Bonjour readers,

Through shows I watched on television, I had a rough idea about the archive. In my mind, I thought the interior of the archive is dark and pack with thick binders and books. However, when we came to the University Archive under the IBLC, I learned about the distinguish features of archives compare to libraries. Also we have deep insight on the author of Obasan, Joy Kogawa through the fonds and artifacts in it.

The Archive admin gave us a brief introduction on basic distinctions between the libraries and archives. In generally, the libraries are occupy with secondary resources like books which commonly gathering and expand on first hand information to create further analysis base on the original documents. These first hand collections are primary resources that compose archives, it can be in the form of letters, draft, newspaper article. On another hands, most of the collections placed in libraries are artificial made. Books and Magazines have nice covers, printed pages and released by publishers which means they can be duplicate for sell purpose. At the same time, the collections in archives are unique and rare of copies. The documents in fonds are collect naturally from readers, authors, press or anything relates to works of the artists. Therefore, every collections are originals then there is no way to find it in other places, just like artworks in museums.

Afterwards, we got a chance to look at the folders from the Kogawa’s fonds. I was amaze about how many files just relate to her works and each folder’s artifacts are differ from another one. The artifacts I looks at included the letters of students response to Kogawa’s children’s book “Naomi on the road”; Oxford University press and other newspaper comments on her children novels; and a thin folder with government officials including prime minister letter about “Obasan”. Most for the artifacts were created in 80’s which present images of the generation and their way of living. As far I know, the “Naomi on the road” is one of the children book that Joy Kogawa wrote. The book depict a girl name Naomi in some degree the portrait of Kogawa herself, during the internment camp in a small valley far away from Vancouver. 

Children response with very cruelly words in the letter to the author and freely express their feeling about story characters. The other folder contained newspaper articles and letter of the Oxford press give me some details of the public response of the book. Kogawa’s work received many positive feedbacks from these reports and being praise for retrieve and restore of the historical tragic for Japanese Canadian during WWII internment. Last but not least, Kogawa had sent her copies of “Obasan” to officials of the time like governor of Ontario, members of monument broad, even the prime minster Pierre sent thanks notes back to her (Trudeau 1981). Aren’t like the “Aunt Emily” who is the activist that always enthuse speak out against government for the compensation of Japanese Canadian. Joy Kogawa use her peaceful discourse via the fictional novel “Obasan”, to reveals a national misstep and let the government confront the situation. The novels written by Kogawa having influences in wide-age range of Canadian by narrate the mistreated of Japanese Canadian in British Columbia during WWII and she wants the society avoid recurrence of similar mistake.

Work cited:

Trudeau, Pierre. Special Letters form P Trudeau, W. DAVIS, Monument Broad. Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys Limited. 24 July, 1981. Box 58 File 7. Joy Kogawa fonds. University of British Columbia Library Rare Books and Special Collection, Vancouver Canada.

In the past week, we had been talk on the comic reportage “Safe Area Gorazde” wrote by Joe Sacco. In general, the book is about the tragic stories happened on Bosnian Muslim in the UN designated Enclave, Gorazde, while during the war against Serbian Nationalists from 1992 to 1994. Joe Sacco was in a role of American Journalist, travelled to Gorazde fourth times through the UN “Blue Road” after conditions been stabilized in the town. He interviewed many civilians about the four years battle between Serbian Chetnik and Bosnian government(local Muslim forces). He considers the Bosnian Muslims are genuine victims of the war.

Despite further facts and figures, Joe Sacco unfold his mastered drawing techniques and colloquial languages use in the texts. Figures and scenes creates by Sacco are neatly present according to realism, every frame of pictures seem what actually happened. His drawing particularly focus on the details of people’s faces, to exaggerate their facial expression which successfully enhance readers emotional feelings. In contrast, Satrapi’s Persepolis also achieved similar effect by her “symmetric drawing” on crowds although she insists simplicity in drawing which portray less details on characters. Similar with Satrapi, Sacco also not afraid to display the violence and massacre scenes in the stories. The most impressive example for me is the narrate of the senior, Rasim. He told Sacoo about the story of how he survive through invasion in Gorazde. When Rasim sneak through the second bridge at night, he witnessed Serbs soldiers brutally slaughter Bosnian muslim. He then carefully walk through a ground where spill with blood, like a pond made up by human blood. These scenes shock me the most and I don’t know how much trauma will left in Rasim and other innocent people minds.

Persepolis and Safe Area Gorazde are both done in black and white but from my perspective of arts, I think Sacco did a better job in illustrating the details. Because in order to perform the  horrendous conditions of wars or conflicts, artists are require to re-presenting from aspect of realism, thus more details are given more accuracy to audiences. In addition, I like the way that Sacco organize the story which put readers in a role of witness. For example, he locates direct dialogues into bubble textboxes and his own descriptive sentences into square columns. To emphasis the words, he bold and enlarger the words and written in capital. Beyond these specific methods, most importantly, he divide the book into individual chapters and use first person to narrate the individuals stories. Instead of writing his own perspective towards Bosnian War, in most length of the book, he let his interviewees, Bosnian civilians telling their stores. I also recognize he is working hard on present the true whether by his animated drawing or subjective tales from victims. To maintain the realistic of the images of war, Sacco eliminate revealing his interpretation on subjects. Perhaps that’s why he intended to not drawing his eyes behind the glasses. People always say the eyes are the window of souls/minds. It’s so true that the eyes is crucial to express one’s feeling because it not only reflect the mood of characters but also output certain non-verbal expression. In the end, the book is successfully review the war by individual storytelling and vivid depict of the town. It is heartbreaking and mind blowing to go through the stories. Besides the despair mood throughout the comic, many victims had survive through this catastrophe, it shows both positive and negative sides of human nature.

Reference:

1. “Mehmed-pasa Sokolovic Bridge:A Monument to Genocide.” Visegrad Genocide Memories. 3 Dec. 2009. Web. 12. Nov. 2015.
2. Sacco, Joe. Safe Area Goražde. Seattle: Fantagraphics, 2000. Print.