Stories
CMU faculty awarded King Charles III’s Coronation Medal
Dr. Stephanie Stobbe receives King Charles III’s Coronation Medal in recognition of her work as part of the Hearts of Freedom project, a travelling exhibition that moved throughout various cities in the country, telling the stories of Southeast Asian refugees.
Dr. Stephanie Stobbe, Associate Professor and Chair of Conflict Resolution Studies at Canadian Mennonite University, has been awarded the King Charles III's Coronation Medal for her work on the Hearts of Freedom: Stories of Southeast Asian Refugees exhibition.
This medal, issued every year on the anniversary of the coronation of King Charles III, is awarded to Canadians who have made a significant contribution to the country or their given province/community. It's given to those who have made an outstanding achievement that brings credit to Canada.
The Hearts of Freedom project (HOF) was a travelling exhibition that moved throughout various cities in the country, telling the stories of Southeast Asian refugees.
The exhibition shares the accounts of Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian refugees who came to Canada between 1975 and 1985, fleeing conflicts like the Vietnam War, by utilizing photos, maps, timelines, and direct quotes from oral history interviews.
The Hearts of Freedom exhibition"The award acknowledges the significance of Canada's history of immigration and how the Canadian government and people stepped up to do the right thing to assist in humanitarian crises," says Stobbe.
"One of the biggest lessons I take from this is the importance of sharing our research with the wider audience in creative formats like an exhibition."
Assembling an entire exhibition was a completely new experience for Stobbe, and learning curatorial duties, alongside moving across the country with the exhibition, was laborious and demanding.
Although hard work, Stobbe says the project was fulfilling, adding, "receiving the award feels like really positive feedback on what I'm doing—I'm on the right track, and I want to continue to explore it in future projects."
The exhibition launched in February 2023 in Gatineau, and ends 2024 with another stop in Québec. HOF will continue to tour into 2025 with onging domestic interest and growing interenational demand.
Made up of six physical panels filled with photos, quotes, and maps, they all include QR codes that lead to a digital exhibition containing more information on the HOF project.
Through interviews with hundreds of participants, HOF traces and preserves an oral history of refugees from countries of the former Indochina. It documents the experiences of those individuals, telling the human stories at the centre of a historic moment in Canadian history.
Dr. Stephanie Stobbe at one of the many stops across Canada for the Hearts of Freedom traelling exhibitionBetween 1975 and 1997, Canada welcomed 210,000 Southeast Asian refugees, undertaking the largest and longest non-European resettlement in its history. This historic effort was also the first major initiative to resettle significant numbers of visible minority populations in Canada.
HOF highlights the many contributions of these Southeast Asian refugees in Canada and works to disseminate those stories for future generations.
"HOF tells the story of the best of Canada, a country of diverse people whose commonalities include accepting and striving for a multicultural space," Stobbe says. "[Receiving] the King Charles III Coronation Award brings weight to that message."
To Stobbe, this recognition acknowledges the significance of immigration as fundamental to the story of Canada. It shares the successful history of refugee integration and the ways in which both citizens and the government organized to help new Canadians.
"I want this work to represent Canadians who came to this country under incredibly difficult circumstances," Stobbe says. "It is their story, and it is important for those stories to be heard by all Canadians."
"If the HOF project and exhibition is part of that background, those stories will live on for generations."
The Hearts of Freedom exhibition tour was made possible by SSHRC and private donors.
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