The first memorial that jumped into my mind is a little hut off the lake off the boardwalk - the Trans Canada Trail pavilion - it's a memorial built honouring those who have donated money to build and maintain the trail. The trail itself is "an 18,000 - kilometer recreational corridor winding its way through every Province and territory, linking 800 communities along its route. When completed, this will be the longest trail of its kind in the world, connecting our regions, our three oceans and our people in a new way for generations to come." (http://www.tctrail.ca/home.php)
My dad's name is inscribed in one of those pavilions - the one at Lakeshore and the Humber Bridge. He donated to the fund. Every person who contributes has their name etched on to the walls inside the pavilion.
The second memorial that jumped into my mind (as I read Vinita's outline) was the Holly Jones mural on Sorauren Ave. (see pictures above)
This mural was dedicated to Holly Jones, a 10 year-old Toronto girl who was abducted and killed in May 2003 by a man "consumed by desire after viewing child pornography."
My friends, who have young children, live in the neighbourhood Holly lived in. I went to elementary school near the school Holly went to. I know the house her killer once lived in: right on Bloor Street off Perth Avenue.
The community Holly Jones lived in really came together after she disappeared and died. I was really struck by that. Her murder also upped the ante on child pornography and the law.
I found this on someone else's blog: "... walking along Bloor Street, past the house where it had happened ... I took a short cut down an alley. And there, on a garage wall, graffiti. 'we love you holly'. 'we miss you'. Hearts, x's and o's to signify kisses and hugs. Written by her friends from her streets."
Remembrance, literally, at street level.
I think this Holly Jones mural totally embodies what Vinita wrote up for this week's assignment:
Monuments remind and warn. They speak to the future and the past. Discuss this play between past and future, opening dialogues about what society chooses to remember or forget, and what underlying values and ideologies are embedded in these markers of ‘public memory.’
Contemporary political events have weighed heavily upon the need for public monuments to form a bridge between individual lives and larger institutional values.
However, if we look at monuments in a broader sense, monuments can be anything and can be determined by a community – outside of official institutional decisions. Eg. a Rest in Peace graffiti in an inner city neighbourhood might be seen as something that evokes ‘public memory’ of a shooting.
What do monuments say about public or institutional values? What do monuments say about specific neighbourhoods?
This mural was done at such a grass-roots level, in remembrance of a young little lady.
But her death made the public and the Canadian government realize it had to improve laws in our society concerning Internet and child pornography.
This monument says the community it's in is a very tight and concerned one. This monument speaks of public safety and upholding institutional and social values.
This mural is such a reflection of society
and what it has to put up with
and what it has to do, try, prevent and guard;
this mural basically instills, supports, harbours and expresses a desire for a better, safer society for our children to grow up in.
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