pretty safe to say that most (if not all) upcoming exhibits will be dedicated to celebrating Canada’s military role.