Memory & Mayhem

Course Description

Ever wondered why some memories stick and others fade? Or why certain moments and names are lost to time? How do we decide who and what gets remembered?

In this course, we’ll explore the politics and power involved in memory. While some stories are considered important and preserved, others are forgotten or silenced. Over the last few years, activists have called this into question by toppling monuments, calling for new names, and demanding more radical forms of remembering. Together, we’ll discuss a wide variety of memory projects from state-sponsored monuments to protests, and reflect on how and why we preserve stories from the past.

Students will then get to craft their own commemoration projects by choosing an event, person, or place to remember using do-it-yourself (DIY) methods like zines, sculpted memorials, food, lights-based projections, and more.

Towards the end of the course, students will work collaboratively on a final two-part project. In the first part, the class will prepare and submit a collective pitch to the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada for a new commemoration, with the real chance to see their project chosen! In the second part, students will collectively design and install a more radical, artistic version of the same pitch.