CREDIT: EMILY STEWART
Fanshawe College fine art students painted tents for the On the Ridge Exhibition at the Arts Project.

More than 50 Fanshawe students and 15 staff from about seven pro­grams are helping out with the 100th Anniversary Dinner: The Battle of Vimy Ridge.

The gala will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

Rob Carver, the chair of the School of Contemporary Media, said participating programs include fine art, fashion marketing and manage­ment, visual effects and editing for contemporary media, photography, public relations and communica­tions and broadcast journalism-tele­vision news.

“I feel very honoured that we were able to participate and I’m re­ally pleased that we were able to get so many students and so many pro­grams,” he said.

Carver explained the idea came from a previous collaboration with the 1st Hussars Regiment. Fan­shawe’s advanced filmmaking pro­gram produced a documentary about the 1st Hussars Regiment travelling to Holland for the 70th anniversary of the country’s liberation in 2016.

“Typically, when people want to do something in partnerships with schools, the issue we always raise is curriculum. That it always has to fit into what the students are doing and that we get a lot of people approach­ing us,” Carver said. “The fact that they came to us so early actually al­lowed us to do that.”

Joe Murray, a retired Lieutenant Colonel from the 1st Hussars Regi­ment, is also the chair for the gala’s display committee. He was pleased to see the artwork by fine art students created at the Arts Project. Murray felt that it would inspire more young people to learn about Vimy Ridge. “It’s a wonderful expression of sup­port from Fanshawe.”

Carver also said that he’s heard the students had a good learning ex­perience.

“They’ve learned about the Battle of Vimy Ridge and its role in Ca­nadian history, but also a lot of the personal stories of soldiers, a lot of the conditions the soldiers were liv­ing in and fighting in,” he explained. “The impression I’m getting from students is that it’s not only great that they’re learning something they may not have otherwise learned, but there’s also an emotional element to it because there was so much tragedy in that war.”

Carver added that one of the ben­efits of working in media is endless learning opportunities. “The more you learn about the history of the world, the better educated you are [and] the better you can relate to oth­er people.”

Gary Spearin, the fine art pro­gram co-ordinator, said 14 students worked on projects displayed at the Arts Project during the On the Ridge exhibition and eventually at the gala. The students visited mu­seums and researched Vimy Ridge to come up with sculpture, painting and multi-media projection ideas. Sketches were displayed on the sec­ond level of the Arts Project.

“It’s always hard to work on a project that is a huge group project,” Spearin said. “They’ve had a real­ly good rhythm with each other in terms of getting that done, but at the same time they’ve been inspired and excited, but I know they also want to make other work because it was a group project and they really want their individual voices to come out.”

Anthony Difazio, a second year fine art student, said that everyone worked together.

“We’ve done multiple drawings of the tents. We’ve gotten so good at drawing a tent, we can just eye­ball something and get the dimen­sions without even measuring it now,” he said.

Elizabeth Hardman, a second year fine art student, said that both sides of her family have strong ties to the military. She said learning to work together as a team was similar to the Battle of Vimy Ridge. “That was the first time Canada was actually unit­ed as one, where we worked as a team together,” Hardman said.

First year fashion marketing and management students worked on replica Canadian National Vimy Memorial centerpieces. The students also made poppy placemats by vinyl pressing.

“We did this in textiles. We made t-shirts,” said Keely Howell, a first year fashion marketing and manage­ment student. “It’s easier to know it before than just coming here and do­ing it today.”

The visual effects and editing stu­dents pieced together a short video using archived photographs, visual effects and music.

“It was an interesting concept to begin with,” said Noah Matikainen, a visual effects and editing student. “Everyone’s seen [the images], but to actually do something with them is quite an experience.”

Sheeba Grace and Radhika An­ilkumar, two broadcast journal­ism-television news students intern­ing for Fanshawe TV, are producing a documentary series about Fan­shawe’s involvement in the Vimy Ridge Gala. Both students are from India and said their project was the first time they heard about Vimy Ridge.

“We did learn about the First World War and Second World War back home, but Vimy Ridge was something we didn’t hear of until this project,” Anilkumar said.

Grace added, “It’s really interest­ing to know that Canada had a histo­ry like that.”

Grace also said that they met someone who collected items from World War One for the project. “He had some medals, some letters and some cigarette holders that the sol­diers there, back in Vimy Ridge, had. When we saw that, we were quite in­terested in it.”

Remembering the birth of a nation

Murray said that learning about history will prevent repetition. “World War One, bluntly, was a war that should have never been fought, and the sacrifice of the Canadians was incredible,” he said. “If you went with a friend, you flip a coin and one of you might come back and one of you won’t.”

He wanted people to realize that Vimy Ridge was the first battle Canada united. “People started to think of themselves, not as British subjects, but as Canadians. There is one gentleman, I read his diary and he looked at his tattoo on his arm, he had a maple leaf and he said, ‘I’ve never been so proud of anything in my life’, and that’s what it’s all about.”

Poppi Savage, a first year fashion marketing and management student, went to see the Vimy Ridge Monu­ment in France during a high school trip.

“It’s just extremely impactful even still. You can see the devasta­tion that’s still there, the huge craters over so many years ago,” she said.

The sold-out 100th Anniversary Battle of Vimy Ridge Gala will be held on April 1 at the London Con­vention Centre. Artwork by fine art students and photographs by pho­tography students will be available during a silent auction, with pro­ceeds benefitting the Poppy Fund.

CREDIT: EMILY STEWART: Elizabeth Hardman, a second-year fine art student, stands in front of a painting that sparked an idea for one of the painted tents created for the On the Ridge Exhibition at the Arts Project.

CREDIT: EMILY STEWART: Anthony Difazio, a second year fine art student, stands in front of one of his paintings for the On the Ridge Exhibition at the Arts Project.

CREDIT: EMILY STEWART: Visual effects and editing for contemporary media students, Noah Matikanen, Gus Yacin and Ashwin Crasta look at a short video produced for the 100th Anniversary Vimy Ridge Gala on April 1 at the London Convention Centre.

CREDIT: EMILY STEWART: Replica centerpieces of the Canadian National Vimy Memorial, created by fashion marketing and management students and staff, will be seen at the gala.

CREDIT: EMILY STEWART: Fashion marketing and management students are creating poppy placemats for the gala.