Winnipeg, Canada

All this week, hundreds of Indian Residential School survivors, together with Aboriginal leaders, church groups, government representatives, and members of the public gathered locally at The Forks for the opening ceremonies of the first National Event of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC). Former students and others whose lives have been fundamentally impacted by the residential schools system have come together to talk with each other and to share their experiences with the Commission. Included in those heart-wrenching conversations are the voices of former staff and other school workers who have been contacted and encouraged to come forward.

This national event (the first of seven to be held across Canada over the next five years), is of great importance for non-aboriginal Canadians who may have had nothing whatsoever to do with the schools directly, but who have everything to gain from understanding what actually happened at them. It has drawn together thousands to participate in cultural exhibitions by First Nations, Métis, and Inuit groups, film screenings, plays, art exhibits, and musical performances.

Word clouds: I thought it would be interesting to use Wordle as a tool to compare several different apologies (and the various vocabularies deployed) regarding Aboriginal survivors of residential schools.* Wordle gives greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in a selected source text. The top image represents the formal apology given in the House of Commons by the Canadian Prime Minister on behalf of the Government of Canada on 11 June 2008. The middle image represents the historic formal apology given to the Aboriginal people of Australia by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on behalf of its parliament and government on 12 February 2008. The bottom image represents the English version of the apology of the Anglican Church of Canada to Native People as delivered by the Primate, Archbishop Michael Peers, to the National Native Convocation in Minaki, Ontario on 6 August 1993.

*Residential schools for Aboriginal people in Canada date back to the 1870s. Over 130 residential schools were located across the country, and the last school closed in 1996. These government-funded, church-run schools were set up to eliminate parental involvement in the intellectual, cultural, and spiritual development of Aboriginal children. During this era, more than 150,000 First Nations, Métis, and Inuit children were placed in these schools often against their parents’ wishes. Many were forbidden to speak their language and practice their own culture. While there are an estimated 80,000 former students living today, the ongoing impact of residential schools has been felt throughout generations and has contributed to social problems that continue to exist.

Montreal, Canada

INDIGO, the International Indigenous Design Network, is proud to announce that Robert L. Peters has been appointed as an INDIGO ambassador. Rob will bring invaluable design and consulting expertise to INDIGO as well as an extensive international network.

Robert L. Peters, Icograda President 2001-2003, is a designer and principal of Circle, a design consultancy he co-founded in 1976. In addition to practice, he has been actively involved in design education, writing, speaking, advocacy, and professional development for most of his career, including leadership roles within the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada (GDC), and the International Council of Graphic Design Associations (Icograda).

As Koopman Chair at the School of Art, University of Hartford, Rob worked with Russell Kennedy in 2006 on INDIGO’s inaugural project, MIX06 (Migrant Indigenous Exchange 2006), developed as a collaboration between Monash University in Melbourne, Australia and the University of Hartford in Connecticut, United States.

Rob is active internationally as a consultant and design strategist, policy advisor, writer, juror, and guest lecturer and is based in Winnipeg, Canada.

+  +  +  +  +

INDIGO Ambassadors are individuals committed to creating an awareness of the network, its projects and promoting engagement with designers, stakeholders and the public at large within their communities. INDIGO Ambassadors support the Secretariat in creating a collaborative environment for the exchange of knowledge and ideas. They offer the network local access and insights, help shape projects and initiatives and serve as resources to the network at large.

(reposted from INDIGO news) Photo thanks to Ian McCausland.

.

This is just one of more than 350 vintage travel posters in an online collection compiled by The Boston Public Library’s Print Department—most date from the 1920s-1940s, the “Golden Age of Travel.” Enjoy the rest here.

“Having a wonderful time—wish you were her…”

London, U.K.

As anyone who visits this blog already knows, I hold pacifist views which I am prone to express in posts (as well as fireside conversation, and occasionally street protests) from time to time. I’m also not a fan of the use of nuclear energy in any form, least of all to create bombs and weaponry (as I have posted previously, here, here, and here for example).

That said, it really rankles me to hear the ongoing stream of dishonest and hypocritical rhetoric on this topic emanating from Washington (and Jerusalem, etc.), now leveled at Iran and North Korea—since Iraq can no longer be fingered. Any reasonably objective citizen of our planet can quite clearly see where the real nuclear threats lie. The above illustration (by The Times) underlines graphically, and with little bias (for a change), the real lay of the land as regards current nuclear proliferation.

Thanks to friend Filip Spagnoli for the source.

.

A clever (if somewhat passive aggressive) poster designed by Serbian ex-pat artist Vuk Vidor (now living in Paris)… found online here.

(The tongue-in-cheek definitive style of the poster reminds me a little of the short guide to comparative religions [original author unknown] that I e-published last year, entitled An Excremental Exegesis. Both pieces “paint with a large brush,” yet to remarkably telling effect).

Morelia, (Michoacán) México

A picture really is worth a thousand words. I was happy to stumble across this oh-so-telling illustration by Rogelio Naranjo today, here.

London, U.K.

Greenpeace climbers recently scaled the front of BP’s corporate headquarters in London to “brand them with a logo that better suits their dirty business.” Greenpeace “thinks their logo needs a makeover to better suit a company that invests in tar sands and other unconventional oil sources like deep water oil,” and that a company that invests in tar sands—the dirtiest oil there is—needs something other than a nice green flower as their brand identity. “While our effort at a new logo is OK, we think you can do better, so we’re asking you to help us redesign BP’s logo…” More information here.

Several designer colleagues alerted me to this movement to find a more suitable “brand” for BP today (thanks Toze in Porto, thanks JS in Montreal). For years I’ve been showcasing BP’s effervescent floral symbol as the classic example of “corporate greenwashing” at design lectures I give, so I’m neither surprised nor disappointed at what seems to be a growing movement to help this industry-leading company project a more honest image. Just deserts, methinks…

Images: a selection from among of the hundreds of alternate BP logo entries flooding in; more here.

Thanks for sharing that “old Spanish piece of wisdom” with me, Gonzalo.

The above illustration is from the humorous student-run magazine at Cornell University, The Cornell Widow. (Of course “she” is referring to the movement against U.S. imperialism begun by Augusto Nicolás Calderón Sandino…).