Remembering the Pain

Martha Chow and Wind Yuen of 9X1 won the performing arts category of the Hong Kong Holocaust and Tolerance Center (HKHTC) Art and Writing competition with their Not One Word shadow dance. Jing Chen Fok, Joshua Fung, Jonathan Tam, Nadia Shao, Bonnie Ng, Kevin Li, Lauren McMillan, Rachel Sung and Melody Leung were awarded honorable mentions for their well-designed memorials.

Contest winners Martha Chow and Wind Yuen

“We created this as a means of erasing our society’s ignorance towards these events and to ensure that we are aware of the events that have occurred in the past,” said Martha. “This idea originated from our belief in that it is not possible to accurately portray the emotions and trauma that victims experience through text or speech.”

This year, 180 of our Y9 students competed in HKHTC’s annual contest in which students were given the opportunity to showcase their talents, creating a memorial to remember a genocide that occurred over the course of history. They were given the prompt “Why should be remember?”  to create memorials which fitted into either the performing arts, visual arts, or writing category.

Over the course of 2 months, students have been working on their respective memorials during PRS lessons and in their spare time. We saw a very broad range of memorials being produced; from shadow dances, sculptures and musical compositions to narratives, essays and brochures. The students put a lot of hard work to ensure that their work is of a high standard.

“We received over 75 entries from 14 regional schools and the standards were very high,” wrote HKHTC’s Director of Education Simon Goldberg. “However, after much deliberation, the judges voted unanimously for Martha and Wind’s submission.”

Congratulations to all our winners! We will be seeing them again near the end of the academic year , where Simon Goldberg himself will be attending the final whole school assembly to present our winners with their well deserved prizes!

Memorial made by Jing Chen Fok, Jonathan Tam and Joshua Fung