Photo C/O Kyle West

The McMaster Students Union Student Representative Assembly held their most recent meeting on Nov. 11 in Gilmour Hall. Here are some key items that were discussed.[spacer height="20px"]

• The health science caucus reported on their goal of renovating the Health Sciences Library to expand student space in the Health Sciences Library. They are also lobbying to extend Saturday hours for HSL. The representatives are hoping to accomplish these tasks by the 2019 summer term and will be organizing petitioning events this or next week to gather support from students.
• Elections department chief returning officer Uwais Patel discussed the unofficial results of the SRA October by-election, which did not face any major technical challenges. Students voted in David Benzon for kinesiology representative and Cole Reesor as the new commerce representative. Kinesiology voter turnout was 39.4 per cent, while commerce turnout was at just 9.3 per cent. Patel stated that the reason behind the low commerce turnout was likely the lack of active campaigning among most candidates.
• There were delegations from McMaster Solar Car and Engineers Without Borders. There was concern from SRA members that there is a lack of faculty representation in Engineers Without Borders as the vast majority of students involved are in engineering. However, the assembly mainly supported the work of the club, which is open to all students.
• The finance committee recently closed the idea submission period for the Student Life Enhancement Fund, which supports student-submitted ideas aimed at improving the McMaster community infrastructurally. They have begun preparing to promote the voting period, which runs throughout January and February.
• The MSU operations coordinator Maddison Hampel prepared a memo for the executive board on forming a committee to review general concerns of MSU part-time employees. However, there was debate over the current memo. A revised version is expected to be presented at a later time.
• The SRA voted to keep MSU seats on various awards committees open until next meeting as caucus leaders admitted they did not advertise the seats to their constituents. SRA arts and science representative Tasneem Warwani and SRA social sciences representative Shemar Hackett advocated for increased engagement with students on these available positions.
• An MSU elections committee seat was open and closed.

[spacer height="20px"]The next SRA meeting will be held on Nov. 25 at 5 p.m. in Gilmour Hall room 111.

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Photos by Razan Samara

By Adrienne Klein  

The Shifting Ground Lines: Shifting Pluralist Perspectives exhibition explores how cultural backgrounds influence their view of landscapes and use of land through framed depictions of Canadian landscapes, from Carl Ray’s Medicine Bear to Lawren Harris’ Lake and Mountains, hanging on the crisp black walls of the main floor of L.R. Wilson.

[spacer height="20px"]Shifting Ground Lines: Shifting Pluralist Perspectives is an exhibition curated by Brandon Coombs and a production team consisting of Beatrice Hammond, Sienna Suji Kim, Kyle Wyndham-West and Jennifer Yacula of McMaster University. It is composed of twelve photo reproductions of artistic Canadian landscapes and is part of the Socrates Project at McMaster University, which aims to shed light on pressing issues through interdisciplinary approaches.

[spacer height="20px"]The exhibition was originally conceived as part of a project for Art History 4X03 administered by Angela Sheng, an associate professor in the Art History department, where students were tasked with curating a visual exhibit. Beatrice Hammond, who is a fifth-year art history and English major, explained that her group decided to do their project on Canadian landscapes because they wanted to challenge and question popular ideas surrounding the meaning of Canadian art.

“When people think of Canadian landscape their mind automatically goes to the Group of Seven. That’s what we were taught in elementary school. Go to the art gallery, see the Group of Seven, learn it, but we don’t usually get to see that that’s not the only landscape,” explained Hammond.

“That’s not the only representation of landscape or Canadian landscape and there’s so many different representations. [W]e really wanted to shift the narrative… we’re shifting the notion of what is the conventional landscape and shifting away from the settler, colonial ideas of art and…what is beauty and what is landscape.”

The director of the Socrates project, Rina Fraticelli, trusted these students to make the entire exhibit a reality. They were given the upmost independence in the curation process. They picked pieces to include, framed the artwork by hand, marketed the project and were involved in every details from inception of the project to the closing reception.

“There were a lot of components to this and I learned so much about the professional art world through this experience. It was crazy learning how museums and galleries work and how to communicate with them and get results. Like how to get people to give you photo reproductions, how to get them to ship them to you, you know, just working with people,” said Hammond.

[spacer height="20px"]The reception for the exhibit has received a positive response thus far. On Sept. 26, Coombs gave a curatorial talk where he discussed the way that we create artificial boundaries in various areas of society and Hammond enjoyed watching everyone admire the pieces through that lens.

“[We] had Coombs talk about how the art relates to space and how we create artificial boundaries through our provinces and territory lines and how some spaces are delegated to some people while others aren’t so that was kind of cool watching people view the artwork while keeping that in mind,” explained Hammond.

Only a few of pieces from their original virtual exhibition were able to be secured, but the intent remained the same; to have equal representation for Indigenous and non-Indigenous art. The entire process shows the value of experiential education both for people leading the project and those able to appreciate the end results.

The exhibit can be viewed in L.R. Wilson up until Oct. 19, when there will be a final reception for the exhibit. People will have the opportunity to hear from the students who put the exhibit together and discuss it with them.

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