Education

BY INDIRA PRAHST - Instructor of Race and Ethnic Relations, Department of Sociology, Langara College, Vancouver

Vishavjit Singh - Sikhtoons: Cartoonist from New York

"I really liked the cartoon display and would not have learned what I had about Sikhs and 1984 if it was not displayed through cartoons in this way.”

That was the reactions of some Sikh youth after taking in the Sikhtoons exhibition by cartoonist Vishavjit Singh from New York last week at Gurdwara Sahib Baba Banda Singh Bahadur in Abbotsford.

Indeed, cartoon art is a creative way to disseminate knowledge and to express feelings that may not be captured through words. This was the case for Vishavjit, creator of Sikhtoons and a software engineer by profession, who told me that he was able to find an outlet for the collage of feelings of anger, pain and nostalgia he felt through cartooning, adding: “This allows me also to analyze aspects of 1984 and to continue to educate myself.”