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The Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Its first temporary exhibit will be about peace, including personal stories from Canadians. (photo by Aaron Cohen)
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Photo by Aaron Cohen.
The Canadian Museum for Human Rights
The Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Its first temporary exhibit will be about peace, including personal stories from Canadians.
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The Canadian Museum for Human Rights. (photo by Aaron Cohen)
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The Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Its first temporary exhibit will be about peace, including personal stories from Canadians. (photo by Aaron Cohen)
Winnipeg’s new human rights museum to promote respect and dialogue
The new Canadian Museum for Human Rights looks almost like something from a sci-fi movie with its undulating glass-wrapped base topped by a 23-storey pinnacle, the so-called Tower of Hope.
This futuristic glass and limestone structure, designed by American architect Antoine Predock in response to the Canadian landscape, rises from The Forks – a historic site at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers in central Winnipeg. The location has tremendous symbolic heft. Located on Treaty One land, it was a traditional indigenous trading spot and was also significant in the Métis uprising led by Louis Riel almost 150 years ago.
The museum, which opened Sept. 20, has a price tag of some $350 million – including $100 million from the federal government – and a mandate to enhance understandings of human rights, promote respect for others, and encourage reflection and dialogue.
With a total area of 260,000 square feet, the museum relies heavily on multimedia, with immersive theatres and interactive digital displays. Exhibits include more than 100 hours of video, four feature films, two soundscapes and 18 mixed-media story niches, as well as some 250 artifacts and works of art.
The largest of 11 themed galleries looks at Canadian issues, such as French-language rights and the Chinese head tax. Aboriginal rights are explored in a space that includes a circular theatre used for storytelling and performances. Other galleries focus on the Holocaust and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. Displays about atrocities in Ukraine, Armenia, Rwanda and Bosnia are also featured.