Remastered Memories

Challenge

As time goes on, our knowledge of the past fades from memory. Throughout our history, we’ve asked soldiers to bravely fight wars abroad, but they’re losing the fight for relevance at home. Today, a quarter of Canadians under 45 don’t see the importance of Remembrance Week.

As we’ve lost soldiers to age, service and suicide, their acts of bravery are being lost along with them. We needed to help keep their memories alive and find a new way to make their acts of service and sacrifice relevant to a new generation of Canadians.

Inspiration

Even as time marches forward, there’s one place where veterans’ memories live on: in the letters they wrote from the front lines. However, these letters are often sealed away or kept behind closed doors, and their words largely go unread. We wanted to find a way to put these overlooked memories on display by turning them into something new and unignorable.

Idea

For the first time, we unearthed real soldier’s letters from the archives and had them read by an image-generating platform, turning each letter’s words into a unique work of art. Using artificial intelligence, we generated a series of paintings powered by the vivid descriptions of the actual sights, sounds and emotions soldiers experienced first-hand during World War 1, World War 2, Korea and Afghanistan.

Each piece paints a fuller picture of each soldier’s service and sacrifice, helping preserve their memories for generations to come.

Growth

To date, the project has received earned media coverage on broadcast news as well as media outlets across North America and Europe. In addition, the campaign quickly received donated media placements across Canada, including a national newspaper print placement and out-of-home boards throughout Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary.