Facing Human Wrongs:

Gallery of Responses

This gallery features work submitted by UBC students (reproduced with permission) to the first iteration of this course. As a final assignment, students were invited to submit a creative response that engaged with the 4 denials that provided the structure for the (un)learning bundles.

The four denials are:

1. the denial of systemic violence and complicity in harm: the fact that our comforts, securities and enjoyments are subsidized by expropriation and exploitation here and somewhere else.
2. the denial of the limits of the planet: the fact that the planet cannot sustain exponential growth and consumption.
3. the denial of entanglement: our insistence in seeing ourselves as separate from each other and the land, rather than “entangled” within a living wider metabolism that is bio-intelligent.
4. the denial of the magnitude and complexity of global challenges: the fact that most interventions are based on simplistic solutions (that make us feel and look good), paternalistic engagements, ethnocentric ideals of justice, change and sustainability.

Video “Unlearning” by Rahel Samarakkody

Artwork and notes by Yolanda Masacha

Author’s notes PDF.

Video “Creative response to the course” by Cara Cripton-Inglis

Author’s notes PDF.

Painting “The denial” by Sarah Day

Author’s notes PDF.

Collage “Creative Response” by Breagha Zakaid

Author’s notes PDF.

Sculpture “The box” by Madeline Stuart

Author’s notes PDF.