As the semester comes to a close, this is our last project chronicle before the final showcase on Monday April 8th. In terms of our progress, we are on schedule and we are satisfied with what we have achieved thus far. This week we finalized and selected the photos that we are going to use for the showcase. Each of us chose two to three pictures we captured that contributed to our main argument, making a total of 10 pictures for our exhibition. Regarding the format for the showcase, we hope to align the images side by side on the wall, and have the stigmatizing quotes from news articles juxtaposed next to the quotes from Fazra and Sumeya. Together both kinds of quotes will be branching out from the photos.
Random scribbles from when we were discussing our exhibition format.
Before we continue to explain our progress, there are a few things worth mentioning about the changes we made since the last project chronicle. The first being that we have narrowed down the main argument and goal of our project. Shayla managed to narrow down the notion of stigma further. We recognized that in the media and some scholarly studies, there is this narrative which implies that ‘community’ only emerged after the revitalization happened. Through the stories shared by the Diva Girls and our time at Regent Park Focus, we know that this is not true. Life before revitalization, as shared by Sumeya and Fazra, was good and they certainly do have a community that they cherished. Our goal is to combat this misconception that there was no community before the revitalization in Regent Park, and also channel it in the right way through our media project.
This is not to say that the revitalization was all bad; it certainly also brought some benefits. A few days ago, the U of T students had a reflection session together. Our classmates, along with Aditi, gave us some great advice and raised an important point about the duality of revitalization. Like any other developments, the Regent Park revitalization has its own pros and cons. This inspired an idea, where our group can act as the middle ground and showing both the bad and good sides to combat the stigma, while also giving the revitalization some acknowledgements at the same time. When we asked Sumeya and Fazra’s opinion on this, they also supported the notion and admitting that they did receive better amenities (Sumeya in particular really loves the new Wendy’s that opened nearby recently). In addition, Aditi has also shown us a project she did before in Khirkee Village in India. Khirkee was an unplanned urban village in New Delhi, where some parts of the area experienced urban development from the government. As a result, residents feared that their village’s identity or territory would diminish. There is also the fear of gentrification because new buildings, such as a huge mall, was built in the area. At the same time, the residents who live in the Village also enjoy the services that the mall had brought. Some people even get access and income by selling hand embroidery or woven fabrics. Her project shows the complexity that a development brings into the neighbourhood. It is not merely a matter of bad or good. This is a similar case with the revitalization in Regent Park. There are both advantages and disadvantages, and we plan to keep this in mind as we are making our final product.
Exclusive: here’s one of our footage, stay tuned to see this time-lapse being embedded in the form of a final video!
What is left to do for the making of our media project is the video that compliments the photographs. For now, we decided that the format will look something like a 1:30 to 2 minute video, where we display the videos that we have taken on the different walking tours, led by Sumeya and Fazra, through the neighbourhood. We will combine the video with audio recordings of Sumeya and Fazra answering some questions, which we recorded in our session this week. The video will focus on trying to give an insight about Regent Park and its community.
Our final project is slowly being moulded into shape, and we are so excited to show it to everyone real soon!
Shayla, Michelle, Sumeya, and Fazra are The Legacy Leavers.