the Kela blog

The Uni­ver­sity of Alberta’s Augus­tana Cam­pus has a brand new look in the K. Glen John­son Faith and Life Building.

The crea­tive brief called for us to design, create and ins­tall a series of ima­ges that would depict the rich­ness of the expe­rien­ces to be had in this rural Uni­ver­sity. The pro­ject also had to be infor­ma­tio­nal,  ins­pi­ra­tio­nal and honor the donors.

The Uni­ver­sity had avai­la­ble, a wide variety of pho­to­graphs that taken as a whole really do depict the rich­ness of life that stu­dents and faculty par­ti­ci­pate in, both on and off cam­pus. We deci­ded to use some of these ima­ges in a crea­tive way that would ful­fill the brief. We felt that choo­sing repre­sen­ta­tive ima­ges and enlar­ging and arran­ging them in a man­ner that was sim­ple and ele­gant, yet repre­sen­ta­tive of rural life  would be appropriate.

We chose to inc­lude the donors names near the top of the lar­ger wall dis­play. This indi­ca­tes their impor­tance. We also chose to use flo­wing panels which is indi­ca­tive of the rolling country­side to be found in this region.

Imme­dia­tely upon ente­ring the foyer you are struck by  an entire wall of tas­te­fully arran­ged ima­ges of cam­pus life. Across from the lar­ger panels are three stri­king ima­ges that deserve much atten­tion. In the hall­way to the Cha­pel are three more equally stri­king images.

The ove­rall effect accom­plishes exactly what the Uni­ver­sity called for and is gene­ra­ting a lot of exci­te­ment on cam­pus. It is expec­ted that when the stu­dents arrive next week they will be ins­pi­red to rea­lize their poten­tial, and these dis­plays will assist in accom­plishing that goal.

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A few months ago we were con­tac­ted by The Battle River Rural Elec­tri­fi­ca­tion Asso­cia­tion with the request to pre­pare a video on the his­tory of the orga­ni­za­tion. They were cele­bra­ting their 60th year at their annual gene­ral mee­ting and wished to have something sig­ni­fi­cant to cele­brate the event. Three months later we had tra­ve­lled many miles, inter­vie­wed many peo­ple, searched many records, visi­ted seve­ral museums, and cap­tu­red a lot of images.

The result was a 20 minute video that incor­po­ra­ted inter­views with ori­gi­nal REA mem­bers, their sto­ries told by pre­sent emplo­yees and inter­views with pre­sent emplo­yees. Woven throughout was the his­tory of the orga­ni­za­tion told in narra­tive form, sup­por­ted by his­to­ric photographs.

The best part of the pro­ject was the actual gathe­ring of the infor­ma­tion. The peo­ple we met and spent time with truly are exam­ples of the posi­tive advan­ta­ges of a rural lifestyle. Great Cana­dians all.

It was also a great pri­vi­lege to watch the crews at work. Follo­wing the wild­fi­res northeast of Edmon­ton this spring a lot of the far­ming com­mu­nity was without power. The crews wor­king the area were truly a tes­ta­ment to the orga­ni­za­tion. Wor­king quietly without was­ted motion and not see­ming to hurry, they accom­plished a great deal in a short period of time. It became imme­dia­tely appa­rent that all were well trai­ned pro­fes­sio­nals, and that all were part of a team that was grea­ter than the indi­vi­duals. All team mem­bers were experts at their jobs, and when a team mem­ber nee­ded a hand help was right there without it having to be asked for.

It was also a treat to watch them ope­ra­ting some of the sophis­ti­ca­ted equip­ment that is avai­la­ble today. The early line­men and far­mers that ins­ta­lled the lines back in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s would be asto­nished indeed.

Truly an excep­tio­nal orga­ni­za­tion made up of excep­tio­nal people.

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