The CIHO project has been a collaborative incubator for new ideas and kinds of knowledge, helping us to imagine a more just society.
The Storytelling Chairs and Elegy impart important insights that reach us on an emotional level. Yet as a scholar and a relentless educator, I saw the value of adding a synthesis of key research and specific information framed in an accessible post-present-future narrative. My friend Rose Stanton, an editor and activist, worked with me to refine language and presentation, and we delighted in letting our radical selves push the analysis three steps further.
The result breaks a few rules about museum signage, but the panels were an unexpected success. Exhibit visitors took time to study them. They seemed to want to know and understand.
For the 2024 exhibit we collaborated with local project partners to create an additional set of regional or topic-specific context panels.
Set out below in both official languages, the panels are a citizen’s resource for fostering ethical communities to drive progressive thought and action in eldercare. The texts encourage people to reflect on ageism, in Canada and in themselves, and to consider its personal and institutional impacts. Taliya Cohen, our talented graphic designer, recreated the original English language panels in booklet format, for downloading and use beyond the site.