Take an art show comprised entirely of works found in the trash, a soapbox derby, countless bands, guerilla theatre interventions, conceptual art pieces, picnics in strange places, video screenings and parades and you get a pretty interesting festival. Remove participation fees, unethical sponsorships, a heavy corporate presence and any form of censorship and replace those negatives with an inclusive community-based approach to the arts and you get the International Infringement Festival.
Created in Montreal in the summer of 2004 and thrown together in just a few months, the festival has managed to survive long enough to enter its seventh year and spread to various communities around the world as varied as Bordeaux, France and Ottawa, sometimes planting roots and continuing. This year, there are four stops on the Infringement circuit: Brooklyn, which already happened in May; Montreal, which gets underway in late June; Hamilton (for the first time) in early July; and Buffalo in the end of July and early August.
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There are those performers who touch us in ways that we never thought we could be touched. Ronnie Burkett with his marionettes is one of those artists – at least for me – a kind of creative genius (if that category of compliment hasn’t been completely discredited) whose work gets under my skin and makes me feel as if elements of my lives are being played out onstage by the freaky little wooden dolls dangling from his fingers.
I say “lives” because Burkett performs his latest with at least a dozen or so different characters, Burkett creating the voices and onstage personas for all of them while also playing himself – or rather, a cruise ship marionette artist in a mid-career / mid-life crisis. A friend who I described the performance to – someone unfamiliar with Burkett’s work – said that it sounded “creepy”, and there is something not just a little crazy about watching a man inhabit so many different personalities in such a compressed and energetic performance.
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Is Anne Coulter a pundit, a performance artist or a baffoon? Une question tres important.
Coulter’s talk at the University of Ottawa on Tuesday this week was canceled. Students who disagree with her particular brand of over-the-top conservative histrionics marched and shouted (I think someone pulled the fire alarm) and, apparently on the advice of her security staff, she withdrew from the show.
So now Coulter is filing a complaint with the Human Rights Commission. She alleges that an e-mail from Ottawa U that asked her to use “restraint, respect and consideration” when speaking, and explained that freedom of speech in Canada is defined differently than in the U.S., makes her the victim of a “hate crime.” Her point is that the email targeted her as a member of an identifiable group and thus was hate speech and a hate crime.
A quick look at the Criminal Code of Canada suggests that hate crime is committed with the intention to intimidate, harm or terrify a group of people who are targeted for who they are and not for anything they have done. Hate crimes involve physical force or threat of physical force against a person, a family or a property; intimidation, harassment.
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I came across a fascinating art project taking place in Windsor, Ontario called the Broken City Lab, an artist collective’s response to the economically and socially plundered remains of yet another post-industrial North American city.
Broken City Lab describes what they do as a mix of social practice, performance, and activism. From the website: “The lab attempts to generate a new dialogue surrounding public participation and community engagement in the creative process, with a focus on the city as both a research site and workspace”. Their goal? To find new and creative solutions to Windsor’s economic and social miasma now that the industrial party has moved on.
Their projects are often technology based, which they use to bring in wider communities of participation. For example, the Talking to Walls intervention projected short fill-in-the-blank questionnaires and statements into public spaces that addressed issues of public and private concern — statements like:
Tear down all the _________ but leave up all the ____________.
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Protesters against the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the West Bank barrier wall take a more theatrical approach in Bil’in. On February 12, 5 Israeli, Palestinian and international demonstrators dressed as James Cameron-style Avatars marched towards the barrier, which has absorbed approximately 60% of this Palestinian village’s farmland, and were, per usual, met with tear gas and sound bombs. Though sporting blue painted bodies, pointy ears and long tails didn’t seem to faze the Israeli Defense Force, the tactics generated more media attention than usual for this weekly action.
In 2004, the International Court of Justice declared the barrier a violation of international law, and the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that sections of it imposed “undue hardships on Palestinians and should be re-routed.” 3 weeks ago Israel began reconstruction of the wall returning 30% of the land it previously confiscated. Though this sparked celebration, demonstrators and maybe even occasional ‘Avatars’ will continue their weekly action demanding justice and the return of all illegally confiscated West Bank lands as they’ve done for the past 5 years.
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Protest for Housing
If anything is making its slow way out of the Downtown East Side (DTES) and into mainstream Olympic news flows, it is the issue of homelessness. The Red Tent Campaign, the Tent City Squat on a VANOC parking lot, the homeless banner strung from the Cambie Bridge (for a VANOC sanctioned 20 minutes, and time immemorial photo-op), Saturday’s national housing rally …
This was the topic of conversation at last Sunday’s Safe Assembly Newscast at the VIVO studios. Safe Assembly is a gesture to protect the critical conversation about the Olympic games. Hosted by VIVO, a media arts collective who chose not to participate in the Cultural Olympiad, the Newscasts are opportunities for those critical of the Olympics to come together and reflect on the events of protest and dissent taking place in Vancouver.
What follows is a brief summary of the gathering — topics of discussion included the housing protest at the Vancouver Art Gallery last Saturday, update from the Tent City squat, a look at the growing phenomena of Olympic fans protesting against protesters, and the potential effects of university students as shock troops of gentrification in the DTES.
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When local homeless and under-housed residents of the Downtown East Side (DTES) were asked what they wanted during the Vancouver Olympic games, they said a safe place to hang out, get some food and coffee, relax and listen to music. And they wanted this without the invasive scrutiny of the media and without feeling like they were a problem to be solved with charity. The Homeground Festival was born, a festival of sustenance and sanctuary specifically for those struggling with poverty, substance dependency, homelessness and physical and mental health challenges.
The dates of the festival are not publicized. The only way to find out about it is word of mouth or if you happen to see a poster which only appear in the DTES. And with one exception, media is not allowed on site – no cameras or recording devices of any kind. It is a place where DTES residents can go and feel comfortable among themselves without the invasive gaze of outsiders.
(See the video interview after the jump.)
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