Nelson Mandela's defiance of apartheid commemorated in Canadian Museum for Human Rights exhibit

The new Nelson Mandela exhibit set to open this week at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights is drawing rave reviews from the founder oftheApartheid Museum in South Africa.

"Last night I had a chance to walk through what they've done and I must say, it's extraordinary to see the original narrative transformed at the handsof another group of curators," Christopher Till said on Tuesday.

"It encapsulates everything that we wanted to tell about Nelson Mandela's life, but it also brought in thethreads and the themes that are relevant today as they ever were."

Beginning Thursday, the public can follow in the footsteps of therevolutionary hero who fought against apartheid a system of institutionalized racial segregation imprinted in South Africa's DNA for decades in a newexhibit,Mandela: Struggle for Freedom, at the Winnipeg museum.

Celebrated as arevered human rights figure worldwide, Mandela died in 2013 at the age of 95. He was imprisoned for 27 years in an open act of defiance against hisracist government.

A feature attraction at the exhibit is an installationof Mandela's tiny two-by-2 metreprison cell, where he spent 18 years behind bars. Visitors will find the cell transformed into a digital theatre, depictinga story of resistance in the face of repression.

Till experienced what it was like to be locked inthe replica jail for more than an hour.

It amazes him how Mandela, in spite of hisconfinement, was resolute inhis desire for a better world.

"The message was reconciliation andnation-building andworking together collaboratively to build a new nation out of the ashes of apartheid. It is so important today to hold that mirror up because much of that has evaporated, even in our own country," Till said of South Africa.

The immersive exhibit,developedin collaboration with Till'sApartheid Museumin Johannesburg, South Africa, employs visuals, sounds and artifacts to depict Mandela's fight and the movement he started.

It is separated into five sections representing periods ofapartheid, defiance, repression, mobilization and freedom.

The exhibit includes atowering five-metre wall scrawled with the country's racist laws that dictated people's movements and actions based onlyon the colour of their skin, as well as are-creation of a secret apartment used by freedom fighters forced to gounderground.

IsabelleMasson, the Canadian Museum of Human Rights'lead curator, has been impacted by Mandela's movement for years, birthed from hertimein South Africa watchingthe country's first-ever democratic electionin 1994.

"That experience of witnessinghistory unfoldall around me completely transformed my perspective on things and gave me a passion for politics," she said.

She made multiple trips to South Africato devise an exhibitshe hopes will resonatewith visitors.

She wanted the exhibit to not only be a fittingembodiment ofMandela's life, butacknowledge Canada'ssupport ofhis vision.

"We hope that the exhibit is a source of inspiration."

A public opening for the exhibit will be held Thursday at 7 p.m., featuring remarks from Masson, Till,CMHR president and CEO John Youngand Brock University Prof.Dolana Mogadime, whose mother's story as a South African-Canadian anti-apartheid activist is presented in the exhibition.

After Thursday's free opening event, the exhibitwill be open from June 8 until early 2019.