Afghan memorials (other than the Kandahar cenotaph) - merged

[Blackadder1916]

Maybe don't put a jury together for a veterans memorial that doesn't include any veterans?

Except . . .

Five Teams Selected to Prepare Design Proposals for the National Monument to Canada’s Mission in Afghanistan - Canada.ca

The new monument will be built across the street from the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa

www.canada.ca

The design concepts will be evaluated by the same jury, made up of experts in the fields of visual arts and urban design, and representatives from key stakeholder groups, including a Veteran of Canada’s Mission in Afghanistan, a representative of the families of the fallen, a non-Veteran representative of the Mission in Afghanistan, and a military historian:

• Dr. Stephen Borys, Director and CEO, Winnipeg Art Gallery
• Virginia T. Burt, Landscape Architect and Principal, Virginia Burt Designs
• Master Warrant Officer Steve Chagnon, Veteran of Canada’s Mission in Afghanistan
• Reine Samson Dawe, representing the families of the fallen and 2019 National Memorial (Silver) Cross Mother
• Arif Z. Lalani, Canada’s Ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan during the height of Canada’s military and civilian mission
• Talbot Sweetapple, Architect and Partner, Mackay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects
• Dr. Lee Windsor, Deputy Director of The Brigadier Milton Gregg VC Centre for the Study of War and Society, University of New Brunswick

You don't need special qualifications to look at a memorial and see if it actually represents what is supposed to be memorialized, and you can probably make a solid arguement that it should be a panel of non specialists that is representative of the population.

Special juries tend to have their heads way up their ass and get more carried away with concepts and other abstract ideas, and then you end up with weird stupid shit totally divorced from whatever it is it's supposed to memorialize.

Your feelings about the craniorectal tendencies of the jury and the selection process aside, survey says . . .

Online survey results for the National Monument for Canada’s Mission in Afghanistan - Canada.ca

From May 20 to June 9, 2021, the Government of Canada posted a survey asking stakeholders and the Canadian public to share their thoughts on the design concepts proposed by the following five finalist teams.

www.canada.ca

12,048 "valid" survey responses out of what . . . over 30 million who can read and write. With the preponderance of serving and former servicing individuals in that cohort, I make the assumption that their overall impressions may have been similar to those expressed on these means when the survey was first publicized.

I will say that looking at the designs I don't like most of them.

I pretty well agree with Dangerboy. A little too much artistry, and not enough remembrance. Also, for the theme and the base colour, I would like too be reminded of the prevailing arid drabness, but maybe that is going too far. To my, long-retired military mind, the helmet on the butt of a vertical rifle with its bayonet driven into the ground is hard to beat.

Didn't like any of them. This is what a memorial should look like in my mind:


The fifth one - Stimson - was the least offensive to me.

I am in full agreement. I think they should go back to the drawing board and start again. I also picked Stimson as I thought it was the best of a bunch of bad ideas and made me think it had a military connection. The PFS studio was too similar in my opinion to the American Vietnam War memorial.

Dear Sir, Madame, or Miss
Should I have sent this to the wrong e-mail account, please forward it to the correct one.
I just filled out the subject survey. Well, left much blank actually because there were no good options in many cases...

I cannot express how sad I am about those five entries. I do not want to think about what the losing entries looked like.

These are, at best, nothingness. They are pathetic examples of modern abstract "art", completely devoid of meaning. The term "Artsy-fartsy" could have been coined for them, had it not already been in existence long ago. There is no reality, no human content. It is clear that nobody on any of the teams has any understanding of our experience, and likely never could.

Given that the people picking the design will be the same sorts of folks who picked this for the Navy Memorial in Ottawa, I suspect that something totally meaningless will "win."

A simple place for quiet contemplation and reflection is first and foremost what I would like.

I find the Hapa layout too busy (for lack of a better word); the Lashley proposal seems targeted towards architects with design choices that seem empty (to me); as already noted, the PFS design overly derivative of Maya Lin's Vietnam memorial; the Stimson design feels too cut off from everything around it.

I find the Daoust proposal to be my preferred choice.

Did you notice how there was no choice for free-form comments. Just - pick one of these monstrosities so that we can say we consulted the public. I'll be sending an email as well.

The Stinson one sucks the least, but that's the best I can say. It does, at least, propose to have the names and years of the fallen. I would like to hope the sculptor would reference helmets and load bearing equipment accurate to what we wore.

You'd think that with a perfect example of what a war memorial should look like just down the street, they would have been able to come up with something appropriate. Of the choices, the Stimson one is the best in my opinion, but the tacvest and helmet need fixing.

Quite like the Daoust proposal as well, out of the available options: the stone openwork seems like a regional touch (not sure if used in Afghanistan specifically, though). Would also lend itself to adding statuary at some point.

The PFS design seems likely to collect leaves, runoff, and trash, as well as being derivative of a fairly unique design. The Lashley one feels like too many possibly good ideas in one place and broken up in a bad way: odd that they used what looks like a Hesco barrier motif in a spot not visible in any of the proper approaches to the monument (1:06 in the video). Not sure how well the arid CADPAT paving would hold up, either.

They all fail to connect fully. Although not what first came to mind as a war monument, I find the Daoust to be the least worst...I was embedded with the Afghan government and we had a meeting and parter area in the compound that the Daoust monument reminds me of, as it related to working with Afghans to improve their own country. The other monuments seem to either be some artists completely disconnected impression of what some/most/all of Afghanistan was about, or poorly executed copies/similarities to other previous monuments. Vests on crosses by themselves seems like an ‘almost, but didn’t hit the Mark’ and few have a link either to Canadians at home supporting (perhaps a representation of one of the bridges overhead the Highway of Heroes?) or Afghans trying to make their nation better, but experiencing tragedy along that path...

Loachman’s suggestion to engage with Silvia Picota is a good one...had the honour of hosting her on one of her trips to AFG...she gets it...ask for her help.

overall: disappointing

The Stemson design seems like the best of the worst, or at least the one I hated the least. The rest are meaningless, soulless "modern" art and look more like a city park than a war memorial.

How do I dislike these designs, let me count the ways . . . wait, there's no mechanism at their website to properly do so. At my first attempt to register my displeasure, I clicked forward the pages, couldn't check any of the boxes indicating which design best met their list of criteria (none of them did for me), didn't have three "adjectives" (is crap an adjective?) and when you go past that page, it's submitted. Had to use my tablet to get another kick at the cat (one submission per device). This time my adjectives consisted of "derivative" (PFS Studio), "meaningless" and "crap".

. . .

It does let you apply three adjectives to each proposal. If you think they are irrelevant, out-of-touch, pretentious, horrid, ostentatious, or "meh" then you can label them as such.

For my money, the only one who should have input.

Personally I'd like to see statues of some of the likenesses of our soldiers who served there. I have a concept in my head fighting to get out.

"Outside The Wire" is the title I'd give it.

 

[Furniture]

Maybe don't put a jury together for a veterans memorial that doesn't include any veterans?

You don't need special qualifications to look at a memorial and see if it actually represents what is supposed to be memorialized, and you can probably make a solid arguement that it should be a panel of non specialists that is representative of the population.

Special juries tend to have their heads way up their ass and get more carried away with concepts and other abstract ideas, and then you end up with weird stupid shit totally divorced from whatever it is it's supposed to memorialize.

The National War Memorial, Korean War Memorial, Aboriginal Veteran memorial are all very easily identifiable as what they are for, and communicate a clear message.

The design the jury picked communicated shade I guess, but completely removed any linkage to the real human cost of the war, in both deaths, and physical/mental injuries.

Agree that putting a process in place and then ignoring the process is probably not great, but at the end of the day that was the only design out of the 4 that wasn't some kind of high brow conceptual piece of trash.

There was one veteran, but I suspect that as a "token" CAF veteran they were politely ignored and/or pressured into agreeing with the "experts".

I've been the token member on a board before, it was made clear that I as only there to make it look like my demographic's views were consulted.

 

[FJAG]

There was one veteran, but I suspect that as a "token" CAF veteran they were politely ignored and/or pressured into agreeing with the "experts".

I've been the token member on a board before, it was made clear that I as only there to make it look like my demographic's views were consulted.

There was one veteran, but I suspect that as a "token" CAF veteran they were politely ignored and/or pressured into agreeing with the "experts".

I've been the token member on a board before, it was made clear that I as only there to make it look like my demographic's views were consulted.

I know how to write dissenting opinions.

 

[Good2Golf]

Except . . .

Five Teams Selected to Prepare Design Proposals for the National Monument to Canada’s Mission in Afghanistan - Canada.ca

The new monument will be built across the street from the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa

www.canada.ca

Your feelings about the craniorectal tendencies of the jury and the selection process aside, survey says . . .

Online survey results for the National Monument for Canada’s Mission in Afghanistan - Canada.ca

From May 20 to June 9, 2021, the Government of Canada posted a survey asking stakeholders and the Canadian public to share their thoughts on the design concepts proposed by the following five finalist teams.

www.canada.ca

12,048 "valid" survey responses out of what . . . over 30 million who can read and write. With the preponderance of serving and former servicing individuals in that cohort, I make the assumption that their overall impressions may have been similar to those expressed on these means when the survey was first publicized.


















For my money, the only one who should have input.

So you took all that effort to opine about how only Old Soldeur should have a say? Your decision that no one else’s opinion here counts? I appreciate the depth of impact of Old Soldier’s loss, but a number of us you list above not only served in, but also lost friends in AFG.

Who are you to say our thoughts on the memorial don’t count?

 

[Maxman1]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/afghan-war-memorial-daoust-stimson-1.7162311

 

[Furniture]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/afghan-war-memorial-daoust-stimson-1.7162311

More proof SCC judges should retire and shut-up.

The former Supreme Court justice said she recently schooled Prime Minister Trudeau on the contract process during a private call.

"I said it's very important to follow the rules. When you have a procurement process for the expenditure of Canadian taxpayers money, the expectation is you follow the rules," she said.

She said she believes the government could compromise by letting the Daoust team build on the memorial site while paying the Stimson team to build elsewhere.

"If veterans want to have another monument that more reflects their contribution to this mission, Canada is a big country and they can build another monument elsewhere," she said.

"But here, rather than tainting this monument with an undemocratic process where the rules were not followed, which will always, I find, harm the honour of those we want to honour, they should correct that. We have time."

Of course, she was also part of the team that veterans rejected...

Edit: The final two paras I quoted highlight the problem with "elites"... In one sentence she says the veterans should just build another monument, the next she says that not building the monument the veterans rejected will harm the honour being paid to them...

 

[civmick]

Heather Mallick: I believe Canada got it right with Afghan War memorial design but why don’t you be the judge (Toronto Star/Heather Mallick)

It’s a war over esthetics, the only kind I favour.
A Montreal design team that put in a high-concept bid for the Afghan War Memorial planned for Ottawa is complaining bitterly because it lost to a design that Canadians actually liked.
Team Daoust, backed by the well-connected, including former Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour, won the jury vote for its stark, minimalist design. But Team Stimson’s warmer Indigenous-inspired design was far more popular in an online poll with votes from the public and the military.

Ottawa compromised the integrity of Afghanistan memorial by interfering in design process (Globe and Mail/Alex Bozikovic)

They won, and then they lost. Three years ago, a design competition jury selected a Quebec team of artists and designers for a new memorial in Ottawa: the National Monument to Canada’s Mission in Afghanistan. But in June, the federal government threw out the results of the competition and gave the commission to someone else.

Now the group who won the competition – led by Montreal architects and urban designers Daoust Lestage Lizotte Stecker, Quebec City artist Luca Fortin and former Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour – want the job back. Rightly so. This subversion of a design competition is a serious blow to the integrity of art and design in Canada.

 

[OldSolduer]

More proof SCC judges should retire and shut-up.



Of course, she was also part of the team that veterans rejected...

Edit: The final two paras I quoted highlight the problem with "elites"... In one sentence she says the veterans should just build another monument, the next she says that not building the monument the veterans rejected will harm the honour being paid to them...

This is like Red Rose tea....Only in Canada....

or maybe not.

 

[FJAG]

More proof SCC judges should retire and shut-up.

She was retired. She just won't shut up.

 

[daftandbarmy]

She was retired. She just won't shut up.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Bumping with the latest burning up the socials ....

Liberals admit Afghan War memorial will include Algonquin land acknowledgement

Veterans Affairs says Ottawa's planned memorial to Canada's Afghanistan mission will carry an Algonquin land acknowledgement as part of the federal government's efforts to support indigenous reconciliation.

www.westernstandard.news

Reminder of where it's going ....

Monument site | Veterans Affairs Canada

The National Monument to Canada’s Mission in Afghanistan will be located on LeBreton Flats in Ottawa, the traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishnaabeg People.

www.veterans.gc.ca

... and what's it's destined to look like (from the info-machine page).

Latest estimate for unveiling/dedication: 2028.