Activist documentary made free for May Day
From our activist and filmmaker friends in the UK:
Constellation and Occupy.com present A FREE 24-hour ONLINE SCREENING of Just Do It – a tale of modern-day outlaws, in celebration of May Day and in honour of the direct action being taken by thousands of people. The film will be offered online for free streaming from 5:30pm EST Monday 30th April to 5:30pm EST Tuesday 1st May. Plus a live Q&A with director Emily James at 7pm EST, directly after the first showing. More details after the jump.
Roots to Resistance project shares stories of courage
Natalia Estemirova
Twelve women. Twelve stories of political courage. Twelve portraits. The Roots to Resistance project is spreading word about the groundbreaking work of twelve women who have dedicated their lives to fighting for social justice.
Denise Beaudet is the artist behind the portraits. Postcards of these images and small posters are available free for the asking and are being sent around the world. The goal of the project is to inspire by sharing these women’s heroic struggles against corruption, exploitation and oppression.
The portraits include Aung San Suu Kyi, Wangari Maathai, Vandana Shiva, Rebecca Gomperts, Natalia Estemirova, Malalai Joya, Chouchou Namegabe, Zapatista Women, Maria Gunnoe, Yvonne Margarula, Dita Indah Sari, Marina Silva.
The Roots projects is raising money through Kickstarter for the next phase of the project. The fundraising campaign runs to May 5th.
I caught up with Beaudet to ask her a few questions about her work and about the project … Click to continue »
Interview with Bryan Newson of Vancouver's Public Art Program
Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas ‘Abundance Fenced’
Bryan Newson is the Manager of the City of Vancouver’s Public Art Program. He and his staff have been responsible for bringing you everything from Ken Lum’s Monument for East Vancouver to Rodney Graham’s Aerodynamic Forms in Space, and hundreds more. I met with Bryan a few weeks ago to discuss how he got involved in the creation of the program, what it does, and where it’s headed in the face of budget cutbacks.
The good, the bad, the incomprehensible
The 19th edition of North America’s largest documentary showcase and one of the world’s largest film festivals begins this week, running from April 26 to May 6 in Toronto. With Charlotte Cook replacing Sean Farnel as head programmer, new directions (fewer films, more focus is the official line), new initiatives (Hot Docs’s very own Kickstarter, Doc Ignite), new sponsors (Nescafé, Dundee Wealth and Sun Life Financial, to name a few of the more spurious corporate inductees) and a gorgeously renovated, and reinvigorated, venue (The Bloor / Hot Docs Cinema), Canada’s non-fiction champ continues their tradition of perennial renewal, improvement and growth.
It’s all very promising and exciting and I’m sure this year will signal another hit in the festival’s two decade history. So to get things warmed up, I thought I’d take a look at the programming, which promises a mixed bag of goodies, baddies and proverbial head-scratchers.
Stef Lang takes the uprising of women internationally against the pressure that consumer culture creates for young women (and undoubtedly for young men as well) to the pop scene with this great, dancable song that could easily contend with the same hits that push the “look” she’s speaking out against. She gives the mainstream a tongue lashing in Paper Doll’s quick lyrics: “Living on a treadmill, skip my dinner / Work my body till I get thinner / Running with the girls across the nation / Caught up in a world of thin-spiration.”
Originally from the tiny town of Ladysmith, BC, Stef moved to Vancouver six years ago to pursue music. Currently, she’s on tour across Canada to support the release of her new EP, “Fighting Mirrors” which can be downloaded free from her website, and which has other songs speaking to the high stress, high speed consequences of modern consumer life.
Khaled Jarrar issues postage stamp for State of Palestine
It is a postage stamp for a nation that exists somewhere between memory’s twilight, international conflict and the aurora of hope. Palestinian artist Khaled Jarrar has designed a postage stamp for Palestine for the Berlin Biennale (which opens April 27). The stamp pictures the Palestinian Sun Bird and the words “State of Palestine” in Arabic, Hebrew and English. The stamp has been issued as official postage by the German postal service, Deutsche Post. More than 20,000 have been sold.
In an interview with Reuters, Jarrar said that his stamps are party in response to a law that forbids the Palestinian postal service from printing the words “State of Palestine”.
Jarrar, 36, is one of rising stars of the Palestinian art world. Last year, he began stamping the passports of visitors to the Palestinian territories using a stamp of his own design. Jarrar works with photography, video, and performance.
Social media facilitates another political misunderstanding
Recently the Swedish Minister of Culture, Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth, was presented a cake at an event that many have decried as racist – understandably when one takes a first glance at the thing. The story and ensuing outrage has gone viral, with accusations of racism flying faster than homophobic comments from Rick Santorum.
The whole thing is reminiscent of the recent Kony 2012 viral video and of the ways in which we engage with social media in general. More than once I’ve clicked a link, sometimes even adding my own disgust to a public outcry over something that seems terribly unjust or wrong, only to discover later that I should have actually looked just a little bit further to discover the true nature of the situation.
So is the case with the now infamous “racist Swedish cake,” made as a political statement by a black Swedish artist, Makode Linde, wishing to draw attention to Western conceptions of blackness whose message has been lost in social-media fueled frenzy of racist accusations. It turns out it’s more complicated than it looks, as Makode Linde explains in this video on the Afro Europe site (after the jump).
An interview with Iranian artist Shahrzad Arshadi
Portrait of artist Shahrzad Arshadi by Thien V (Montreal, March 2012).
It Is Only Sound That Remains is a sound theatre performance by artist Shahrzad Arshadi, meditating on the life and death of Ziba Kazemi, also known as Zahra Kazemi.
The story of Kazemi’s 2003 death in Iran, the ensuing Canada-Iran diplomatic fallout and the ongoing struggle for justice in the case, led by Kazemi’s son Stephan Hachemi, is relatively well known in Canada.
Kazemi was arrested for taking photographs at a student protest outside Evin Prison in Tehran, a major jail for political prisoners in Iran.
Artwork of illustrator Zina Saunders
When I found Zina Saunders’ [pronounced Zai-nah] animations on Mothers Jones a couple weeks ago I knew I’d have to ask her for a chat. We got on the phone last week and by the time I was off I was texting my friends that she was one of the best interviews I’d had. Firey, bold, and straight-forward, Zina’s personality emboldens not just her animations, but her gorgeous portraits as well. Her work is straight-to-the-point, no-bullshit humour dripping with sarcasm.
To her, humour isn’t just a tool for spreading a message, it’s also the best way to pull the rug out from someone and reduce their credibility. She’s a fantastic testament to artists who have created a way to speak out while still being known for great, technically sound work.
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