Burnaby Village Museum is adding a new, youthful voice to its exhibit on South Asian Canadians in Burnaby.
Starting in May, the museum's Truths Not Often Told exhibit will feature the perspectives of local high school students talking about what it means to be South Asian Canadian in Burnaby today.
The culmination of three years of research guided by the museum's South Asian advisory committee, Truths Not Often Told first opened last May.
The exhibit uses family photos, cultural belongings, poetry, plays and more to showcase the stories of South Asian communities as they migrated to Burnaby in the early 1900s.
Curator Jane Lemke said the museum always makes changes to its two-year exhibits after the first year to keep them "fresh" and add anything that may have been missed.
With Truths Not Often Told, she said one piece of feedback the museum got from the advisory committee was that it was missing a youth voice.
'We wanted to make sure that the exhibit took people through history and through time but also ended with hope for the future from the voices of those that will be living it," Lemke said.
To capture those voices, the museum reached out to teachers at Burnaby high schools to suggest students who might want to be part of a new display.
Selected students then toured the exhibit last month.
Their impressions, thoughts and opinions – recorded during the visit – will now become part of a new interactive display.
Burnaby South Secondary teacher Sabha Ghani was one of the teachers contacted by the museum.
She said one of her goals – one shared by the museum – was to make sure the youth voice included representation from different South Asian backgrounds, including the Punjab region, North and South India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
Ghani said she was "full of joy" watching students connect with Truths Not Often Told, learning about accomplishments and contributions by South Asian Canadians in Burnaby and connecting with items in the exhibit that reminded them of their own families.
During the tour, Ghani said students reminisced about different times they had been to the local museum with their families in the past.
"I think one of the reasons they were so excited was they got to see themselves on display," Ghani told the NOW. "When you look at what the exhibit is called, it's all about representation, right? So, one of the things the students said was that it's so neat to see ourselves visible and represented in a museum. They'd never seen something like that before here in Burnaby."
The student's portion of the exhibit opens May 4.
Visit the Burnaby Village Museum website for more information.
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