The Olympic battle over freedom of expression is heating up in Vancouver. The city has ordered a Downtown Eastside gallery to remove a mural that is critical of the upcoming Olympic games. The criminalized mural depicts a set of black Olympics rings, four of which have sad faces and one outcast sporting a smile.
The Crying Room gallery has been displaying murals on its exterior walls for a decade, and they say never before have they been asked to remove one. “It was pretty clear to me that it was because of the context of the work,” Colleen Heslin, who runs the gallery, told the Globe and Mail.
Unsurprisingly, the city of Vancouver denies any political motive behind the crackdown, and attributes the forced removal to a simple graffiti bylaw.
Photo: Jay Black
Spinoza, for those who missed this 17th century Dutch philosopher’s moment of celebrity, is one of the guys who helped put God – the idea of god – into its rightful abstract place. For Spinoza, nature was absolute and his political philosophy spiraled out from this essential truth. He was one of the godfathers of the Enlightenment – our Western wriggling out from under the ravaging weight of theocracy in favour of rational inquiry (yay science!). And despite its ruinous culmination (or detour, depending on your view) mid-20th century, the shift away from God’s law to reasonable law was essential in the development of democratic forms of governance.
The folks in Amsterdam want to celebrate this and all things Spinozian this Fall during the My Name is Spinoza art festival dedicated to Spinoza’s philosophy.
The festival includes public dance performances interpreting Spinoza’s work; a “Squatter’s Memorial” sound sculpture that will highlight the history of Amsterdam’s squatters movement; performances of Sturtevant’s Spinoza in Las Vegas, a theatrical fantasy radically displacing Spinoza into present day Las Vegas with its slot machines, dancing girls and strip lights; public discussions on the role of artists in social and public affairs, to name only a few of the events planned.
It is an inspiring idea. What an intriguing way to bring to into public view ideas that largely languish on dusty bookshelves or in all too narrow academic conversations. What about an art festival in the streets celebrating the ideas of Vandana Shiva? Or Taraq Ali? Or Edward Said? Or Donna Haraway? Or Ken Saro Wiwa? Or Noam Chomsky?
If you’re lucky enough to be in Amsterdam this September, check it out.
There is a plinth at Trafalgar Square in London, England that will host 100 days and nights of human performance/intervention/being in what may be the longest art performance ever mounted. Certainly one of the oddest. But also perhaps most apropo for a time whose shiniest cultural trait seems to be a willingness to participate in making culture (blog/podcast/flickr/youtube/twitter/etc.) rather than (only) consuming it. One and Other will mount 2,400 people in one hour live performances on the “fourth plinth” at Trafalgar Square – and of course, online.
The artist behind One & Other is Antony Gormley. His artist statement suggests that the project “is an extension of [his] exploration of the connection between individuals. The volunteers on the plinth become both representations of themselves and of the human population of the world, viewed by fellow members of the wider society which they inhabit.” Not so helpful, really. But we can see in this work echoes of a tradition sometimes referred to as “living art”, creative expression that uses living matter as its medium of expression.
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Theatre Activist and Revolutionary Augusto Boal
May 2nd, 2009, saw the passing of a visionary theatre artist, activist and educator. Augusto Boal, Brazilian theatre director and founder of the “Theatre of the Oppressed” (TO), has left a rich legacy of theatrical innovation and social activism in the inspired hearts and minds of theatre practitioners across the world.
Boal created the Theatre of the Oppressed techniques in the early 1960s as a way to establish a dialogue between audience, director and actors that encouraged political activism aimed at transforming oppressive realities. Seen as a threat to the dictatorship that ruled Brazil between 1964 and 1985, Boal was arrested and tortured before being exiled to Argentina. He then went on to further develop his practice in Argentina, Peru, and Europe, before returning to Brazil after the fall of the military regime.
Augusto Boal’s impact on the field of community-based art is incalculable. TO methodology is taught around the world, in universities as in community-based settings, including Theatre of the Oppressed Institutes on every continent. Boal’s ideas on theatre and empowerment changed the tools available to an entire generation of theatre artists, rejuvenating discourse around the impact of theatre in a given community. He himself worked tirelessly and to the end in teaching and enabling artists and communities worldwide, and his legacy will be felt in the thousands that now carry on his work. His passing marks the next phase of the Theatre of the Oppressed, in the physical absence of the Joker himself.
As this past March 27 saw Augusto Boal as the author of the 2009 World Theatre Day message, I share his words here with you again and reflect upon his legacy:
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Screen grab of the Laboratory of Insurrection Imagination site
The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination presents C.R.A.S.H: A postcapitalist A to Z. Take part in a free course combining art, activism and permaculture or get paid to actively imagine a postcapitalist world!
“We are looking into an unprecedented abyss of economic and social turmoil that confounds our previous perceptions of historical risk. Our vertigo is intensified by our ignorance of the depth of the crisis or any sense of how far we might ultimately fall.”(Mike Davis, Historian and social commentator.)
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Gallery Gachet in Vancouver
There are still ten days left to check out the multi-media exhibition that looks at prostitution in Vancouver and international sex trafficking.
Flesh Mapping: Vancouver Markets Pacific Women ends December 10 and includes Haruko Okano, Bettina Matzkuhn, Susanne Rutchinski and Krista Tupper exploring and revealing the demand for prostitution in Vancouver as well as international sex trafficking. Live feed and video connects 60 women at the Gallery Gachet installation, with 15 Pacific Rim women meeting at the Vancouver Art Gallery and 100 gathered at the Vancouver Public Library Central Branch.
A description of one of the installations from the organizers:
Flesh Mapping: a Feminist Conversation.
Hosted by Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter, 15 feminists organizers from around the Pacific Rim will gather daily for two hours in artful discussion of the conditions of women, the marketing of women, the nature of pacific trade and the connections between prostitution in Vancouver and international trafficking in girls and women. This Pacific Rim information will be linked by two-way live feed to the Vancouver installation at Gallery Gachet displayed on screens at both sites.
To view live streaming video of the Vancouver Art Gallery event click here. The video will be available between November 25th to December 10th from 2 to 4 pm.
Flesh Mapping: Vancouver Markets Pacific Women runs from November 25 to December 10 and is presented in conjunction with WACK!Art and the Feminist Revolution at the Vancouver Art Gallery. To find out about installations, exhibitions, and multi-media viewing (on line or on site) visit here.
Via our friends at Gallery Gachet in Vancouver (pictured above)
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