the silent witness project

December 6 of this year marked the 20th "anniversary" since the Montreal Massacre in 1989. The human resources centre at York University approached the faculty of fine arts to do a free public exhibition in one of our central buildings on campus to commemorate the lives of the victims and to raise awareness about violence against women. Myself as well as ten other students created 14 silhouettes of female figures that represented each of the thirteen female students and one female teacher that lost their lives twenty years ago.

York's press release:
http://www.yorku.ca/yfile/archive/index.asp?Article=13823

Our exhibition was held on Monday, December 7, 2009 in Vari Hall, York University. Here's a few photos I took while passing through between classes:

Barbara Daigneault

Age: 22

Artist: Laura Crowell

-Mechanical engineering student.

-Teaching assistant to her father, Pierre Daigneault, a mechanical engineering professor at the University of Quebec at Montreal.

I think these two were my favourite of the bunch.

It was really neat to see all the students passing through on their way to classes and then stop to take a look at each one of the figures. They all had a small bio about the victim on the reverse side and some had an artist statement explaining the imagery on the front. They may end up being exhibited each year for this memorial, or in various other violence against women awareness related events put on by the university in the future.

I'm glad I got to be apart of it!