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The China Post, Taiwan
Nov 2 2014
Canada's new human rights museum shares oral histories
By Michel Comte, AFP
November 2, 2014, 12:01 am TWN
WINNIPEG, Canada--A new museum in Canada's western prairies has
amassed a unique collection of personal stories from genocide
survivors, human rights defenders and others, and wants to share them.
Dedicated to the 60-year-old notion of human rights, a singular but
intricate ideal, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg,
Manitoba will open its doors on Nov. 11.
It was conceived by now-deceased mogul Izzy Asper, who once controlled
CanWest Global Communications Corp, one of the world's largest media
empires.
Over the past 15 years, the project has attracted both praise and
protests, mostly from groups disappointed that their stories would not
be included.
A third of the museum's staff including curators quit ahead of its
grand opening, complaining that its content had been sanitized, while
administrators struggled with staggering cost overruns and funding
shortfalls.
But since the museum started previewing a handful of its 11 galleries
in September, the criticism has faded.
"We're not a collections-based museum. Our main focus is to tell
stories," spokeswoman Maureen Fitz said.
"But there are more stories than we can tell."
"Most rights museums commemorate specific events," she added. "Our
focus is on human rights as an aspirational idea, using the stories of
defenders, victims and others to illustrate it."
250,000 Visitors
The CA$351 million (US$312 million) museum designed by American
architect Antoine Predock is one of the most anticipated works of
architecture in Canadian history.
Built of polished concrete, basalt rock, limestone and alabaster
wrapped in a wall of glass that "weaves light through darkness," it
seeks to frame how an expected 250,000 visitors each year will think
about human rights by "offering multiple perspectives from different
angles, which is also important in exploring human rights," Fitz
explained.
The site in downtown Winnipeg was chosen for the city's legacy at the
crossroads for labor rights, suffrage, minority language rights and
indigenous people's land rights in Canada.
Visitors are presented with interactive videos, photographs and text
chronicling Canadian and world history's "dark and bright spots" as
they meander up a 23-story spiral pathway.
There are 181 oral histories of survivors of mass atrocities and
people who fought rights violations.
Displays cover the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide and other
atrocities recognized by Ottawa, and identify patterns in them.
Tales are told of the First World War internment of Ukrainians, of the
Japanese immigrant steamship Komagata Maru being turned away from
Canadian shores in 1914, and of the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike.
Along the path, visitors can probe a smattering of artifacts,
including a ballot box from Nelson Mandela's 1994 presidential run,
wedding photos of gay couples, and the dress worn by Mareshia Rucker
to the first racially integrated prom at the Wilcox County school in
the U.S. state of Georgia last year.
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/art/lifestyle/2014/11/02/420875/Canadas-new.htm
Nov 2 2014
Canada's new human rights museum shares oral histories
By Michel Comte, AFP
November 2, 2014, 12:01 am TWN
WINNIPEG, Canada--A new museum in Canada's western prairies has
amassed a unique collection of personal stories from genocide
survivors, human rights defenders and others, and wants to share them.
Dedicated to the 60-year-old notion of human rights, a singular but
intricate ideal, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg,
Manitoba will open its doors on Nov. 11.
It was conceived by now-deceased mogul Izzy Asper, who once controlled
CanWest Global Communications Corp, one of the world's largest media
empires.
Over the past 15 years, the project has attracted both praise and
protests, mostly from groups disappointed that their stories would not
be included.
A third of the museum's staff including curators quit ahead of its
grand opening, complaining that its content had been sanitized, while
administrators struggled with staggering cost overruns and funding
shortfalls.
But since the museum started previewing a handful of its 11 galleries
in September, the criticism has faded.
"We're not a collections-based museum. Our main focus is to tell
stories," spokeswoman Maureen Fitz said.
"But there are more stories than we can tell."
"Most rights museums commemorate specific events," she added. "Our
focus is on human rights as an aspirational idea, using the stories of
defenders, victims and others to illustrate it."
250,000 Visitors
The CA$351 million (US$312 million) museum designed by American
architect Antoine Predock is one of the most anticipated works of
architecture in Canadian history.
Built of polished concrete, basalt rock, limestone and alabaster
wrapped in a wall of glass that "weaves light through darkness," it
seeks to frame how an expected 250,000 visitors each year will think
about human rights by "offering multiple perspectives from different
angles, which is also important in exploring human rights," Fitz
explained.
The site in downtown Winnipeg was chosen for the city's legacy at the
crossroads for labor rights, suffrage, minority language rights and
indigenous people's land rights in Canada.
Visitors are presented with interactive videos, photographs and text
chronicling Canadian and world history's "dark and bright spots" as
they meander up a 23-story spiral pathway.
There are 181 oral histories of survivors of mass atrocities and
people who fought rights violations.
Displays cover the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide and other
atrocities recognized by Ottawa, and identify patterns in them.
Tales are told of the First World War internment of Ukrainians, of the
Japanese immigrant steamship Komagata Maru being turned away from
Canadian shores in 1914, and of the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike.
Along the path, visitors can probe a smattering of artifacts,
including a ballot box from Nelson Mandela's 1994 presidential run,
wedding photos of gay couples, and the dress worn by Mareshia Rucker
to the first racially integrated prom at the Wilcox County school in
the U.S. state of Georgia last year.
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/art/lifestyle/2014/11/02/420875/Canadas-new.htm