June 20th, 2024
By Alina, a student at Forest Heights Collegiate Institute (FHCI)
The Memory Portrait Project is a collaboration with senior high school artists and children living in orphanages in areas across the globe. Student artists are invited to capture their partner child’s unique characteristics and personality through digital or mixed-media artwork. This led to my process of creating an acrylic-on-canvas portrait of a girl named Neha who lives in India. My main focus throughout the process was to highlight Neha’s beautiful features and some of her personality, like the kindness in her eyes and cleverness in her smile.
However, to my surprise, this became one of the largest challenges with the piece as I constantly found myself second-guessing the resemblance of Neha’s features in my painting compared to hers in the photograph. Many nights I would completely restart her eyes or nose because some of the heavy strokes of my paintbrush didn’t capture the softness in her features. I know this was a struggle for many of the student artists working on this project. We all felt empathy that many of the children didn’t have mementos of their upbringing, and we wanted our pieces to be a reminder of their childhood that they could look back on; which is why we were all striving to get the portraits just right.
With the support of the other artists in our group and the reminder that the children would be more excited about our care and time that went towards the pieces above anything else, I persevered and completed her portrait. One large takeaway that shaped my perspective on the project was connecting Neha’s and other children’s situation to my parent’s situation as immigrants. I know my parents really struggled with the transition into a foreign country and leaving so many memories, objects and photos behind because they simply couldn’t fit into their suitcases. It’s heartbreaking to imagine so many children don’t have the opportunity to keep photos or objects that they can reflect on once they’re older. I imagine that most children have that one stuffed animal or toy they always slept with; whether it was getting tucked in by their parents, or hiding under their sheets from a thunderstorm – that item is part of a core memory.
Every child deserves to have these moments captured so that they can look back on them. I hope my artwork can help contribute to a memory like this for Neha and serve as a reminder that she is cared for and celebrated by a student like me, all the way from the other side of the world!
#StudentVoice Series
This article is written by a WRDSB student and is part of the Student Agency and Voice program. Student journalists embody WRDSB’s commitment to creating space for students to tell their stories. They are ambassadors for their peers as they share their personal experiences and stories about their schools and communities in their unique voices.
