1. At the end of Chapter 8, the struggle between organizational responsibility and rapport with participants is mentioned as a roadblock in the collaborative artistic process. How could a conflict like this be overcome? How do the “rules about art” that one learns in school get in the way of community arts-based research or education?
2. In chapter 9, Kim Villagante talked about the intersection of being an artist, as well as an anti-oppression facilitator of adult education. She mentioned several identities throughout the chapter and the underlying tensions that it can cause.
Which intersectionalities do you belong to, and how have they impacted your growth as a professional? How do you reconcile the underlying tensions so as to maximize the impact of the learning experience?
3. Smartphones have democratized photographic and artistic storytelling. Could this factor into the self-empowerment ideas presented in Chapter 9? Look back through your phone’s camera/media app and identify a few examples that illustrate personal empowerment and describe the situation.
4. In chapter 10, Butterwick and Carrillo discuss the “femininization of survival” in late capitalist globalism that exploits women as cheap labor. The authors state that this has led to exclusion, terrible working conditions, and low quality of life. This has led to the rise of transnational activism which links local issues with international activities. In this increasingly globalized world, how can transnational activism help to join others connected to a cause that might occupy marginalized spaces
Book to be used:
Working the Margins of Community-Based Adult Learning
INTERNATIONAL ISSUES IN ADULT EDUCATION
Volume 19
Series Editor: Peter Mayo, University of Malta, Msida, Malta
Editorial Advisory Board: Stephen Brookfield, University of St Thomas, Minnesota, USA Waguida El Bakary, American University in Cairo, Egypt Budd L. Hall, University of Victoria, BC, Canada Astrid Von Kotze, University of Natal, South Africa Alberto Melo, University of the Algarve, Portugal Lidia Puigvert-Mallart, CREA-University of Barcelona, Spain Daniel Schugurensky, Arizona State University, USA Joyce Stalker, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand/Aotearoa Juha Suoranta, University of Tampere, Finland
Scope: This international book series attempts to do justice to adult education as an ever expanding field. It is intended to be internationally inclusive and attract writers and readers from different parts of the world. It also attempts to cover many of the areas that feature prominently in this amorphous field. It is a series that seeks to underline the global dimensions of adult education, covering a whole range of perspectives. In this regard, the series seeks to fill in an international void by providing a book series that complements the many journals, professional and academic, that exist in the area. The scope would be broad enough to comprise such issues as ‘Adult Education in specific regional contexts’, ‘Adult Education in the Arab world’, ‘Participatory Action Research and Adult Education’, ‘Adult Education and Participatory Citizenship’, ‘Adult Education and the World Social Forum’, ‘Adult Education and Disability’, ‘Adult Education and the Elderly’, ‘Adult Education in Prisons’, ‘Adult Education, Work and Livelihoods’, ‘Adult Education and Migration’, ‘The Education of Older Adults’, ‘Southern Perspectives on Adult Education’, ‘Adult Education and Progressive Social Movements’, ‘Popular Education in Latin America and Beyond’, ‘Eastern European perspectives on Adult Education’, ‘An Anti-Racist Agenda in Adult Education’, ‘Postcolonial perspectives on Adult Education’, ‘Adult Education and Indigenous Movements’, ‘Adult Education and Small States’. There is also room for single country studies of Adult Education provided that a market for such a study is guaranteed.
Working the Margins of Community-Based Adult Learning The Power of Arts-Making in Finding Voice and Creating Conditions for Seeing/Listening
Edited by Shauna Butterwick University of British Columbia, Canada
and
Carole Roy St. Francis Xavier University, Canada
A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN: 978-94-6300-481-7 (paperback) ISBN: 978-94-6300-482-4 (hardback) ISBN: 978-94-6300-483-1 (e-book)
Published by: Sense Publishers, P.O. Box 21858, 3001 AW Rotterdam, The Netherlands https://www.sensepublishers.com/
All chapters in this book have undergone peer review.
About the cover image:
Let’s Go to the People’s Place, 2011 92 × 150 cm, Gobelins tapestry of wool
Tapestry designed and woven by Murray Gibson; based on artworks by members from L’Arche Antigonish, Nova Scotia: Michael Boddy, Tommy Landry, Lisa Leuschner, Mary Anne MacKinnon, Cory Pelly, and Matthew Wright.
Commissioned by The People’s Place Library, Antigonish, Nova Scotia.
Photographer: Jeffrey C. Parker
Printed on acid-free paper
All Rights Reserved © 2016 Sense Publishers
No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction ix Shauna Butterwick and Carole Roy
Section 1: Telling Our Story through Visual Arts
1. Feminist Arts-Based Adult Education with Homeless and Street-Involved Women 3 Darlene E. Clover
2. “I Still Have My Hands”: Rural Women, Depression, and Zines 15 Paula Cameron
3. Weaving Community Together: Learning at the Loom 27 Murray Gibson
4. A Psychotherapist Brings Art-Making to Patients in Zimbabwe: The Gift of Presence 39 Brian Nichols
Section 2: Creative Expression: Increasing Understanding between Communities
5. Amplifying Voices: Film Festivals, New Perspectives, Critical Reflection, and Inspiration 51 Carole Roy
6. Through the Lens of Transformative Learning: A Photovoice Pilot Project with Persons with Diverse Abilities in Belize 61 Beverly A. Hoffman
7. Meeting on the River of Life: Fostering Loyalist and Mohawk Exchanges through the Arts 75 Bryan Bowers
8. Voice, Identity, and Community: The Possibilities and Challenges of Facilitating Arts-Based Engagement 89 Kim Villagante
9. The Art Peace Project 103 Gordon Mitchell
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Section 3: Enacting & Embodying
10. Speaking Truth to Power: The Political Fashion Shows of Filipino Activists 117 Shauna Butterwick and Marilou Carrillo (with Kim Villagante)
11. Fractured Fables: A Prison Puppet Project 133 Ingrid Hansen and Peter Balkwill
12. The Park Bench Players: Telling Stories of Living with Mental Illness with Sincerity, Humour, and Respect 145 Verna MacDonald
13. Telling Old Stories in New Ways: Popular Theatre in Western Kenya 157 Jan Selman and John Battye
14. A Mother/Daughter Distance Dance: Virtually Connecting Incarcerated Mothers and Their Daughters through Choreography 169 Elizabeth Johnson
Conclusion: The Strands and the Braid 181 Randee Lipson Lawrence
Contributors 189
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are inspired by the creativity and dedication of artists, community arts facilitators and adult educators who work with the arts in community settings or as researchers. Their vibrant practices offer hope in challenging times when divisions are often exacerbated. Yet, through the arts, we find pockets where efforts are made to communicate across differences with respect and sincerity.
We thank all the authors who so enthusiastically contributed to this collection. We are also especially thankful to Trina Davenport for her help in the selection of the cover image of the tapestry by Murray Gibson and L’Arche folks, and to Murray for allowing us to use it on the cover. We are grateful that Randee Lawrence agreed to review the book and write the concluding chapter. Thanks also go to Jessica Egbert for assisting with reviewing the final proofs and working with authors.
We also thank the team at Sense Publishers, Peter de Liefde for his openness, Jolanda Karada for her reliability and professionalism, and all the people who work behind the scene in the creation of this book.
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SHAUNA BUTTERWICK AND CAROLE ROY
INTRODUCTION
OUR ORIENTATION AND INTENTIONS
A dynamic and vibrant pluralistic democracy involves communicative practices where the voices of all citizens are included and considered important. Some groups and individuals, however, which are positioned on the margins (due to structural inequalities) have had a harder time expressing themselves and being heard. The margin, as Denis Donoghue (1983) says, is also “the place for those feelings and intuitions which daily life doesn’t have a place for and mostly seems to suppress” (p. 129). Our dream for this volume was to gather stories from the margins and explore how various art and creative forms of expression can enable the voices of underrepresented individuals and communities to take shape and form. Voice is not enough however, voices and stories and truths must be heard, must be listened to. And so the stories gathered here also speak to how creative processes enable conditions for listening and the development of empathy for other perspectives, which is essential for democracy. This orientation to listening is one that Susan Bickford (1996) pays particular attention to; she argues that listening is a crucial aspect of pluralistic democracies along with the development of empathy. Listening, not just speaking, “is what unites us, and we accomplish this through the exercise of empathy” (p. 13).
Artistic and creative expression can enliven our empathy with others and build relations of solidarity. While there are various orientations to the notion of solidarity, we align with a decolonizing perspective. As Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández (2012) argues:
Decolonization is about challenging the very idea of what it means to be human, and by extension, the logics of inclusion and exclusion that enforce social boundaries, including notions of social, political, and civic solidarity. It is about imagining human relations that are premised on the relationship between difference and interdependency, rather than similarity and a rational calculation of self-interests. (p. 49)
Artistic expression allows insights into particular situations; audiences are often more emotionally open to creative representations than other forms of communication. As feminist philosopher Martha Nussbaum notes, “as we tell stories about the lives of others, we learn how to imagine what another creature might feel in response to various events. At the same time, we identify with the other creature and
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learn something about ourselves” (in Harmon, 2002, p. 176). At times empathy also provides impetus for action and the arts can also communicate ideas and emotions in a way that provokes engagement and responses.
Creative and arts-based forms of expression, many believe, are powerful forms of adult learning, engagement, and community building because they engage our imaginations. As Maxine Greene (1995) has articulated:
Imagination is what, above all, makes empathy possible. It is what enables us to cross the empty spaces between ourselves and those we teachers have called “other” […] imagination … permits us to give credence to alternative realities. It allows us to break with the taken for granted, to set aside familiar distinctions and definitions. (p. 3)
In this book we honour the use of the arts and creative expression as ways to enable underrepresented groups to communicate their experiences, create audiences who can learn from and bear witness to those experiences, thus building “the capacity to invent visions of what should be and what might be in our deficient society, on the streets where we live, in our schools” (Greene, 1995, p. 5).
ADDING TO THE CONVERSATION
There are adult educators and community activists and artists working in a wide range of settings who promote the use of the arts as ways to communicate individual and collective perspectives and provide opportunities for exchanges in multicultural and pluralistic societies. Some of these stories have been gathered together in a number of recent publications that have focused on the contribution the arts make to community and to a more just society, including a series of books on the arts and education published by Lesley University. Several of those volumes relate to this project, including: Dancing the Data (Bagley & Cancienne, 2002) which focused mainly on using alternative forms of creative expression in research, Passion and Pedagogy (Mirochnik & Sherman, 2002) which was oriented to teaching art to children and teachers, and The Arts, Education and Social Change (Powell & Speiser, 2005) which explored therapeutic and transformative work through the arts.
There have been two volumes (Lawrence, 2005; Hayes & Yorks, 2007) on the arts in adult learning published by New Directions in Adult and Continuing Education (NDCAE) a well-known publication in the field of adult education. In the 2005 NDCAE special issue, chapters depicted a variety of art forms including poetry, storytelling, photography, theater, and autobiographical writing created by ordinary people. A key theme was illustrating how these art forms were mechanisms for releasing the imagination in a variety of adult learning settings. The 2007 NDCAE special issue continued with the exploration, making the case for how the arts are “integral to the learning process” (p. 90). Chapters explored how the arts have been used in prisons, community development, and with young adults, concluding that
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“the arts can bridge boundaries separating people and keep those boundaries porous” (Hayes, 2007, p. 2).
How arts- and crafts-based learning can and should be considered as a site of overtly politically oriented adult learning was a strong thread running throughout Darlene Clover and Joyce Stalker’s 2007 co-edited book, The Arts and Social Justice – Re-crafting Adult Education and Community Cultural Leadership. As with NDCAE volumes, Clover and Stalker’s book covered a broad range of social justice concerns using various arts practices such as clowning, graffiti, story-telling and other literary arts, performative art, fabric art including weaving, tapestries and quilt making, and popular theatre. Here in Canada, Deborah Barndt’s collected edition VIVA – Community Arts and Popular Education in the Americas was published in 2011; the volume examined the power of community arts projects in five countries adding an important international dimension to the conversation. It documented the results of a transnational exchange with multiple partners in Panama, Nicaragua, Mexico, the United States and Canada. Similar to earlier publications, this text sought to interrupt notions of art as elitist and created only by individuals, illustrating “the integration of art in its infinite cultural forms into daily rituals, community building, and movements for social change” (p. viii). In 2012 the “Aesthetic Practices and Adult Education” was the theme of a special issue of International Journal of Lifelong Education (edited by Clover, Sanford, & Butterwick) which was later published in 2013 by Routledge as a book. As with others, that special issue explored how arts-based processes were integral to adult learning and community engagement in a variety of contexts with a variety of learners.
AND NOW…
The focus of this book is on the practice of arts-based adult education that occurs at the edges or margins. We solicited carefully chosen examples, including some international, of how various art-making practices (poetry, visual art, film, theatre, music, dance) can support individuals and groups at the edges of mainstream society to tell their story and speak their truths, often the first steps to valuing one’s identity and organizing for change.
In addition to some narratives from academics working in the arena, we have invited community-based artists to share stories bringing these creative endeavors into the wider conversation about the power of arts-making to open up spaces for dialogue across differences. Furthermore, we have also sought contributions that, while taking up the category of margin as a site of practice and a social location in relation to hierarchies of privilege and penalty, also trouble the assumed binary of margin and centre. Art practices from the edges can expand our visions by encouraging critical thinking and broadening our worldview. At this time on the earth when we face many serious challenges the arts can stimulate hope, openness, and individual and collective imaginations for preferred futures. Inspiration comes from people who, at the edges of their community, communicate their experience.
INTRODUCTION
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S. BUTTERWICK & C. ROY
The art practices used by adult educators in this collection are as varied as the groups involved. Darlene Clover writes about visual arts used with street-involved women in Victoria while Verna MacDonald reports on a successful play with people who live with mental illness and Paula Cameron discusses the use of zines with young women who experienced severe depression. Brian Nichols reflects on his annual visits to a hospital in Zimbabwe where he provides art making, films, and massage to people with HIV while Jan Selman and John Battye recount the use of popular theatre in Kenya. Murray Gibson tells the story of tapestry making with residents of l’Arche while Beverly Hoffman writes of a photovoice project with people with disabilities in Belize. Elizabeth Johnson describes the dance created by women prisoners and their daughters in Arizona while Ingrid Hansen and Peter Balkwill used puppetry with prisoners in British Columbia. Bryan Bowers writes of an experiment in peacemaking with Indigenous and settlers communities using visual arts and historical artefacts while Gordon Mitchell examines the use of arts with immigrants to Europe and with residents of South Africa. Kim Villagante reflects on her practice of mural and music making with Filipino youth while she, Shauna Butterwick, and Marilou Carrillo write about fashion shows with Filipino women immigrants to Canada. Carole Roy suggests that documentary film festivals can bring diverse perspectives and experiences to new audiences.
The results are inspiring: from exploring new means of expression and coming to voice, to establishing new identities or re-establishing relationships between separated mothers and daughters, to building a sense of community with immigrant youth or among people who live with mental illnesses, to challenging stereotypes of immigrants or people with disabilities. Others found greater understanding from audiences or developed a collective critique as immigrant women. In the wake of these art projects participants were left with a more positive sense of themselves and greater confidence and resilience, as well as tools for reflecting on, expressing and valorizing their experiences.
The book is divided into three sections; the first part, “Telling Our Story through Visual Arts” includes four chapters that, while diverse with respect to the location of the creative activities and the issues being explored, all speak to the power of visual expression, such as photography, zines, tapestry and art therapy, as a medium for telling stories not often told nor heard. In the second section, “Creative Expression: Increasing Understanding between Communities” the power of film festivals and documentaries, photovoice, exhibits and community dialogue, as well as creating community murals and using photography is explored. In the final section of the book “Enacting and Embodying” yet more creative processes are explored including political fashion shows, puppetry, community theatre and dance. We have invited Randee Lawrence to review all of the chapters and offer some concluding thoughts reflecting on the themes that thread their way through these various stories and what they add to the growing conversation and appreciation for arts-based engagement. She brings a strong aesthetic sensibility and extensive experience in using arts-based approaches in her own teaching and research.
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INTRODUCTION
IN CONCLUSION
We have captured a few examples in this book, but we know that the field is even more diverse and there are other inspiring stories we need to hear. lliot Eisner (2010), well known for his advocacy for arts-based approaches, points to how “the kinds of nets we know how to weave determine the kinds of nets we cast. These nets, in turn, determine the kinds of fish we catch” (p. 49). Our hope for this book was to cast a bit of a different net and as a result, capture stories that might not have been told. We invite others to use different nets and thus contribute to the growing literature and conversation on the use of arts in adult learning, community engagement, and democratic practices. We hope this volume encourages other—academics, artists, community organizers—to document their practices and share their wisdom.
REFERENCES
Bagley, C., & Cancienne, M. B. (2002). Dancing the data (Vol. 5). Lesley University Series in Arts and Education.
Bickford, S. (1996). Listening, conflict and citizenship: Dissonance of democracy. New York, NY: Cornell University Press.
Clover, D., & Stalker, J. (Eds.). (2007). The arts and social justice – Re-crafting adult education and community cultural leadership. Leicester, England: National Institute for Adult and Continuing Education.
Clover, D., Sanford, K., & Butterwick, S. (Eds.). (2013). Aesthetic practices and adult education. New York, NY: Routledge.
Donaghue, D. (1983). The arts without mystery. London: British Broadcasting Corporation. Gaztambide-Fernández, R. (2012). Decolonization and the pedagogy of solidarity. Decolonization:
Indigeneity, Education & Society, 1(1), 41–67. Eisner, E. (2010). Cognition and curriculum. In H. Austen (Ed.), Artistry unleashed: A guide to pursuing
great performance in work and life. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Greene, M. (1995). Releasing the imagination: Essays on education, the arts, and social change. San
Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, a Wiley Imprint. Hayes, S., & Yorks, L. (2007). Arts and societal learning: Transforming communities socially, politically,
and culturally. Special issue, New directions for adult and continuing education, 116 (pp. 3–11). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, a Wiley Imprint.
Harmon, J. K. (Ed.). (2002). Take my advice: Letters to the next generation from people who know a thing or two. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
Lawrence. R. (2005). Artistic ways of knowing: Expanded opportunities for teaching and learning. Special issue, New directions for adult and continuing education, 107 (pp. 1–2). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, a Wiley Imprint.
Mirochnik, E., & Sherman, D. (2002). Passion and pedagogy: Relation, creation, and transformation in teaching (Vol. 1). New York, NY: Lesley University Series in Arts and Education.
Powell, M. C., & Speiser, V. (2005). The arts, education, and social change – Little signs of hope (Vol. 9). New York, NY: Lesley University Series in Arts and Education.
SECTION 1
TELLING OUR STORY THROUGH VISUAL ARTS
S. Butterwick & C. Roy (Eds.), Working the Margins of Community-Based Adult Learning, 3–14. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
DARLENE E. CLOVER
1. FEMINIST ARTS-BASED ADULT EDUCATION WITH HOMELESS AND STREET-INVOLVED WOMEN
The arts have both a social significance and a social function, which might be defined as the transformation of desire into reality, reality into dreams and change, and back again. (Lucy Lippard, 1983, p. 5)
This chapter is about the brutal reality of poverty and homelessness in the lives of women who suffer from mental illness, have experienced violence or trauma, or have simply taken one too many tight economic turns and found themselves destitute. An increasing number of women are subject to violence and rank amongst the ‘visible’ homeless across Canada today, yet they are frequently and paradoxically, invisible. This chapter is also about aesthetics, about art, and their role in deepening personal and social connections, transforming how poor and marginalised women understand and negotiate reality, enabling them to imaginatively construct new possibilities, and apply these back to reality in various ways. Therefore, this chapter is about feminist adult education and its juncture with art practice in what Walby (2011) calls, the interests of women.
For a period of two years, I was involved in a feminist, arts-based adult education project with approximately 20 homeless/street-involved women in the city of Victoria, British Columbia. I say ‘approximate’ because women tended to ebb and flow in the project for social, economic, and health reasons. I use both homeless and street-involved terms, as this was how the women in the project described themselves, as many did not live rough. I begin this chapter by locating myself in the context of this project, and by locating this project in discourses of women’s homelessness, and feminist arts-based adult education. Following this, I describe the workshops, and the collective and individual aesthetic artworks that emerged. I weave these descriptions through the looms of feminist arts-based and adult education thinking, to illustrate their purpose and aims. The final section of the chapter highlights some of the successes of this project, at personal, social and institutional levels. It also explores the complexities, challenges, and outlines lessons learned. These types of creative, pedagogical projects are not a panacea; they do not stop homelessness and neoliberalism in their tracks; they do not prevent women from reverting back to problematic ways that can prove fatal. I argue, however, that when understood in more local and less aggrandising ways, projects such as this can alter understandings and change some realities (Manicom & Walters, 2012; Walby, 2011).
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LOCATING MYSELF; CONTEXTUALISING THE PROJECT
I am a feminist adult educator who works in community settings, facilitating workshops and engaging in participatory forms of research, and in the university, as a professor of adult education and leadership at the University of Victoria. To me, feminist adult education is a means to render visible and challenge sexism and other ideologies and inter-related acts of oppression that affect women in their lives, and thereby, affect society. I also identify as an arts-based adult educator, a discourse I have helped to shape and expand, along with other feminist adult educators (e.g. Clover & Sanford, 2012; Clover, Butterwick, & Sanford, 2012; Clover & Stalker, 2007). I have come to view the arts as critical, creative forces in education, learning and knowledge mobilisation. They are at times gentle, nurturing, and therapeutic; they are also, at times, provocative, oppositional and explosive in their power to activate the critical and defiant imagination. The imagination is central to arts-based teaching and learning as it creates opportunities “to explore experiences other than our own, in ways that can expand our comprehension” (Thompson, 2002, p. 31). For Mohanty (2012), the “imagination is the most subversive thing a public can have” (p. vii), since it is what allows us credence to alternatives of neoliberal and gendered normatives which we are being programmed to believe. As Collins (2006) reminds us, it is vital “to keep in mind the significance of the aesthetic dimension within a politically oriented emancipatory pedagogy [as it can be] an [expression] of support for a more just society” (p. 125).
The two-year feminist arts-based adult education project with a group of homeless and street-involved women began following a course I had taught on arts-based adult education. The course explored feminist aesthetics and pedagogical theories, community arts projects, and arts-based and informed research practices. Corrina, a student who had taken the course, and who worked for a social service agency that served the needs of the homeless, approached me one afternoon. She had taken the course out of interest, but the power of arts-based approaches had now come alive as she considered the outcomes of a recent needs assessment her agency had undertaken to explore ideas for new programming.
The many homeless/street-involved women who responded to the survey requested three things. One was for a women’s programme. The number of women living in sub-standard housing or on the streets in Canada, and particularly in the small but wealthy city of Victoria, is growing. Yet this phenomenon is little understood. Homelessness is still framed through a male-orientated lens – ‘sleeping rough’ – whereas women’s homelessness and street involvement differs in many ways (Lenon, 2000; Scott, 2007). The outcome within many agencies that support the homeless is ’gender neutrality’. Batliwala (2013) reminds us that although there is no universal gendered experience, all experience is gendered.
The second request by the women was for an opportunity to explore their creativity and artistic sides. Illeris (2009) reminds us that neo-liberal discourses of lifelong
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learning are not about empowerment but rather, individualized commitments to learn, to develop, and to change according to the market. For the homeless, the educational scope is limited to one of employability, training to acquire the skills necessary to enter the workforce and become ‘productive’ members of society. Adult education is not meant to be used to engage them in what Greene (2005) satirically called ‘the frivolous pursuit of art’. Yet cultural activity is integral to building a sense of community, to self-worth, and personal and collective identity. The arts encourage learning, respect, understanding, and “bring pleasure and gaiety to our lives” (Wyman, 2004, p. 14). They are integral to what it is to be human, not add-ons to be enjoyed by those with the privilege to do so.
A third request by the women was for the development of ‘non-threatening ways’ to speak to the public about the realities of homelessness and poverty. Although many people in Victoria support homeless shelters, transitions houses, safe injection sites and low-income housing, there is an equally large, and often more vocal group, that rages against homeless women, portraying them as too lazy to get a ‘real’ job, worthless prostitutes, or as ‘choosing’ to be addicts or alcoholics and live off the backs of taxpayers. Newspaper headlines frequently include comments about ‘cleaning up the streets’, as if those living there were bits of trash to be collected and discarded. How do we more effectively tackle this ignorance and the negative stereotypes it perpetuates?
Corrina and I began a series of discussions with community-based artists, and the homeless/street involved women at the agency to develop a project that would combine the three requests. Everyone was enthusiastic and agreed art would be central to the project; everyone was firm that we would all engage in the art making; everyone was firm that I would act as a spokesperson, an advocate, on their behalf with the agency and other external forces; everyone was determined, despite fears, that we would do something public.
Approximately 20 women took part in the project, participating as they could over the two years. These women varied in artistic ability and cultural heritage: Caucasian, Metis, First Nations, South African to name but a few. The majority were highly educated, with university degrees – in one case a PhD – and they were born in or near Victoria, or had been living in the city for years before becoming homeless. These facts disrupt two stereotypical discourses of those who live in poverty in Victoria: (1) the homeless gravitate here for the climate; (2) the homeless are illiterate or otherwise uneducated because if they were not, they would not be in their current position. What had brought all the women to their current status was some form of violence or trauma, mostly at the hands of men, although the violent legacy of residential schools played its part. In a recent global report, UN Women (2013) found that 35% of women worldwide have experienced physical and/or sexual violence by a male, although national figures bring this closer to 70%. Most women surveyed for that report, admitted to, and/or exhibited, mental health problems, exacerbated from living on the streets.
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THE STRUCTURE AND ARTS OF THE PROJECT
An important framework of the project was cultural democracy, defined as active participation in the creation’ of artistic works, both individually and collectively (McGauley, 2006). This does not negate the value of visiting museums and reflecting upon or engaging with arts and exhibitions, as this too can be a valuable aesthetic practice (e.g. Styles, 2009). Hyland-Russell and Groen (2012) illustrate how these cultural sites develop greater community literacy and a sense of belonging in marginalised learners. This is also important to keep in mind since a key element of the project was the public exhibition of our work in art galleries. But in this project, a cultural democracy emphasis enabled us to be the creators, actors, and meaning makers of culture/art. Through direct experience with art making we positioned it as a means to both personal and collective development (e.g. McGauley, 2006; Thompson, 2002).
The first year or phase of the project we titled Warrior Women Garden of Art in reference to the number of Indigenous women, as well as our resistant and pro-active natures. The second phase we called Phoenix Rising, a metaphor of growth and change. The project consisted of workshops, four hours per day, three days per week. One key feature of the workshops was its flexible format. We needed to respond to the differing needs, and to the unpredictability in the lives of poor and homeless/ street involved women. A second feature was food. Among other things, finding food takes a great deal of time in these women’s lives so this had to be dealt with. This combination is commonly known as the ‘bread and roses’ approach, responding to the physical need for sustenance with the need to be creative, in our case (e.g. Thompson, 2002).
Six artist-educators – Josie Broker, Suzanne Jackson, Sasha Collins, Candace McKivett, Paulette Francoeur, Shylene Schlackl – facilitated the majority of the workshops, although Corrina and I also facilitated three collective project workshops. Collectively we had skills in quilt, mask and plaster-cast making, collage, poetry, photography, and mosaics. Individual artworks included small sculptures, poems, collages, paintings, bead work, miniature mosaics, masks, and a traditional indigenous dress assembled from plastic bags and aptly named Disposable people; Disposable culture. Hundreds of Indigenous women have actually been murdered or gone missing over the past few decades, a horrific fact that sees little or no concern from either the police or governments (Taber, 2015). Collective works included a quilt, a mural, a life-size marionette, a decoupage on wood, and a tile mosaic featuring our Phoenix taking flight.
By engaging in individual art making, although this was always done in a group setting with conversations flowing, we allowed for our personal creativity; by engaging in collective art making we built relationships, collaborations and developed our collective voice. Therefore, the project focussed on individual concerns, and personal challenges, but it was equally a space to broaden our discussions to the
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politics of homelessness and violence, and issues of gender. There were tensions around these, and I will address them in the next section.
At times, we focussed more on the ‘process’ of creating and our political/collective statements. One example is Busted But Not Broken.
Figure 1. Busted But Not Broken
As illustrated in the above image, she was a life-size marionette, a somewhat haphazard collection of plaster casts of all our body parts (mine was the leg). Busted was strung together with a piece of rope to symbolise the ties that can bind us as women, barbed wire to symbolise violence and pain, and a heavy chain to symbolise the weight of these in our lives. The feather boa was illustrative of the moments of gaiety, fun, and lightness in our lives, but equally in the process of the marionette’s creation. This was one of the merriest of times as we slapped wet plaster across each other and jokingly haggled about what body parts were our best, frequently in relation to how society would assess them in reference to the glossy magazines we used in the collage making.
Other pieces, however, were of much higher quality, such as the mask below.
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Figure 2. The many faces we present mask series
The artist-educators were gifted at teaching skills and techniques that augmented the artistry and story of the works. Mullin (2003) sees engaging with artistry as critical to any arts-based project, as it helps to bring respect to feminist works. Although there are important challenges to any over-emphasis on the product (artwork) (e.g. Clover, 2012; Felshin, 2005), we were reminded through their careful instruction, that “to consciously execute something with less skill than one actually commands on the grounds that this is good enough for community work – surely the insult inherent in such a decision cancels any democratic intention that might motivate it” (Adams & Goldard, 2006, p. 23). The artists illustrated how to put images together to convey multiple meanings, and to create something more symbolic or metaphoric, rather than purely literal (although we did that too), and didactic. An example of this was the beautiful dress made of plastic bags I noted earlier; artistry was equally important, as our work would hit the public stage.
PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT AND ACTIVIST ART
Reaching out to the public, as noted earlier, was a key component of the project. The artworks were our ‘non-threatening’ way to engage with the people of Victoria, about women and the issues of homelessness. They were ‘their’ stories; but they were also our stories. Cole and McIntyre (2006) argued the arts were powerful tools of public engagement because of their ability to involve “an audience in meaning making and knowledge construction” (pp. 60–61). Communications with the public around complex or controversial issues such as women’s homelessness and poverty need to be more than simply didactic transferences of information (Chwe, 1998). Linked to the above comments around quality, it was also important to us that the project be seen as ‘art’, and not simply dismissed as some ‘nice’ project as can often happen with collective community arts projects (e.g. Adams & Goldard, 2006; Felshin, 2009). One of the most empowering aspects of the project for the women, as the women talked about time and again and demonstrated each time they spoke to various audiences, was the acquisition of an identity as an artist and the artist
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skills they were acquiring. We therefore chose to exhibit the works in ‘traditional’ art spaces.
The first was held in a performative art centre and the second, an art gallery in Chinatown. I will return to why we moved the location. Using the art gallery and cultural space firmly positioned our work as ‘art’ (Felshin, 2005; Mullins, 2003). But ours was what Mullin (2003) calls ‘activist art’, art that is political in its content and actively seeking audience participation and dialogue in its mission.
Over 300 people attended each of the two gala openings, and hundreds more went through the exhibitions over the weeks they remained on display. The audience included local politicians, artists, university students, professors, teachers, small business owners, homeless men and women, social and community development workers and a variety of others who were simply intrigued by the idea of the show. We talked with them about the project, about homelessness, about gender, and about art. Some women read aloud their poems; others discussed their individual pieces; others reflected on the collective pieces. The media put in a fine showing. Four articles appeared in daily and weekly newspapers. A piece appeared on local television. There is perhaps no greater testament to the power of the exhibitions than an article that appeared in the Times Colonist by a young woman who attended the final opening:
The women say they are rising from the ashes…while browsing the silent auction table…I was approached by a researcher. She asks if street woman is a term I usually associate with artists and I shamefully have to admit the truth, which is no. There is so little opportunity for women in poverty to have their voices heard and their journey openly offered for the public. I normally pride myself on being a particularly sociologically aware teen, but I now see
Figure 3. Odette Laramee, Exhibition Attendee and Master Student, and Debroah Norton, Featuring Artist
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that awareness and up-close-and-personal are vastly different. Judgement is an act that is grotesque and all-consuming, hovering like a festering cloud of smog…I find myself glad that at least for tonight, there are no barriers. (2007, May 3, p. C6)
SUCCESSES, CHALLENGES AND LESSONS LEARNED
As we poured through the comment books we had available at each exhibition, we came across an interesting entry: “I think the women demonstrated confidence. Those who spoke publicly really showed that they were not very different from everyone else attending this event.” It was the ‘not very different from everyone else’ that we found interesting and it ran parallel to 22 other entries that noted how ‘surprised’ people had been to find these women had talent, that they were ‘like us’, that they were ‘artists’. As the excerpt above in the media noted, homeless women are seldom cast in anything but patronising or disparaging lights. James and Shadd (2006) call this the practice of stereotyping and they argue it is ubiquitous, used by people “to categorize a vast amount of received information about others. However, stereotyping and in effect essentializing individuals’ identities often lead to blatant misrepresentations which can have serious, negative consequences on individuals and groups” (p. 6). People live in the same community with “lives intertwined socially, culturally, economically and politically” but know little about one another and what they do know is frequently shaped by “rumour, gossip or fear” (p. 4). But no one person, to borrow from Marcuse (1964), is one-dimensional and this became clear to Victorians through this project. As I alluded to above, being and becoming artists was one of the most empowering aspects of the project, not only in the women’s own eyes, but in the eyes of the public. As Doris remarked, “now I want to let everyone know about my art, that I am an artist in my own right.”
One interesting tension in the project was between the process as politics and the process as therapy. These women had experienced extreme trauma. They needed that to be acknowledged and to work through it with the art. Doreen was frequently adamant she only wanted to work on her own pieces, arguing that in a world that lumped everyone together in the basket of ‘homelessness’, she “wanted to be different…my designs, my style of colour, and my beads are different so I stand out.” Being unique was fundamental to her sense of identity and recognition. Individualism is a pervasive “narrative of freedom” (Calhoun, 1995, p. 194) from which the arts are by no means immune (Cunningham, 2001; Felshin, 1995). One artist felt the project had to be about the process of healing and she pushed back hard against making any collective pieces.
But Eccelstone (2004) reminds us that an emphasis on damage and vulnerability can oftentimes compound feelings of disempowerment. Plantenga (2012) adds that
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if we want our [women’s] struggle for social change to be a political one, participants should be given the tools to analyse the underlying systems of power that institutionalize and manipulate these identities in ways that justify oppression, discrimination and often violence. (p. 29)
We attempted often in conversations, woven through the making and the products of our labours, to move beyond ‘therapy’, to explore deeper the ideologies and practices that marginalise, oppress, belittle and constrain us as women. Although men in their lives had perpetuated the violence against them, some of the women challenged discourses they felt blamed or separated them from men, siding with the homeless men against other women, and making excuses for their violent actions. While this was difficult to negotiate, and negotiate we had to do, it was not surprising these women would side with those who suffer the same plight, rather than with middle-class women whose situations they see as vastly different. But another issue is that these women themselves seldom collaborated due to the amount of distrust built from living the competitive lives needed to survive the streets. The collective arts projects were the most important forces in the development of greater collaboration, solidarity, and trust amongst these women. In particular, community-based mosaic artist Shylene, was important here. She was adamant that if this project was to do anything it was to help the women become a more cohesive power group. As the women worked together on the Phoenix mosaic Shylene lead discussions around the value of becoming advocates for the homeless – remember that one aspect of the project was to get a women’s program – and mentors to young women. For Batliwala (2014), “the first step in the empowerment process is political awakening and awareness;” to be empowered is to see oneself as both political subject and actor “in a change process” (p. 294). The central comment of the collective mural read: Together we choose to scream in protest—not suffer in silence! Art empowers us! It is easier to retaliate against one of us—harder to retaliate against a group of us!
Many women commented on their new ability to openly share ideas and it was common for them to attribute this to the art as the medium through which this was most manifest:
The art gave us a way to communicate with each other casually, offhandedly even. As you work to create something together or separately, it begins to go deeper. These are by far the most powerful conversations I have had. Hearing the ‘why’s’ behind the ‘what’s’. (Lisa)
What is being expressed here is perhaps what Butterwick and Selman (2003) refer to as “deep listening”, a yearning for a practice more personal, more self- revelatory, more willing to expose and acknowledge…and more willing to express emotion” (p. 13).
Some of our political struggles were lost. The agency was moving to another building and although we argued the phoenix mosaic needed to be visible and central,
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and all the other works placed about the foyer, most were tossed and the phoenix ended up on the lower ground floor, sandwiched between the washrooms and the exit door. The women were furious, and it brought them closer. We took the loss and instead goaded the agency into creating and providing funding for a women’s programme. A small victory but a powerful one in the lives of women accustomed to disappointment. Gaining some form of power and control contributes to the process of what Freire (1970) called becoming more fully human.
There were other important lessons learned. As noted above, we held the first year’s workshops in a space over a gallery. It was ideal as it had tables, a kitchen and washroom, and we could leave the supplies there for the duration of the project. But, in other ways, it was also not ideal. It was not in the centre of town and it was not particularly accessible by public transport. Although we gave women bus fare, it complicated things in their already complicated lives.
Year two, we found a space in the centre of town, near the social service agency. We eventually were able to leave the supplies in a locked space, rather than haul them back and forth. However, there was a much bigger challenge: an alcove outside the workshop space was used as a drug injection site. One afternoon, as one woman left the workshop the police stopped her and accused her of dealing drugs. She protested, insisting they go inside and speak to the artists. They refused and took her away. Once we found out we rang the police station and explained the project. We then made nametags to wear so we looked more ‘official’. Both of these actions worked but the experience triggered a trauma throughout the final days of the project and it humbled us to realise that in spite of the empowering potential of this initiative, state power is a persistent reality in the lives of these women.
Finally, as I alluded to in the beginning, the woman who created the beautiful traditional dress, and was so active in the second year of the project, over dosed this past year and died. This is a stark reminder of Canadian society’s, and our own, limitations.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The metaphor of ‘rising’ in the Phoenix mosaic very much symbolised the strength and change that resulted from the project. One of the women, a poet, began an active speaking tour in university classrooms, and for women’s and homeless organisations. Another began her own art practice, which thrives today. Others have found stable housing, and sell their artworks in galleries or on the street.
The project offered a private space to be creative and to have fun. We must “never forget the importance of bringing absolute joy, unjustified by any reason other than its existence” (Wyman, 2004, p. 14). But it also offered a space for active political debate, risk-taking, skills development, and to build new partnerships of trust. Moreover, as Ranciere reminds us, “emancipation is the possibility of a spectator’s gaze other than the one that was programmed” (cited in Lewis, 2013, p. 138). And in
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the end, it was this gift we were given, through the public visibility, the quality and the amazing power of art.
REFERENCES
Batliwala, S. (2013). Engaging with empowerment: An intellectual and experimental journey. New Delhi: Women Unlimited.
Butterwick, S., & Selman, J. (2003). Deep listening in a feminist popular theatre project: Upsetting the position of audience in participatory education. Adult Education Quarterly, 54(7), 7–22.
Calhoun, C. (1995). Critical social theory. Oxford: Blackwell. Chwe, M. S. Y. (1998). Culture, circles and commercials: Publicity, common knowledge and social
coordination. Rationality and Science, 10, 47–75. Clover, D. E., & Sanford, K. (Eds.) (2013). Lifelong learning, the arts, and creative cultural engagement
in the contemporary university: International perspectives. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Clover, D. E., & Stalker, J. (Eds.). (2007). The arts and social justice: Re-crafting adult education and community cultural leadership. Leicester: NIACE.
Clover, D. E., Sanford, K., & Butterwick, S. (Eds.). (2013). Aesthetic practice and adult education. Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Taylor & Francis.
Clover, D. E., Butterwick, S., & Collins, L. (In press). Women, adult education and leadership in Canada. Toronto: Thompson Educational Publishing.
Cole, A., & Knowles, J. G. (2008). Arts-informed research. In J. Knowles & A. Cole (Eds.), Handbook of the arts in qualitative research (pp. 55–70). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Collins, M. (2005). The critical legacy: Adult education against the claims of capital. In T. Fenwich, T. Nesbit, & B. Spencer (Eds.), Contexts of adult education: Canadian perspectives (pp. 118–127). Toronto: Thompson Educational Publishing.
Cunningham, B. (2001). A report to the Laidlaw Foundation on community cultural development. Toronto: Laidlaw Foundation.
Ecclestone, K. (2004, November). Developing self-esteem and emotional well-being – Inclusion or intrusion? Adults Learning, 16(3), 11–13.
Eisnor, E. (2008). Persistent tensions in arts-based research. In M. Cahnmann-Taylor & M. R. Siegesmund (Eds.), Arts-based research in education (pp. 16–27). New York, NY & London: Routledge.
Felshin, N. (Ed.). (1995). But is it art: The spirit of art as activism. Seattle, WA: Bay Press. Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Continuum. Greene, M. (1995). Releasing the imagination: Essays on education, the arts, and social change. San
Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Hyland-Russell, T., & Groen, J. (2013). Crossing a cultural divide: Transgressing the margins into
public spaces fosters adult learning. In D. E. Clover & K. Sanford (Eds.), Lifelong learning, the arts and contemporary universities: International perspectives (pp. 42–53). Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Illeris, H. (2009). Museums and galleries as performative sites for lifelong learning: Constructions, deconstructions and reconstructions of audience positions in museum and gallery education. Museum and Society, 4(1), 15–26. Retrieved April 15, 2014, from https://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/ museumstudies/museumsociety/documents/volumes/2illeris.pdf
Lenon, S. (2000). Living on the edge: Women, poverty and homelessness. Canadian Women’s Studies, 20(3), 123–127.
Lewis, T. (2012). The aesthetics of education: Theatre, curiosity, and politics in the work of Jacques Ranciere and Paulo Freire. London: Continuum International Publishing Group.
Lippard, L. (1984). Get the message? A decade of art for social change. New York, NY: E. P. Dutton, Inc. Manicom, L., & Walters, S. (Eds.). (2012). Feminist popular education in transnational debates. New
York, NY: Palgrave MacMillian.
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McGauley, L. (2006). Utopian longings: Romanticism, subversion and democracy in community arts (Unpublished thesis). Laurentian University, Ontario, Canada.
Mohanty, C. (2012). Foreward. In L. Manicom & S. Walters (Eds.), Feminist popular education in transnational debates (pp. vii–x). New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillian.
Mullin, A. (2003). Feminist art and the political imagination. Hypatia, 18(4), 190–213. Plantenga, D. (2012). Shaping the magic: Reflections on some core principles of feminist popular
education. In L. Manicom & S. Walters (Eds.), Feminist popular education in transnational debates (pp. 25–40). New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillian.
Styles, C. (2011). Dialogic learning in the museum space. Ethos, 19(3), 12–20. Taber, N. (2015). Learning gendered militarism in Canada: Lifelong pedagogies of conformity and
resistance. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press. Thompson, J. (2002). Bread and roses: Arts, culture and lifelong learning. Leicester: NIACE. Walby, S. (2011). The future of feminism. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press. Wyman, M. (2004). The defiant imagination. Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre.
Darlene E. Clover Faculty of Education University of Victoria
S. Butterwick & C. Roy (Eds.), Working the Margins of Community-Based Adult Learning, 15–25. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
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2. “I STILL HAVE MY HANDS”
Rural Women, Depression, and Zines
When I am unsure of reality, deranged Unsure of where the tangible ends and intangible begins When I have no sense of having a body, am Disembodied I still have my hands. (Magdeline, zine excerpt, 2011)
INTRODUCTION
Art cultivates radical learning at the margins: at the seams of reason, language, and society. In 2011, I came together with three other young rural Canadian women who self-identified as having experienced severe depression in early adulthood. The resulting project, Seamfulness, documented the rich transformative learning that unfolded from spaces of emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical rupture and repair. Using a methodology that fused narrative inquiry and arts-informed research, I invited three rural women with histories of depression to participate in a series of interviews/storytelling sessions and zine making workshops.
BACKGROUND
This project began on the ground I stand on, ground that was shaken in my 21st year by severe depression, ground that is unceded Mi’ kmaw territory. I am an academic adult educator and researcher with a background in community building. My encounter with depression was shaped by my identity as a first-generation university student, by social adjustments required for university life, and by experiences with anxiety and depression as a high school student. I grew up in a rural area in central Nova Scotia, and experienced depression in the fourth year of my undergraduate degree at a small Maritime university.
Depression dismantled my assumptions and revealed the shape of the world. Its shadows threw into relief the invisible structures of power and meaning. Even today, its legacy can be traced in my daily habits, attitudes, gifts, and challenges. Over the years, talking with young women around me, it soon became clear that I was not alone in this experience. Depression had served as a transformative process for
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all of us, reconfiguring our relation to our families, to our bodies and emotions, to medicine, and ultimately to our communities.
This research addresses gaps in academic scholarship on adult education, mental illness, and arts-informed research and pedagogy. Depression, the leading global cause of disability, is a highly gendered phenomenon that varies according to geographic setting. Canadian women have higher rates of mood and anxiety disorders; between 2011–2012, women were 1.6 times more likely to experience depression than men and young women between the ages of 20 and 44 are most frequently diagnosed with and treated for depression (Ad Hoc Working Group, 2006). Research suggests that adults who live in rural communities experience unique protective and risk factors for depression, as they leverage stronger community belonging while confronting challenges such as social stigma and barriers to healing, including economic instability, geographic isolation, and traditional gender roles, all known to increase risk (Galloway & Henry, 2014; Scattolon, 2003).
Depression, when medicalized through psychiatric diagnosis and treatment, erases the social causes for mental unrest. Critiques of madness as a tool for social control have been present since at least the 1970s, when feminist scholars like Phyllis Chesler (1972) examined historical trends from the 16th century onwards including women’s oppression through psychiatric diagnosis, incarceration, and treatments such as sexual abstinence, hysterectomies and Electro-Convulsive Shock Therapy (ECT) (Tasca, Rapetti, & Carta, 2012). Psychiatric diagnosis and treatment are increasingly contested as normative practices that locate psychic suffering at the individual biomedical level (e.g., LeFrancois, Menzies, & Reaume, 2013; Szasz, 2007).
This research addresses calls for scholarship in the adult education literature that attends to research on adult learning and mental health (Brookfield, 2011), emotions and learning (Dirkx, 2001, 2006) and the intersection between women’s emotions, bodies, transformative learning, and the arts (English & Irving, 2007). The arts are being increasingly taken up within adult education research and pedagogy as powerful means for self-reflection and expression, dialogue and popular education by bridging individual and collective experience in accessible forms (e.g., Brown, 2015; Cameron, 2014; Clover, 2011; Escueta & Butterwick, 2012).
Narrating depression is particularly crucial for psychiatric survivors whose perspectives are largely absent from popular discourse about depression. As self- identified “mad scholar” Duncan Scott Campbell (2001) points out, “we rarely hear from mad people themselves when madness is discussed; far more often we hear from psychiatrists and other professionals who ‘study’ and ‘treat’ mad people” (p. 9). Disabilities scholar Rob Michalko (2009) agrees, arguing, “The telling of the what-has-gone wrong story has been claimed by, and has been given to, the realm of medicine” (p. 66).
Incorporating artistic methods within adult education research and practice enhances readers’ capacity to empathize with (other) people who are speaking from
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the margins. Arts-informed research aims to “enhance understanding of the human condition through … [artistic] processes and representational forms” thus becoming accessible to diverse audiences (Knowles & Cole, 2007, p. 59). The arts then, in adult education research and pedagogy, can help facilitate self-reflection and informal learning about depression while also creating spaces for wider communities to view such topics from the perspective of the “Other.”
Zines (pronounced zeens) are a grassroots art form that offers rich potential for working the margins. “Noncommercial, nonprofessional, small circulation magazines,” zines are created, produced, published, and distributed by their authors (Duncombe, 1997, p. 6). Zines of diverse styles and subject matter are linked by a shared critique of mainstream society and the media, resistance to a flashy, seamless aesthetic, and a common “commitment to the personal” in zinemakers’ lives (Sinor, 2003, p. 243). Their open format, accessible cost, and unique use of images and/ or words, enable creators to draw on their own skills, interests, and commitments, while joining a broader community of creators worldwide.
Creating Counter-Narratives through Zines
I began the project by framing my own journey to the research topic and zine method. It was only natural that these strands be explored in a zine format, a format that embraces rough edges as a strength. I called the zine seamfulness, which through drawings and photo collage explores depression as a seamful experience.
Participants and I were acquaintances. They were recruited through word of mouth. I sent an email invitation to each woman. I then shared seamfulness with each participant for several reasons, the most prominent to make myself known and vulnerable, in the same way I would be asking them to share. Three women, Elizabeth, Magdeline, and Margo (all pseudonyms), accepted the invitation readily. Each woman grew up in rural Nova Scotia and experienced depression in her early twenties. (A fourth woman accepted, then withdrew after the first interview.) Although I knew all three participants, we were not particularly close at the time. The small size of the study enabled me to explore each woman’s story in rich detail, and to forge relationships over time that honored the storytelling process and research.
Elizabeth, Magdeline, Margo and I ended up gathering for two sessions; the first, held in a small town women’s centre on a quiet weekend, and the second, in an old farmhouse in a rural farming community in Northern Nova Scotia. Though we spent about two hours working on the zines at each session, the bulk of the zine creation was done independently in each woman’s free time. I also interviewed each of the participants twice: at the beginning of the project, prior to zine creation, and at the end of the project, after zines were completed.
In the next section, starting with Elizabeth’s zine, The Firebird and Other Stories, I will offer descriptions of each woman’s zine, grounding each in a brief description of her life context.
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The Firebird and Other Stories
Elizabeth, in her 40s at the time of the study, is an educator, and activist. She grew up in a blended Acadian family in a small coastal community in Northern Nova Scotia. She experienced depression in her early twenties while attending a small undergraduate university. Her experience of depression was informed by her history of childhood sexual abuse, her parents’ histories of depression, and her mother’s eventual death in Elizabeth’s 20s. Elizabeth was married to a man at the time of the project, and lived in an old farmhouse in a rural seaside community.
Elizabeth’s zine, The Firebird and Other Stories, explores her depression story nested within what she referred to in her interview as her “social bath”:
Several years ago I did a research project on soldier women in Nigeria. They always started their testimonies by stating their class position—working class or peasant, etc. At the time, I thought—why were they situating themselves in this way? But now I realize they were stating the social bath they were in. In a way, I consider this zine a testimonial too. So I started by stating where I am coming from.
Elizabeth played with the zine’s blended verbal and visual format to present the strands of her experience weaving through her life and depression story. These strands, though connected in the zine, sometimes remain distinct and at other times she shows competing influences on her identity. Elizabeth presents these four themes outright, as she noted above, thereby “starting where [she is] coming from.” As she explains, “The things I learned being Catholic as a child, the sexual abuse, and being a feminist all made a unique weird clunky matrix in my head and heart that didn’t always make sense.” Adding a fourth strand, romanticism, fostered by consumption of romantic popular culture, Elizabeth identifies four competing discourses informing her experiences with depression.
Early in the zine, Elizabeth offers further details about her family history and background:
Figure 1. Elizabeth’s “Back at the ranch”
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Elizabeth segues beyond abstract and ambivalent visual metaphors to a clear statement of facts. Taking on the role of narrator, Elizabeth sets the tone for her depression story, nesting her individual experience within a rich web of social, cultural, historical and political contexts, thereby troubling biomedical accounts of depression that tend to focus on individual biological pathology and corresponding pharmaceutical treatments. By doing so, she widens the web of meaning for her experience, and lays out the zine’s visual motifs.
Elizabeth touched on one tangible way that zinemaking strengthened her own informal learning from experience. “Making the zine has really sharpened the focus I have,” she commented.
Right now in my life, there are a lot of elements in place that would have in the past thrown me into depression. … I feel like this work on the zine really crystallizes my thoughts about [depression], expressing it, and drawing it, and being somewhat funny about it… more than ever I feel like I can have these triggers and it doesn’t automatically mean I’m going to get depressed.
Mongrel Mag
Magdeline, in her 30s, was raised within a Metis family in a rural wooded community in central Nova Scotia. Following an interrupted period of post-graduate study, a psychiatrist diagnosed her with Major Depressive Disorder, alongside Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). Childhood sexual abuse, alcoholism, an emerging lesbian identity, and her mother’s intermittent hospitalizations for severe depression formed part of the background to her experiences.
In her zine, Mongrel Mag: A zine, Magdeline, like Elizabeth, narrates her story of mental illness within a rich web of historical, political, cultural, geographical, and personal meaning. As she narrates this story through a form of her own crafting, Magdeline reflexively explores creation as a form of agency. Opening with “I still have my hands,” the poem quoted in the opening of this chapter, Magdeline frames her story as an expression of agency and self-determination.
On the third page, she articulates her ethnicity as “a mix of Acadian, Mi’kmaq, and English… To put it most simply, I am a Mongrel.” On a later zine page, she presents a photo of her great grandmother beside her own portrait, with text above stating: “Contexts: Personal, historical, environmental, geopolitical, economic, religious; They cannot be safely separated.”
Here Magdeline troubles the biomedical emphasis on individual biology, framing this myopic tendency to abstract depression sufferers from their social bath and surroundings as dangerous. She also draws powerful links here between her lived experience and her great grandmother’s. On the preceding page in the zine, she writes a textual exploration of colonization and historical invisibility of Eastern Metis: “I believe my experience of depression is not only personal but also inter-generational: passed down inadvertently from my ancestors.”
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Moving to the next page in the zine, Magdeline explores sexual abuse as part of the troubled legacy of colonialism in Nova Scotia. Coming back to the recurring metaphor of hands, Magdeline weaves together a discussion of unspeakable childhood trauma that may later manifest as nonverbal symbolic expression. Citing a classic trauma text, Magdeline notes that the suffering of adults, too, can be silenced, particularly for women. She introduces a micro-narrative of Sedna, a figure in Inuit mythology who is betrayed by her father, who cuts off her hands in an attempt to destroy her. Instead, her hands take on new life, morphing into sea life, and she becomes divine.
A zine’s pedagogy of process can invite contemplation about the relationship between form and content. Aesthetic choices in the zinemaking process may seem simple and unproblematic; however, the very forces that can cause or exacerbate mental illness in the first place also shape these choices and practices. For example, choices of color can be shaped by experiences of childhood sexual abuse. Magdeline situated her aesthetic choices within this context of intergenerational trauma. For her, the aesthetic possibilities of zine creation were shaped by a desire to distance herself from its difficult content. As she noted,
When I was a kid I used to color incessantly; but now, creativity is really anxiety provoking for me. So I found I could [make the zine] on my laptop, that’s how I could be comfortable. But even just yesterday watching Margo using all her different materials… I’m afraid to touch it still.
My Shade of Blue
Margo, aged 29, grew up in a rural seaside community in central Nova Scotia within a Scottish-Canadian family. She described perfectionism, social anxiety, professional pressures, and the transition from high school to university as key contextual factors to her experiences of depression.
Margo’s zine, My Shade of Blue, is a vibrant, hand drawn account of her lived experience of depression. Like Elizabeth and Magdeline, she explores this complex experience through visual metaphors, solely through drawings made for the zine (apart from two pages pasted from a drawing journal used during one of her hospitalizations). One of these journal drawings is a still life of a chestnut. The chestnut rests on a red-margined notebook page, with the date “December 3rd, 2007” written in the top right corner. A cross-hatched shadow of the burry chestnut rests on the notebook page. On the opposing right page, Margo has drawn a vibrant depiction of a deep sea diver.
Here Margo playfully cites the chestnut image in her drawing journal, repurposing it as a deep sea diving mask. Her eyes peer through an opening in the shell, a heart placed between her eyes. Margo articulates the meaning of this image in handwritten text to the right of the page, where she writes, “When I was hospitalized I collected chestnuts which seemed to be a metaphor for my own journey with the illness being
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the prickly shell that I was breaking.” Margo works with the difficulty of mental illness here, not glossing it over but making its rough edges, its prickliness, clear. At the same time, however, she claims her agency over her experience by framing the chestnut, her illness, as a new way of seeing, and surviving in the world. She is breaking the shell; she is not the shell being broken.
Aesthetic strategies also surfaced in Margo’s pedagogy of process within zinemaking. She alluded to the challenges of expressing difficult ideas and emotions. Her first interview transcript and zine mock-up were both sparsely worded accounts. Margo herself noted the prevalence of images in her zine, wryly pointing out that “I might have been able to do a whole zine without using words [laughs]. I would have been happy with that.” Using words and images within an initial brainstorming/ storyboarding process, she noted that the zine format enabled her to
Learn things, you know, by writing and drawing them out… Oftentimes we only express thoughts that are complete. So by doing a freewrite, just putting down quick ideas, it lets you draw on things that you wouldn’t ordinarily communicate. I think the ability to use words differently was a strength.
SEAMFULNESS: UNRAVELLING REFLECTIONS
Zine creation is a form of learning through making: a process of becoming, of working with the raw material of lived experience, toward critical understanding of oneself and the world. This is in keeping with Freire’s (1970) conception of concientización, a liberatory form of education that involves exploring relevant real-life issues and identifying, critiquing, and ultimately acting on oppressive life conditions. Freire’s rejecting of a passive, top-down “banking model” of education has since been echoed by scholars such as Ellsworth (2005), who asserts that conventional education must
Figure 2. Margo’s “The prickly shell”
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abandon the idea of knowledge as “that which ‘really exists’” and instead knowledge should be regarded as “a thing in the making, continuously evolving through our understanding of the world and our own bodies’ experience of and participation in that world” (p. 1).
Mental illness requires the reconciliation of an unspeakable, unthinkable experience within a culture that disavows it. The zine’s rough-edged, open, and accessible form of creative expression, enables engagement with depression as a creative, tentative, emotional, fluid, non-linear, and inherently seamful process of becoming.
Naming One’s “Social Bath”
For zine creators, the process of relating stories of lived experience provides a space for critical self-reflection. Elizabeth and Magdeline, in particular, used visual and verbal metaphors to ground their individual experience in wider social, historical, and political contexts. For Elizabeth, this meant identifying what she calls her “social bath.” By doing so, Elizabeth resists the dominant North American portrayal of depression as individualized and medicalized. Her depression story becomes “hers” again, as she crafts a narrative that reflects the complexity of her experience. For Magdeline, this surfaced as the weaving together of historical texts and stories of colonization and intergenerational trauma. Her ancestry is traced within an historical frame that makes visible Nova Scotia’s past—and present—as a colonial geography. She places her “mongrel” identity up front, from the zine title to articulating her ethnicity as a “mongrel” mix.
Aesthetic Openness as a Formal Strength
When speaking of experiences at the edge of reason, it is especially key that artistic forms remain open and responsive to the diversity of their creators’ lived experiences. By “using words differently,” as noted by Margo, zines facilitate storytelling not normally found in mainstream North American media and academia. Words, after all, can help “pin down” nebulous ideas or experiences; they can also be more problematic regarding stories that we may prefer to leave unspoken.
As a form with few rules or norms, zines encourage experimentation and offer flexibility so makers can tailor their work to their own creative, political, and emotional needs. In this sense, the openness of the zine form emerged as a key strength cited by the participants. Magdeline, for example, emphasized the importance of using a laptop to compose her zine, linking this choice to her alienation from her childhood creativity.
Such accounts of the creative choices within zinemaking demonstrate that this creative process is not an idyllic form through which to express and empower oneself. There are very real complexities that make a one-size-fits all approach to zinemaking and artistic expression problematic, if not outright harmful. Providing
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space for engaging with the form on its own terms, in the spirit of the zine form itself, is crucial given these complexities.
Zinemaking as Agency
Adults speaking from the margins can seize the plot of their story, using the zine format to “show and/or tell” to varying degrees. This control over aesthetic choices ensures that stories can be told safely and with dignity. Creators can be simultaneously anonymous and self-revelatory.
The space of zinemaking can enable the maker to suspend time in order to approach her story as a construction—one that can be at least partially observed, understood, and transformed into future action. At the same time, the physical acts of writing, drawing, cutting and pasting provide physical engagement with storytelling that connects with “the embodied sensation of making sense, the lived experience of our learning selves that make the thing we call knowledge” (Ellsworth, 2005, p. 1). Connecting with our lived, embodied knowledge facilitates action grounded in this increased self-awareness.
ADULT LEARNING AT THE SEAMS
Zines about depression create a rich site for challenging assumptions about women’s experience, including illusory divisions between “us” and “them,” “mad” and “sane.” By doing so, they facilitate individual and collective learning: individual inquiry on the part of the individual maker, yet with connections to communities, histories, and socio-political landscapes. Made by and for oneself, but often with the goal of sharing with others, zines allow for critical self-reflection within the realm of popular education, and therefore playing a role in the concientización of its audience.
Taber and Gouthro (2006) argue that “paying attention to women’s experiences in adult education broadens the focus of traditional adult education research, theory, and practice” (p. 58). This attention, they note, requires shifting focus to the fabric of women’s lives while attending to questions of power, privilege, and inclusion. Similarly, I echo Stephen Brookfield’s (2011) argument that “we need a greater elaboration of the learning tasks… entailed by learning to recognize and cope with depression” (p. 41). Particularly vital is the emancipatory task of critically reflecting on and sharing lived experience to contest pathologization of emotional struggle.
Adult educators can play an important role in this process, from adult learning programs tailored to the needs of psychiatric survivors to ensuring that adult education processes and curricula substantially acknowledge the “social bath” within which we all live and learn. As Alison Piepmeier (2009) points out, “By offering an alternative to mainstream late-capitalist modes of operation, zines enact a public pedagogy of hope” (p. 20). This “pedagogy of hope” (Freire, 1994) cannot be untangled from artistic and meaning-making processes such as zine creation.
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Taking control of our own representation, to re-story and reclaim authorship over our lives and learning:
exacting and precise Creating and destroying We still have our hands. (Magdeline, 2011)
REFERENCES
Ad hoc Working Group on Women, Mental health, Mental illness and Addictions. (2006). Women, mental health and mental illness and addiction in Canada: An overview. Retrieved from www. cwhn.ca/PDF/ womenMentalHealth.pdf
Brookfield, S. (2011). When the black dog barks: An autoethnography of adult learning in and on clinical depression. In T. Rocco (Ed.), Challenging ableism, understanding disability, including adults with disabilities in workplaces and learning spaces (pp. 35–42). (New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education. No 132.) San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass. doi:10.1002/ace.429
Brown, S. (2015). Creativity, social justice and human rights within adult education. International Journal of Adult Vocational Education and Technology (IJAVET), 6(2), 1–12. doi:10.4018/ijavet.2015040101
Cameron, P. S. (2014). Learning with a curve: Young women’s “Depression” as transformative learning. In V. Wang (Ed.), Handbook of research on adult and community health education: Tools, trends, and methodologies: Tools, trends, and methodologies (pp. 100–122). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
Campbell, D. (2011). Unsettled: Discourse, practice, context, and collective identity among mad people in the United States, 1970–1999 (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). York University, York, United Kingdom.
Chesler, P. (1972). Women and madness. New York, NY: Doubleday. Clover, D. (2011). Successes and challenges of feminist arts-based participatory methodologies with
homeless/street-involved women in Victoria. Action Research, 9(1), 12–26. Dirkx, J. M. (2001). The power of feelings: Emotion, imagination, and the construction of meaning in
adult learning. In S. Merriam (Ed.), The new update on adult learning theory (pp. 63–72). (New directions for adult and continuing education. No. 89.) San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.
Dirkx, J. M. (2006). Engaging emotions in adult learning: A Jungian perspective on emotion and transformative learning. In E. Taylor (Ed.), Teaching for change: Fostering transformative learning in the classroom (pp. 15–26). (New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education. No. 109). San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.
Duncombe, S. (1997). Notes from underground: Zines and the politics of alternative culture. New York, NY: Verso.
Ellsworth, E. (2005). Places of learning: Media, architecture, pedagogy. New York, NY: Routledge. English, L. M., & Irving, C. J. (2007). A review of the Canadian literature on gender and learning.
Canadian Journal for the Study of Adult Education, 20(1), 16–31. English, L. M., & Irving, C. J. (2012). Women and transformative learning. In E. W. Taylor & P. Cranton
(Eds.), The handbook of transformative learning: Theory, research, and practice (pp. 245–259). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Escueta, M., & Butterwick, S. (2012). The power of popular education and visual arts for trauma survivors’ critical consciousness and collective action. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 31(3), 325–340.
Freire, P. (1970). Cultural action and conscientization. Harvard Educational Review, 40(3), 452–477. Freire, P. (1994). Pedagogy of hope: Reliving pedagogy of the oppressed (R. B. Barr, Trans.). New York,
NY: Continuum. Galloway, A. P., & Henry, M. (2014). Relationships between social connectedness and spirituality and
depression and perceived health status of rural residents. Online Journal of Rural Nursing and Health Care, 14(2), 43–79.
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Garoian, C. (1999). Performing pedagogy: Towards an art of politics. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Knowles, J. G., & Cole, A. (2008). Arts informed research. In J. G. Knowles & A. Cole (Eds.), Handbook of the arts in qualitative research: Perspectives, methodologies, examples, and issues (pp. 55–70). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
LeFrançois, B. A., Menzies, R., & Reaume, G. (Eds.). (2013). Mad matters: A critical reader in Canadian mad studies. Toronto, ON: Canadian Scholars’ Press.
Michalko, R. (2009). The excessive appearance of disability. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 22(1), 65–74.
Piepmeier, A. (2009). Girl zines: Making media, doing feminism. New York, NY: New York University Press.
Scattolon, Y. (2003). I just went on. There was no feeling better, there was no feeling worse: Rural women’s experiences of living with and managing depression. In J. Stoppard & L. McMullen (Eds.), Situating sadness: Women and depression in social context (pp. 162–183). New York, NY: New York University Press.
Sinor, J. (2003). Another form of crying: Girl zines as life writing. Prose Studies, 26(1–2), 240–264. Szasz, T. (2007). Coercion as cure: A critical history of psychiatry. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction
Publishers. Taber, N., & Gouthro, P. (2006). Women and adult education in Canadian Society. In T. Fenwick,
T. Nesbit, & B. Spencer (Eds.), Contexts of adult education: Canadian perspectives (pp. 58–67). Toronto, ON: Thompson Educational Publishing.
Tasca, C., Rapetti, M., Carta, M. G., & Fadda, B. (2012). Women and hysteria in the history of mental health. Clinical Practice and Epidemiology in Mental Health, 8, 110–119.
Paula Cameron St. Francis Xavier University Antigonish, Nova Scotia
S. Butterwick & C. Roy (Eds.), Working the Margins of Community-Based Adult Learning, 27–38. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
MURRAY GIBSON
3. WEAVING COMMUNITY TOGETHER
Learning at the Loom
INTRODUCTION
We seek to be communities where people whatever their race, religion, culture, abilities or disabilities can find a place and reveal their gifts to the world. (Jean Vanier)
This chapter will explore three community art projects created during three academic years in my Weaving Studio course at St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia (StFX). My students partnered with members of our local L’Arche community to weave the collaborative artworks. Looms were both the means for creating cloth and the facilitators of communication, understanding, friendship, and respect. The outcomes of these three projects had a significant impact on me, my students, and the L’Arche community.1
I first wish to discuss my motivation for introducing these community art projects into my course. I am an artist by vocation. My sole medium is handwoven tapestry, and I have been weaving for more than thirty years. My tapestries represent my interpretation of life experience and create the means by which I can communicate my artistic vision to others. My complementary avocation is teaching: my tapestries can teach when they engage with gallery visitors, I frequently present illustrated public lectures, and my web site offers a type of distance-learning. I also teach hands-on in the classroom, and have taught many adult education courses including teaching Inuit women to weave as job training for future employment in the tapestry studio in Pangnirtung, Nunavut. I have been teaching in the StFX Art Department since 2005. StFX does not offer a degree in Studio Art, but students from all disciplines take art courses for elective credits. They discover that hands-on learning in the studio stimulates different brain activity and is unlike other ways of learning in the lecture hall. Students often comment that they find this type of visual learning therapeutic.
Students must, pragmatically, find an art course that fits into their schedule: subject matter is not always the prime motivator. They may believe they have enrolled in a “bird course”: a fun and easy “A”. Others take an art course in their final year as a “reward” for all their hard work during the previous three years. I have devoted my life’s work to my studio practice; creating art is not easy or fun and its rewards can be scant. I became discouraged by students’ reasons for enrolling in my course.
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I needed either to change students’ attitude towards art or stop teaching university students. My frustration became my motivation for change. My mantra: “Art is not a 3-credit course”!
Creative work must exist in the public arena to fulfil its primary role as a communicator of ideas. I believe this role cannot be fully realized within the four walls of a university studio; therefore I wanted to help my students understand the importance of art in society. This desire led me to consider how I could get my students, their work, and their attitude out of the classroom and into the community. I thought a community tapestry project could be the way to realize my goal.
Community-woven tapestries are initiated by one or more weavers as a means of bringing together members of the public and a community organization, for example, an HIV-AIDS centre,2 with the goal of art-making as a means to build community. The design process is directed by the weavers who work with the community group to incorporate imagery reflecting their interests and values. The tapestry is woven in a public space, such as a library, and the finished work is donated to the organization. The weavers lead the project, but members of the public are encouraged to participate. Small looms are available for practising weaving techniques before working at the larger loom. Some participants weave only once, while others become dedicated to the project. The creation of the tapestry offers the opportunity for experienced weavers to teach others their craft, and allows all participants to learn from each other: sharing knowledge and life experience in front of the loom. The tapestry, as art, fulfils its fundamental role: it communicates as it reflects the society in which it is created, and in so doing it creates community. Opportunities for teaching and learning can be realized on many different levels when creating a community art project.
SERVICE LEARNING
These opportunities can also be realized outside the university classroom by incorporating course based service learning into the curriculum. Service learning, in Canada, was first introduced at StFX by Dr. Ann Bigelow in 1996; it is now a highly- respected pedagogy at universities throughout the world.3 The classroom moves into the community with service learning: the academic goals of the course are directly related to the goals of a local partnering group; student learning is contextualized by real life experience.
The three basic goals of service learning for students are: an enhanced academic experience, a developing understanding of issues surrounding social justice, and the student’s personal growth. Service learning will typically take students outside their “comfort zone”; they are challenged to learn by active engagement in real life experience rather than, what can be, passive reception of accepted knowledge presented in the lecture hall. Critical reflection of one’s assumptions and biases is a key component for extended personal growth; journaling is an effective way for students to record and track this growth. Often the first journal entry will be parallel
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lists of the “hopes” and “fears” of challenging oneself. These initial thoughts create a baseline for comparison and analysis of goals achieved at the course’s end.4 Social justice is at the core of service learning. It is a natural fit with the academic mission of StFX: the university’s guiding principles include community engagement, service, and social justice. StFX offers both week-long immersion-service-learning experiences in developing countries and a wide selection of semester-long course based service learning opportunities in many academic departments. A community tapestry project enhanced by service learning seemed to be a viable means to achieve my teaching objectives.
I approached Marla Gaudet, the StFX program manager for course based service learning, during the summer of 2008, to discuss my idea of a community tapestry project and the learning outcomes I hoped to achieve. (The use of a first and surname indicates a person who has given their permission to be so identified. All single names of students and members of the L’Arche community are pseudonyms). Marla immediately saw how this project was ideal for service learning pedagogy. Our first step was to determine a community group with whom to partner. Ideally this group will be the proactive agent and approach the StFX Service Learning with a specific project in mind rather than having a well-meaning project imposed upon them. Marla and I discussed needs and benefits, and eventually decided to contact our local L’Arche community. I was initially hesitant: teaching a new course was already pushing me outside my comfort zone, and to work with people with intellectual disabilities would further test my limits. I had no experience working with this community and was concerned I would not be able to form a responsible service learning partnership.
L’ARCHE IN ANTIGONISH
Jean Vanier founded L’Arche, in France, in 1964. Vanier, out of compassion, invited two men with intellectual disabilities, Raphael Simi and Philippe Seux, to leave the institution in which they had been placed and to live with him and share his house: to give them a new beginning. Vanier named the house “L’Arche”: the ark of Noah is the metaphorical foundation of L’Arche, and the organization’s logo is a stylized boat with three people aboard. The logo symbolizes not only Vanier, Simi and Seux and their new beginning, but also the journey of people with intellectual disabilities as they go forth and offer their gifts to the wider community.
L’Arche is now a federation of communities with over 5,000 members living in 147 communities around the world.5 These communities are composed of a core group of people with intellectual disabilities who live, as a family, with those who assist them to lead active and fulfilling lives. Others in a local community will live with their own families but also partake in day program activities. L’Arche Antigonish (LArcheA) was founded in 1979, and currently there are 22 core members living in five houses. Close family ties and supportive local residents help LArcheA to be a well-integrated and respected part of our community.
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Antigonish is a small town of approximately 4,000 people: the local population doubles in size during the academic year. The university ethos of community engagement, service, and social justice encourages most students to pursue volunteer work. LArcheA enjoys the support of as many as sixty student volunteers annually who assist with the day programs, lead games and athletic training, and attend job placements with the folks.6 Creative work was already part of the day programs at LArcheA prior to our first collaboration: there was some art making, and also music and dance. Florence Riley, the leader of the Horizons Day Program, had been hoping to connect with local artists to further develop their art programming. Our service learning partnership was initiated by the complementary desires of Horizons and my teaching goals. There were logistical issues to resolve before we began: which of the folks would be most interested in this project, who would most benefit, and who would best interact with the students in the complex environment of the university studio – twelve of the folks ended up participating. We could not anticipate the outcome but we held our collective breath and plunged into this new experience.
THE THREE COMMUNITY ART PROJECTS
Noah’s Ark: 2008–09
A community tapestry is typically a single large hanging; this approach was impractical for our project (take my word for it!). I planned, therefore, a large artwork composed of numerous small tapestries. Noah’s Ark was the obvious theme for our community tapestry and readily lent itself to a multi-panel artwork with all the animals: each tapestry would be created by a L’Arche-student partnership.
Figure 1. Noah’s Ark
Marla promoted the course to various university departments – for example, Anthropology, Sociology, Psychology, and Human Kinetics – and I was fortunate
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to work with many academically-invested students. I also benefitted from the enthusiastic assistance of Alanna Ray, a StFX Service Learning student mentor. Alanna’s experience with our community art project led her to her current career in which she works facilitating outdoor adventure experiences for people who live with disability.7 Florence visited the studio early in the semester, told the students the history and development of LArcheA, and, by way of introduction, showed a video featuring some of the participants as they went about their daily activities.
The students first met the folks at Horizons House; I wanted this initial meeting to occur in the community’s own surroundings. The students arrived before I did; when I got there many partnerships were already forming. This was possible because of the welcoming nature of the folks and the enthusiasm of the students: everyone began to understand the path this experience would take. We set to work immediately after an introduction to the tapestry project. I asked the folks and their partners to populate the tapestry ark with creatures of their choosing. How were the folks going to indicate their choice when direct verbal/aural communication might not be an option? My solution was to provide many photographs showing a large variety of familiar and exotic land and marine mammals, fish, insects, and birds; the folks could readily indicate their choice by selecting a photo.
My course goals of using art as a means for communication and for community building could not be reached simply by having the folks choose an animal and then have their student partner go away to weave the tapestry. I needed a second weaving project the partners could work on together in the university classroom to facilitate a more meaningful service learning experience for both. I designed a simple project in which the partners would work together at table-top looms to weave sets of coasters. These small looms are easy to operate with a pair of levers, each with a different coloured handle. Basic weaving is a two-step sequence: one coloured lever is needed for the first step, the other for the second step. This simple one-to-one correlation between colour and process made weaving the coasters straightforward for everyone.
The partners needed to communicate about the actual process of weaving, and some partners could easily speak to each other and be heard and understood. Other partners created their own “dialogue” by demonstrating, signing, and touching when there were impediments to memory, hearing, speech, or sight. L’Arche assistants were always there to help and to interpret when needed. This need to communicate about the operation of the loom broke social barriers and allowed friendships to develop. The partners became comfortable with each other; they shared stories as they wove, and got to know each other better. It was important for my teaching objectives that everyone understood it was art making as partners that allowed friendship and mutual respect to develop into a new community. One result of this project I could not anticipate was the pride the folks felt while attending a course at StFX. Though our small community existed only in the studio for one hour each week its impact was much more far-reaching.
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Studio classes are three hours long, and the folks came to the studio for the first hour to weave with their partners. I was used to teaching twelve students at most; suddenly there were more than thirty people in the studio – it was organized chaos that first day! It was a bit of a let-down for the students when they said “good-bye” to the folks each week and had to get back to the studio work at hand. They were not simply weaving a tapestry of the photograph chosen by their partner; rather they were to use the chosen animal to create an original artwork. The students had to get their design approved by their partner before proceeding with their tapestry. All but one student was successful: Emma’s partner, John, had chosen an orca but he wasn’t thrilled when he saw her design. John drew his own, more acceptable, orca for Emma’s tapestry. Another student, Nicole, was able to use motifs from paintings created by her partner, Sam, for the background imagery of their dolphin tapestry. There was a collection of twenty-four tapestry animals to fill Noah’s Ark by the end of the year. The tapestries (and the coasters) provided proof of the power of art to communicate and to create community. There were more than sixty people who worked in the studio to complete the weaving projects. The tapestry collection was presented to LArcheA and now hangs in their communal meeting room at the administrative centre.
Noah’s Ark was very successful in achieving my main goal of having the students understand the role of art in society. The use of a service learning model facilitated this success. There was obviously an enriched academic experience, and the students’ tapestries were generally of a higher quality compared to those woven in previous classes. One student, Chris, commented he was weaving so diligently because his tapestry was for his partner “I’ve got to get this right, I’m doing it for Pete.” A point of pride for the students was their generosity: students typically spend more time completing their weaving assignments than they might devote to their other courses, and their finished tapestry is their “reward”, but with this project the students willingly made a gift of their work.
The students enjoyed their one-to-one relationship with their partner, but they also appreciated the larger sense of community during the weekly studio gatherings. These regular visits helped students to understand intellectual disability, not as a broad social classification of a particular population, but rather as a unique personal quality of an individual. Ability was recognized rather than disability; this recognition challenged some students to re-evaluate previously held biases and recognize everyone can contribute to a vital community. Wenling commented that people with intellectual disabilities did not normally actively participate in their communities in China, and thought she might lead a community art project to change this situation when she returned home. This new understanding of issues surrounding social justice enhanced each student’s personal growth: they pushed at the boundaries of their life experience and discovered new aspects of their character.
Some students continued to volunteer with LArcheA after their course was finished. Olivia Giuliani, a Noah’s Ark student partner, writes:
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I was paired with Andrew, a man who lives with [multiple intellectual disabilities]. Being someone who had never worked with people living with disability before, I was scared that I would not be able to be an adequate partner. … While apprehensive at first, my experience ended up changing my life.
… I saw so many correlations between the course, art, community connection and life. … I recognized that I wanted to be able to connect with Andrew, to learn from him and to face my own fears of inadequacy in order to be a more genuine community worker. Once I realized how important this was to me, I started to build my relationship with Andrew, day-by-day, visit-by-visit. After the [course was over], Andrew and I continued to meet … Something that began with art and continued with community … led to one of the most touching experiences of my life …
The power of art is undeniable. In a situation where I was scared to connect, art was our bridge to get to one another … Sometimes you don’t need words to describe the connection that is made when community comes together to create. … That is the beauty of art; it transcends the narrowness of taking things at face value. I am forever grateful for the experiences that have blossomed from that tapestry course …8
The Peaceable Kingdom: 2009–10
The success of Noah’s Ark encouraged me to plan a new community tapestry for the following year; it is titled The Peaceable Kingdom. Edward Hicks, an early 19th century American artist and preacher, created a number of paintings titled The Peaceable Kingdom. The paintings depict various animals – in nature, predators and their prey – gathered peacefully together in a forested landscape. Hicks’s theme of a peaceable kingdom was inspired by the Book of Isaiah:
The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. (Isaiah 11:6–7 Authorized King James Version)
There were only a few differences of approach to The Peaceable Kingdom and that of Noah’s Ark. The animals of Hicks’s painted kingdoms exist in a natural landscape, so I created photo sets that showed both flora and fauna. For example, there were pairings of a blue jay and a sunflower, a fox and grapes, and a crow with pumpkins. John (of the orca from the previous year) once again had an active hand in designing his tapestry. John was not satisfied with my broad selection of creatures and asked Liza, his partner, to use a peacock instead: a bird I had deliberately chosen not to offer because of the complexity of its plumage! At this point I need to say that in each
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of my community art projects I have learned it is sometimes necessary to challenge my overly-organized nature and simply “go with the flow”: to further push at the boundaries of my comfort zone. The partners wove colourful bookmarks in a variety of patterns at the university studio that year. The folks already knew how to weave, so many were able to teach their new student partners how the looms worked. A bookmark is woven by a slightly different method than a coaster: this variation in technique let the folks develop their own weaving skills.
LArcheA had recently built two new houses for their growing community. This year’s collection of tapestries was destined for the houses, and the project was designed with these domestic settings in mind. The finished tapestries were joined together as two patchwork quilts using the classic Log Cabin block. A Log-Cabin block has a central square of red cloth symbolizing the cabin’s hearth; the hearth is surrounded by ever-enlarging rectangular borders of patterned cloth representing the log walls. Our animal tapestries took the place of the hearth and the logs were of multi-coloured velvet and corduroy. I chose the Log Cabin block to emphasize the meaning of art and its power to create community. Each block represents the partners; when the blocks are joined together they represent our newly-made community. The two quilts, in their new homes, evoke the love and support of the L’Arche family groups – a peaceable kingdom. The students’ learning outcomes were similar to those of Noah’s Ark: an enhanced academic experience, an understanding of issues surrounding social justice and marginalized populations, and the opportunity for personal growth. Again, some students continued to volunteer with LArcheA after the course was over.
Chapel Cross: 2011–12
Religious faith is a cornerstone of Vanier’s vision of L’Arche; Christian spirituality plays an important role in the life of the L’Arche community in Antigonish. I wanted our new collaborative artwork to reflect this faith. Chapel Cross has as its central motif the Christian cross from which radiates an aura of vivid colour. It is not a tapestry per se, though it is a woven wall-hanging. I also wanted the folks to play a much more active role in creating this community artwork than they had in the previous projects. Chapel Cross was developed as an adaptation of their woven bookmarks; the partners would weave long and short colourful bands using the same technique. Once all the bands were completed they would, themselves, be woven together to create the wall-hanging. I gave a presentation to everyone to illustrate my concept during our first class: once again there was a leap of faith needed when the project began.
The folks chose five colours for the bands they would weave with their partners. I did control one aspect of this choice: each partnership was given one colour to be the main colour in their weaving pattern. The choice for the remaining four colours was left to the partners. The main colours would create the colour aura radiating from the central cross. The bands closest to the cross used pale yellow, the next level
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golden-yellow, then orange, rust, red, burgundy, purple, blue, navy, and black for the outermost dimensions of the wall-hanging. The long and short bands for the central cross were woven in shades of white only: this let the single-colour cross stand out from the other multi-coloured bands.
Students first had to learn combinations of basic weaving patterns and colour sequences to design their own band. The pattern needed to emphasize the main colour and use the others to a lesser degree. The students also had to learn how to prepare the table-top looms, then a trial run at weaving let them troubleshoot and correct their patterns if necessary. The folks again came to the university studio to weave the bands with their new partners. They formed their own friendships while weaving and all of us in the studio connected as a small community sharing a common goal. Service learning objectives were defined, and students achieved them to varying degrees of success depending on their commitment to the project, their partners, and most importantly to themselves to use the experience to learn about their own ability to grow and change.
Figure 2. Chapel Cross
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Chapel Cross took both academic semesters to complete with 45 people collaborating. All the folks and many of the students were able to gather at the end of the year to weave the hanging together. The top ends of the longer vertical bands were attached to the wall in the proper sequence of colour gradation with the white bands in the centre. The partners wove in the shorter horizontal bands beginning at the top passing them over and under the longer ones again in the graded colour sequence – the horizontal white bands formed the arms of the cross. The diversity of colours and patterns used to weave the bands reflected the diversity of all the people involved in the project. The act of weaving Chapel Cross together became a powerful metaphor of working as partners to create community. Chapel Cross was intended to hang in LArcheA’s small chapel, but the chapel’s intimate size could no longer accommodate the ever-increasing community. Chapel Cross was donated to our regional hospital and hangs in the foyer of a large community hall; this public venue is an ideal location for Chapel Cross to be admired and contemplated both as an image and as a message of faith.9
REFLECTIONS
These three community art projects greatly benefitted the stakeholders as defined in service learning pedagogy: the students, the community partner, and the instructor. I developed a renewed interest in teaching motivated students, and put in extra time and effort to coordinate these projects. I particularly benefitted from Noah’s Ark because, as the first community project, I learned at the same time and in the same way as my students and the folks. I achieved my own goals of service learning: I gained a better understanding of issues surrounding social justice and their impact on marginalized populations, I developed aspects of my character while testing my own limits and reflecting on the many facets of this experience, and I continue to share in the joy of volunteering with LArcheA.
More than sixty students participated in these three community artworks. They realized the advantages of service learning pedagogy to enhance their understanding of the role art plays in society. This occurred because the academic objectives of their art course were contextualized by real life experience in the community. The students’ dedication to the projects and their generosity to make gifts of their tapestries marked a level of maturity that made a powerful impression on me and LArcheA. Some students realized that a university course is not primarily about the letter grade, rather it can offer new ways of thinking and learning: knowledge that will accompany them along their life’s path. For Olivia Giuliani, this was an especially profound experience in her life, and she went on to volunteer with L’Arche Ottawa, and to take a second degree in Social Work. I am aware of others who continue to volunteer with people with intellectual disabilities in their home communities.
Of course our L’Arche partners also benefitted in many ways from these successful community projects. The most tangible benefit is the artworks which
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hang in their community building, in their homes, and at the regional hospital. The folks and their families take great pride in all they have accomplished, and our classroom activities facilitated enhanced socialization for some of the folks. The projects introduced many students to a L’Arche community for the first time, and some continued to volunteer with LArcheA during their remaining time at StFX.
The experience of creating Noah’s Ark became a catalyst for LArcheA to more fully appreciate the power of art to communicate and create community: the result of which is “Hearts & Hands” – a program dedicated to creative activity. Hearts & Hands embraces all forms of artistic expression: visual art, theatre, dance, and music. The Studio at Hearts & Hands is home to a special day program where the folks pursue a wide range of art-making: painting, drawing, collage, paper making, weaving, embroidery, mosaic glasswork, and ceramics. A special focus is on collaborative projects with local artists, students, and other community volunteers. Their original artworks are exhibited and sold throughout Antigonish, and reproduced for greeting cards, as well as featured in an annual calendar. These activities help Hearts & Hands to be self-sustaining.
From Hearts & Hands:
Our vision is to build community through art.
Our mission is to promote creative expression, which fosters journeys of self- discovery, self-expression and self-promotion.
[Our] values and principles: we welcome and value all creative expression; we experience the personal fulfillment and joy that creating art brings to all of us; together we create an inspirational, positive and supportive atmosphere and promote equality and independence; we appreciate and celebrate each other’s gifts.10
The major benefit for LArcheA has been the understanding of how art can be the means for the folks to communicate their vision of the world. They know creating art with others can be a vital way to create community and facilitate understanding and respect; the Hearts & Hands program of creative activity developed directly from this knowledge. L’Arche Antigonish has already realized so many opportunities for its own community and continues to discover new ways in which it can reach out to new and more diverse audiences. Their vision will only strengthen our community as it allows all of us to see ability and value where once we may have been blind to these gifts.
NOTES
1 Ideas presented in this chapter have been previously explored in: Gibson M., Hauf, P., Long, B., & Sampson, G. (2009). Bringing learning to life: Faculty experiences
with course-based service learning. Fostering Student Engagement, Dalhousie Conference on University Teaching and Learning & Student Success Symposium, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia.
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Gibson, M., & Sampson, G. (2009). Bringing learning to life: Experiences with service learning. What Works; Empowering Students for the 21st Century, Association of Atlantic Universities Teaching Showcase 2009. Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia. And in S. Major & N. Scrimger (Eds.) Association of Atlantic Universities Teaching Showcase 2009 Conference Proceedings: Volume XIII, 51–53.
Gibson, M., Hauf, P., Long, B., & Sampson, G. (2011). Reflective practice in service learning: Possibilities and limitations. Education + Training, 53(4), 284–296.
2 In 1996 the British Columbia Society of Tapestry Artists designed and wove a tapestry donated to the Dr. Peter Centre, Vancouver, BC, in honour of Dr. Peter Jepson-Young who died of HIV/AIDS in 1992.
3 St. Francis Xavier University. http://sites.stfx.ca/service_learning/ (accessed May 2015). 4 For example: Bringle, R. G., & Hatcher, J. A. (1999). Reflection in service learning: Making meaning
of experience. Educational Horizons, 79(4), 179–185. 5 Jean Vanier. http://www.jean-vanier.org/en/the_man/biography/short_biography (accessed May 2015). 6 “Folks” is a term used by the L’Arche Antigonish community – it is one of familial endearment and
respect. 7 Email correspondence with Alanna Ray, May 2015. 8 Email correspondence with my former student Olivia Giuliani, May 2015. 9 These community art projects can be viewed on my web site. Use the search term “murray gibson
tapestry” and follow the links under the “community” tab in the navigation bar. 10 L’Arche Antigonish/Hearts-Hands. http://www.larcheantigonish.ca/hearts-hands/ (accessed May 2015).
Murray Gibson St. Francis Xavier University Antigonish, Nova Scotia
S. Butterwick & C. Roy (Eds.), Working the Margins of Community-Based Adult Learning, 39–48. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
BRIAN NICHOLS
4. A PSYCHOTHERAPIST BRINGS ART-MAKING TO PATIENTS IN ZIMBABWE
The Gift of Presence
INTRODUCTION
For ten years I have been making annual month-long visits to a hospital in Zimbabwe, Africa. I am a visual artist and child and family psychotherapist who uses art in my healing practice. When I visit the hospital, I have largely been responding to situations that present themselves. Some days I simply see myself as being a kind of distraction to the widespread pain and suffering that exists on these wards. I bring art materials, music, books, cameras and massage oil. I have been described as the oil that allows the machinery of the hospital to work. That seems a big over-statement but I like the intention of the metaphor. I more often feel like the shamanic clown or fool that brings healing in a comic fashion with bubbles, balloons and playful antics. Art making is certainly a significant aspect of what patients do while I am there and it is what I do as part of my own healing or integration of the experience while I am there and when I return to Canada. Art making is the more complete expression of my feelings and makes connecting to the light and to the dark of this experience much more complete. As I write the following in my journal it is 4 a.m.; my mind races and I cannot sleep. This is my second day back in Canada after my ninth trip to Zimbabwe, where I have been volunteering in a rural mission hospital.
What if… all I was doing in Africa was playing with balloons, handing out art supplies, and rubbing oil on men’s feet in the days leading up to their discharges from hospital, or their deaths? What if? What if a stranger’s touch is what is needed and my careful smoothing out of the bed sheets and my tucking of blankets around swollen feet actually makes a difference in how a person feels? What if my hands are really healing hands and my smile, laughter or tears actually do make a difference in a person’s day? What if there really is a god listening? What if?
ABOUT ME
I am a 63 year old white male living in a small city in Ontario. I live a very privileged life compared to much of the world. I’m a husband, a father, and a grandfather of four.
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I am a visual artist, and sometimes an actor and a dancer. I am an introvert and an activist. I have a doctorate in applied psychology, and I work in a private practice as a child and family psychotherapist. I started my career as an early childhood educator and then taught post secondary education for 25 years, including time spent at an art college. Art making is an essential part of both my personal and my professional life. How I came to go to Africa the first time is an interesting story. I decided at age 50 that I would retire from teaching but would continue to work as a play therapist and psychotherapist. A colleague who taught midwifery had just returned from Zimbabwe, impressed by the midwifery training at the hospital but dismayed by the number of young people that she met who had cared for their parents who had HIV until they died. These young people were now suffering as they became the heads of households of younger siblings and were often themselves living with HIV. I had been involved in child and adolescent hospice and palliative care for twenty years and my colleague suggested that the community would benefit from my experience. Without really thinking about what it would entail or if I actually had anything of value to offer I decided to go to Zimbabwe. Besides daily work on the hospital wards I began spending my afternoons at a local secondary school with students who were members of the AIDS Club. My time with them included art making, physical theatre games, writing, music and dance/movement. Each year the group published a newsletter that contained their original work. I came to love being there and over time felt that I had something significant to offer the people at the hospital and in the local villages.
ZIMBABWE AND HOSPITAL SETTINGS
I have spent time at two different faith-based hospitals located in rural areas of sub- Sahara Africa. Political unrest has been a significant part of the country’s pre and post-independence (1980) history, and the impact of the HIV/AIDS virus has been devastating. Both of these hospitals have pre-independence history with the older of the two existing for over 85 years. They also provide the primary employment in their respective areas including schools of nursing and midwifery. Since 2008, the county does not have its own currency and the infra-structure has become largely nonexistent.
The resulting humanitarian crisis has fuelled an explosion of projects with compelling promises of healing. Dire poverty and unemployment face most people living here and the majority of those who come to the hospital are subsistence farmers without savings. These factors dramatically influence the lives of the people I meet each day. Being unaware of the enormity of the suffering and misery is impossible.
When I first arrived at the hospital in 2004, I was told that 90% of the patients and 40% of the staff had AIDS. As antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) have become more available over the past 11 years I see fewer AIDS patients than before, but numbers are still higher than in most other places in the world; each day there are deaths.
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Some weeks there are no ARV drugs available and as a result, it is more common to see an increasing number of patients with drug resistant strains of AIDS.
Patients come to these hospitals with major infections that have been left untreated. This often results in the amputation of limbs and permanent impairments, affecting mobility, vision and hearing. Others come with snake or crocodile bites, burns, cholera, malaria, cancer, heart disease, HIV/AIDS related illnesses, birth complications, mental health issues and malnutrition. The enormous cost of being in a hospital may be borne by individuals themselves or shared by an entire church or family group. In a country where employment is difficult to find and salaries are often less than two dollars a day, a hospital stay may financially ruin an individual or a family for life. In this chapter all names have been changed to protect the identities of patients.
THE ART OF PRESENCE
Although I do not primarily act as a psychotherapist while in Zimbabwe, the skills and functions of my profession are part of my conduct and presence. My decision to bring an arts focus is based on who I am as an artist as well as how I understand my professional role. Having something concrete to offer a person lying in a bed is both simpler and more effective than trying to initiate a verbal conversation, especially since I do not speak Shona. As a former British colony (Rhodesia) English is widely spoken in urban centres but much less so in rural areas. My experience in both Canada and Zimbabwe has been that very ill people generally do not talk very much.
Almost all of my time in the hospital is spent on open wards with between 10 and 20 beds in each ward and often up to 30 or 40 people being present. Although I spent considerable time planning what I would bring with me to Africa, and time each day packing the bag I would carry onto the wards, I understood that it was my presence and how I expressed who I am that was most important. I need to be comfortable with suffering and silence and genuinely curious about others’ lives, and be willing to comfortably share aspects of my own life with others. I also have to be at ease with conversations on difficult and painful topics.
The Arts
On the children’s ward my opening gesture is often an offer of markers and paper, or a balloon; on the adult wards usually colourful wire and beads for making a bracelet or necklace. Using my computer or iPod, I also bring recordings of traditional Zimbabwean music (mbira and marimba) with me. Music has strong appeal and a powerful impact. Each day I typically carry the following items with me: markers, oil pastels, water colour paint boxes, paper, modeling material, beads, embroidery thread, balloons, small mirrors, plastic balls, bubbles, children’s picture books and adult novels, digital cameras, hard candies, ice cubes, massage oil, wash cloths and music.
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The art materials, especially at the beginning of a relationship, are essential to opening doors, but ultimately I know that it is equally important to patients that I come each day, remember their names and stories, and sit with them and listen. I know that the art supplies and processes are not separate from me, they are part of who I am. For the most part I do not participate in painful medical procedures, though I will assist in lifting and feeding, and spending time holding adults and children to comfort them. I am much more likely than nurses or doctors to be seen touching patients, especially patients in the final stages of AIDS. I am not a massage therapist but I have studied massage in Thailand and many forms of energy work in Canada. I am comfortable with touch and find it to be reassuring when other forms of communication are no longer effective.
It would seem obvious that not speaking the local language could be a problem, but I find that in most situations there is someone who can provide translation when it is necessary. The art materials, massage oil and music act as bridges that help to create a relationship or connection. The initial giving of art-making materials will later make way for the sharing of names, and then possibly stories about other parts of our respective lives. The offerings I make of connection are tangible and can be easily accepted or rejected with just a look. Either way, I am making contact. We have, if just for a moment, shared worlds, if not the ability to share spoken words. We often think that talking is connecting, but this is not necessarily so, and may indeed itself be an impediment to authentic presence. The offering of a foot or hand massage with oil has the added potency of touch and presence, along
Figure 1. Drawing from open studio. Photo by Brian Nichols
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with the immediate relief from physical discomfort. Lack of cultural awareness, or acceptance of the significance of those cultural differences, may be a much greater impediment than the lack of a common tongue. My experience has been that in palliative care work in general, often very little is spoken outwardly.
In response to the many requests during the day to share art supplies with the staff on the wards I created an evening open studio in the nurses’ dining hall for anyone who wanted to attend. On most nights there would be 8 or 10 of us creating art together while visiting. Near the end of my stay, and with the encouragement of the nurse artists, we held an art show of the works they had created. The event included food, a musician who played mbira, flowers and balloons, and the art displayed on the walls. Over 40 people came and stayed the whole evening and eventually we ended up dancing.
Photography
A few years ago, a colleague in Canada introduced me to how she uses digital cameras with clients for storytelling. In my trips to Zimbabwe, I now take with me 8 cameras, a computer with external speakers, and a projector. I have used them with 300 secondary school students, 30 grade seven students in a five-day residential Bible Camp, adult patients admitted to an AIDS clinic and with various children and adults in and around the hospital compound. A few weeks ago I was with a couple of ten year old boys and we all had cameras. We were able to take pictures that I would normally not be comfortable taking. We seek permission and share the photos with those whose photos we have taken. We bring temporary distraction and some joy to the place and the boys have an opportunity to explore the cameras and the hospital. I have been able to work more intensely with some of the older participants teaching them how to edit their photos and how to create slideshows with text. A group of adults in the AIDS Clinic created a very poignant slide show about being HIV positive that is now shown to new patients at the clinic. It is highly unusual here for people to willingly disclose their HIV status so this slideshow has an added impact.
To bring greater thought or intention to picture taking I often suggest that prior to taking photographs that the person write or dictate a few paragraphs about his or her life. I met a 16 year old male that I will call Tavengwa when his older brother showed up at the hospital one day afraid that he was experiencing psychosis. Both of their parents had died from AIDS and the brothers now live with their grandparents. At home Tavengwa had been argumentative, showing limited self- care and was not attending school. I visited their home (a two-hour walk) and spent the afternoon with him using cameras and my computer. After this, he showed up each day at the hospital to borrow a camera and regularly booked time to use my laptop. Five years later I continue to support him by helping to pay his school fees and I regularly hear from his older brother who now has a social work degree and has found work.
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The idea of putting cameras into the hands of local people and encouraging them to talk and write about their experiences resulted in 3,500 photos being taken in a 30 day period. I left Zimbabwe knowing the people who worked with the cameras in a different and more complete way. I returned the following year with thirty 18” X 24” photographs of people who worked at, or were visiting the hospital, and hung these as an exhibit in the hallway. Very few of the original photographers are still alive; others had moved away from the hospital. The photos themselves were well received and helped to celebrate the strengths and importance of the people from the area.
Films
I also take films that I show at night to groups of youth and on the adult male ward to whoever wanders by. I found it challenging to locate films that I thought would make sense to people who, for the most part, have not been exposed to films. I ended up taking ET (Steven Spielberg, 1982); Star Wars (George Lucas, 1997); Lord of the Rings (Peter Jackson, 2001); Charlottes’ Web (Charles Nichols,1973); Rabbit Proof Fence (Philip Noyce, 2002); Happy Feet (Warner Bros. Pictures, 2006); The Golden Compass (Chris Weitz, 2007); Where The Wild Things Are (Spike Jonze, 2009); The Wizard of Oz (Metro Goldwyn Mayer, 1939); and The Wind and the Willows (Rachel Talalay, 2006). The film nights were a huge success but depended on electrical power, which was not always available, or would not necessarily last until the end of a film.
Schools
I often meet each afternoon with the Nyachura Secondary School AIDS Club. This is a school of 320 students who are considered the most disadvantaged in the area. These students create art work and write about the impact of AIDS on their lives. Their work is both personal and powerful and at the end of each year they publish a newsletter of original work. They are eager to be together and to make art. This group has become the privileged rather than the stigmatized, as I bring art supplies, sports equipment and food to each session. Many of the youth have decided to test for AIDS and those infected now take ARVs.
It is significant when people around you become comfortable enough to tease you. Two days in a row I arrive at the hospital gates to buy avocados, each time to find that all had been sold. On the third day I got called “Avocado” by one of the sellers and the name stuck. For the rest of my time there whenever I went past the stands there was a chorus of “Avocado” greeting me. I told the story to family members on the male ward and each time I entered the room afterward they sang out “Avocado” and laughed.
When I get to hold a child, it feels wonderful. Sometimes I am simply missing my own grandchildren but I often pick the most physically damaged or handicapped child to hold as there is a large number of children with hydrocephaly at the hospital.
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I dance, mostly a waltz step, to sooth the fussier ones. There is usually laughter as people watch me; maybe it is the funny way in which I dance and sing. I do not mind being laughed at. It actually helps me to feel that it is okay to be a guest here. It is during those moments that once more I understand that what I bring to Zimbabwe is simply me. I bring all of me in those moments, when I try to be fully present with an open and loving heart.
I have discovered the pleasure and the importance of bringing a gift of some kind into the hospital with me. It can be ice cubes, oil for massage, hard wrapped candies, a tray of cold watermelon sold at the gate for $1.00, wire, beads, or markers. Along with the offering comes physical contact, or conversation and sharing of presence. A ritual of sorts is created where I have brief contact with each person on the ward. Then, I receive as part of that dialogue a joke, a thank you, a smile, a hand shake, a story, or a request. We now have a connection even when death or departure may be imminent.
Massage and Listening
One morning, at the end of a quiet foot massage with a 74 year old man he began to speak to me. When he asked me where I was from in Canada I came and sat beside his bed. He told me about his own children (4 boys and 4 girls) and stories about the white family where he had been a cook for forty years. The desire to tell a story is strong, especially when an interested stranger is present to listen. I can give my undivided attention for as long as I or they want, and I am genuinely interested in hearing these stories.
For a number of days in a row a nurse had been asking me to massage a hip that had been giving him pain for several years. On the morning we finally connected for the massage, out poured his story of being beaten and then stabbed in the chest by government party youth. They came at night, burnt down his house, and stole his oxen. This is not a story that he could safely tell others because the implication of the beating is that he was not a supporter of the ruling ZANU/PF Party. Indeed his brother, now in hiding, was the candidate in the area for the opposition party.
While shopping I am stopped and told stories by people of their lives. Because I often sit publicly to write in my journal it is clear that I am not in a hurry to go anywhere. I am told about the deaths of their children, the difficulty in raising funds to pay school fees, or to start businesses; about tobacco prices, and conflicts within religious denominations. It is almost always men who talk with me, and they share their challenges with alcohol, girlfriends, and with AIDS.
Sometimes my most poignant experiences involve relationships where very few aspects of the person’s life are shared. Tendai was 16 years old when I met him and he was clearly near the end of his life with complications related to HIV. I had a cloth and washed his face and arms, gently massaged his feet with oil, and played some music for him. I was speaking quietly to his mother when he spoke to me in Shona and said, “I am not well”; such an incredible understatement. For the next few days
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I spent many hours sitting beside his bed, comforting his mother and giving her time to leave his side to bathe or find herself some food. Some days he had more energy than others and we would find ourselves singing along with the marimba music and using containers or glass beads as shakers. I was able to video tape these times with him and shared them with him later. There was lots of laughter. One day he asked his mother about my glasses and I put them on him and took his picture. He joked about coming back to Canada with me and living in my house. The day before he died I lifted him into a wheel chair and took him outside to enjoy the sunshine. It was during this time that I came to realize that we all smile, laugh, cry and grunt in the same language. In my journal I wrote:
Tendai is not the only person dying of AIDS on the ward right now. There are two others also close to death and I assume that many more people here on this ward know that they are infected. Because there is a great deal of stigma in being HIV positive it is not safe to admit that you have AIDS. I feel that what I do for Tendai I am doing for all of the people on the ward who are watching me.
People talk about having tuberculosis, asthma, or admit to being very ill but AIDS is seldom talked about. Women are often kicked out of their families and children are shunned once their infection status becomes known. In a country with such a high infection rate it surprises me how difficult or dangerous it still is to admit that you are HIV positive. It is my intention while in the hospital to model the acceptance of, and lack of fear of, being with people who have AIDS.
I am offered many opportunities to talk about or demonstrate who I am and I accept most of these. Each Sunday after church the men who work at the hospital gather under a pergola to hear from one member of the group about his life and work. I was invited to share who I am, and what I do at the hospital, and in my life in Canada. I found some relevant Bible verses in Ecclesiastes and spoke about being a therapist. I asked a few questions to the group that would typically be used in therapy sessions and invited them to share their answers:
What would you be prepared to risk your life or to die for? Name someone dead or alive that you would like to have a conversation with. What do you regret doing or not doing in your life?
I then invited them to draw pictures of trees, and we talked about what the picture might tell us about the person who drew it. It is an hour spent in fellowship with men in a setting that is safe and supportive.
REFLECTIONS
I give myself permission to try new things, even if my approach is flawed. Indeed, if I waited until I was fully trained or I had it perfectly figured out I would never start anything. It is often through jumping into something that I learn how to do it in a
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manner that is more suited to the unique situation. I believe that it is okay to begin some place, rather than thinking there is only one right place to begin or one right way to do it. Then it is my job to persevere as I figure out my way forward.
I believe that the impact of my presence comes from my recognition of my own vulnerability. I know of my own woundedness and I feel humbled as a guest in Zimbabwe. I do not hold any illusions that I can significantly change what is going to happen there. People will live or die independently of what I do or don’t do. I believe that I am simply a guest, and that I am there to listen and to learn. If there is one thing I have learned from my time in Zimbabwe it is that I should only offer who I am. Indeed, that is the only thing of value that anyone truly has to offer. The rest of the stuff that I bring in my bag is simply a means to this offering of self.
Like everyone else, wherever I go, I bring with me the wholeness of my life experiences. It is not just my training or experience as a psychotherapist that I share but it is also my history of suffering, empathy, fears, and joys. The compassion that I bring is not a hierarchical relationship between a healer and the wounded; it is the basis for an equal relationship between two people. Compassion can only be real when we recognize our shared humanity; art-making without compassion is flat and meaningless. I return from Africa and I bring home with me the new wholeness of this experience. There are always many challenges that I face during my time in Zimbabwe and that is perhaps why I continue to return. The most obvious challenge is just being present to the many hardships that others are facing every day: the widespread poverty, their physical pain and suffering, lack of food and water, and the absence of hope that their situation will soon get better. This is also a place where I am really challenged to practice self care. Finding and preparing food, adjusting to the heat, interacting with large numbers of people, and many times each day
Figure 2. Drawing from open studio. Photo by Brian Nichols
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introducing myself and explaining what I am doing at the hospital is exhausting. I have found that taking time to write in my journal and to make art are the two best sources of comfort and insight available to me. Only to the extent that I look after myself can I hope to offer care and support to others anywhere.
Up until now I have avoided sharing the writing that I do about my time in Zimbabwe. As I read what I have written here, I am left feeling dissatisfied. I have not intentionally misled the reader, but I feel that I have managed to diminish the reality of my experience on the hospital wards. It has been impossible for me to adequately capture either the incredible horror of what I have seen and experienced or the pure joy in being there. I will continue to paint my impressions of Zimbabwe and practice writing with the hopes of being able to share a more detailed account of my very real experiences.
Brian Nichols Art Therapist Peterborough, Ontario
SECTION 2
CREATIVE EXPRESSION: INCREASING UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN COMMUNITIES
S. Butterwick & C. Roy (Eds.), Working the Margins of Community-Based Adult Learning, 51–60. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
CAROLE ROY
5. AMPLIFYING VOICES
Film Festivals, New Perspectives, Critical Reflection, and Inspiration
INTRODUCTION
We currently face inequitable social structures that require serious change and, according to Paulo Freire (2004), this type of change entails the capacity to imagine a different world. Leona English and Peter Mayo (2012) add that such transformation requires a notion of citizenship that includes a sense of the collective rather than a limited focus on individuals. When it comes to struggles for social justice we must also consider the collective nature of learning and challenge the idea of learners as separated autonomous beings (Gorman, 2007). Yet according to Stephen Preskill and Stephen Brookfield (2009), technological developments make it increasingly difficult to create a sense of community. However, festivals bring people together and allow a greater sense of inclusion (Ehrenreich, 2006) as they provide opportunities that encourage crucial exchange if we are to build solidarity toward social change. Documentary film festivals offer meaningful and alternative information across differences, which can contribute to the making of Freire’s collective dreams in a society where there is diversity. Learning about others’ perspectives in the local community, as well as abroad, within an atmosphere of respect is important as some viewers may be exposed to experiences significantly different from their own. Documentaries allow people to listen to others’ stories, take in what at times may challenge preconceptions, and allow reflection. Documentaries engage intellect and emotion at the same time, permitting people to be touched and learn about new perspectives, reflect and consider other points of view, possibly reconsider one’s ideas, and broaden one’s view of the world. Documentaries contribute to collective dream-making instead of the nightmarish scenarios sometimes proposed by Hollywood films.
AUTHOR
In 2002 I attended the World Community Film Festival in Courtenay, British Columbia and discovered the power of documentary films. On the screen, inspiring people from around the world cared for their community and took a stand to protect their dignity and their environment, struggled against injustices and destruction, all with courage and creativity. I felt immensely enriched intellectually, emotionally,
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and spiritually by the film festival. In 2004 I moved to Peterborough, Ontario and soon after asked to borrow the films from Courtenay: they would not loan their program to an individual but would consider a request from a group. Two months later, a coalition of community and Trent University organizations agreed to organize the first World Community Film Festival-Peterborough (renamed ReFrame in 2009) which took place in January 2005, and sold out a week before the festival! I coordinated the growing festival for three years before moving to Antigonish, Nova Scotia in July 2007 where I was fortunate to find enthusiastic community and St. Francis Xavier University organizers; we launched the first annual Antigonish International Film Festival in November 2007. In 2009, we organized film festivals in Sydney and Inverness (nearby communities on Cape Breton). From 2008 to 2011 I carried out a qualitative case study to understand the role documentary film festivals play as grassroots sites of education and found that they encourage critical thinking and community building. Each festival is organized by a coalition of community and university members who take responsibility for reserving venues, hiring technical help, selecting films, contacting sponsors/ advertisers, designing posters and program guides, promoting the festival, recruiting and scheduling and training volunteers, and organizing a dinner or other related activities like art displays, workshops, and speakers and discussions. This usually involves monthly meetings over a 6 month period. This study comprised the Courtenay, Peterborough, and Antigonish film festivals (2008–2011) and the Sydney and Inverness film festivals (2009). It included exit interviews and semi- structured interviews with individual attendees at each festival; group interviews with attendees, organizers, and sponsors in Courtenay and Peterborough; and group interviews with attendees in Sydney and Inverness. I collected written feedback forms from attendees at each festival and reviewed the archives of the organizing teams in Courtenay and Peterborough.
DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVALS
These film festivals showcase documentaries by independent filmmakers from around the world and feature stories of social justice, collective and individual challenges and resilience, and creative and courageous, even victorious, struggles. Topics range from environmental to social and political issues, from meditation to health to the use of the arts in community building and social movements. Courtenay has an affluent population of 25,000 people. Peterborough has a relatively affluent population of 75,000 people, and Antigonish has 4,000 residents and 4,000 university students in an economically depressed region. In Peterborough and Antigonish audience development is done through local sponsorships and each festival has an impressive list of over 100 community and university sponsors. The programming reflects the concerns of their respective community as well as the contributions of a wide range of individuals and groups. The festivals in Sydney and Inverness
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were held for one year as an outreach project of the Antigonish festival. The films most appreciated by audiences often deal with positive examples of resilience and change. In this chapter I focus on the type of films shown that amplify often ignored experiences and stories, locally, nationally as well as internationally. One recurrent theme in the films as well as in attendees’ comments was transformation, of ideas, of people, of communities.
NEW PERSPECTIVES
Dispelling Myths of Homelessness
A film that highlighted people often invisible in films was Hannah’s Story (Peters, 2007), a film which dealt with homelessness. Hannah Taylor from Winnipeg, Canada, was five years old when she first saw a homeless man, and she was shocked. She subsequently became friends with a homeless man and by the time she was eight years old she had started the Ladybug Foundation which is dedicated to education on issues related to homelessness; in the last ten years that foundation has raised more than $3 million dollars for the homeless. Among many projects, Hannah spearheaded the development of a shelter for homeless teenagers. After the film a teacher told me that she planned to include the Ladybug Foundation in her elementary school class while a university professor of business ethics showed the film to his class. Hannah’s commitment is inspiring. The film does not only dispel stereotypes of homeless people but also demonstrates that children have something to contribute to discussions on social justice issues and that they can be active participants and very effective advocates.
A film that triggered an avalanche of comments was also on homelessness. The Cats of Mirikitani (Yoshikawa & Hattendorf, 2006) is a film that viewers still talk about years later. The success of the film rests in the unexpected journey of 85-year old Jimmy Mirikitani, an initially disheveled mumbling hunchback Japanese-American artist living on the streets of New York. After 9/11 a friend, also a filmmaker, invites him to her apartment so he can get off the toxic streets. Over a two year period his story unfolds: born in Sacramento but raised in Hiroshima before coming back to the USA, he faced discrimination and was placed in a Japanese internment camp during World War II. Over the course of the film we realize that the art he creates on the streets of New York reflects his experiences of war and internment: as we follow him on his first visit to the internment camp where he spent years, we immediately recognize the landscapes in his paintings, so surprisingly accurate. We come to understand that cats were the favorites of his best childhood friend who died in the camp as a boy. As he peels away layers of his story, including the loss of his American citizenship, we witness the recovery of that American citizenship, the discovery and meeting with his long-lost sister, and his transformation into a straight-back powerful artist who has his own clean and
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inviting apartment where he finally can devote himself to the pursuit of art, which is all he ever wanted to do. The film shows the effects of war and discrimination as well as Jimmy’s self-appointed mission to never let Americans forget they had unjustly interned him and American citizens of Japanese descent. Viewers are immensely touched by the injustices he suffered, by his resilience through the decades of hardships, by the healing power of art, and by the kindness of friendship that led to such healing and stunning transformation. As Jimmy’s transformation takes place on the screen, we strip away stereotypes as our own understanding of homelessness is also transformed.
A young man who attended the showing of The Cats of Mirikitani (Yoshikawa & Hattendorf, 2006), and had apparently suffered brain injury, took part in a focus group a month after attendance at a film festival. He was the first to speak and told of being inspired by how Jimmy (Mirikitani) had to let go of the hurt and anger accumulated over sixty years before he could become the artist that he was, a process of transformation this young man seemed to clearly understand. He also pointed out the role friendship had played as Jimmy’s filmmaker friend insisted that he did not “have to live under a plastic sheet at the back of a store.” He wanted another film festival, “a bigger one, more hoopla!” Many attendees spoke of Cats taking them by surprise given the low expectations they had about a film on homelessness. Years after seeing Cats at the film festival in Antigonish, a man suggested that he comes to a film open and disposed to be taken on a journey and welcomes being jolted out of his expectations, like he was by the unexpected story of transformation of Jimmy in Cats. Another viewer suggested that Jimmy went from a “plastic hut to a lot of pride,” while a woman who had not even expected to like the film said “That was awesome!” and connected it to her upbringing where an equal number of Japanese Canadians, First Nations, and Caucasians made up her community; she found the film “so profound… very hopeful and very blunt and very clear.” Reactions to films like Cats extended to a woman I did not know who sent me an email the next week to say that the films were powerful due to “the compassion and love that persisted despite the poverty, brutality, devastation, and illness” or, she wondered, was it “the passion and devotion that was expressed?” Another, who I also did not know, phoned me on a Sunday evening three weeks later to say she was all “stirred up” from the film festival. Some documentaries have a realness that make them memorable and impactful, allowing viewers to take in other perspectives while fostering reflection on themselves or on their own society.
PROVOKING CRITICAL REFLECTION
Providing a wide range of stories at these festivals is important in order to reach out and connect to audiences that bring a diversity of identities and interests. The documentaries featured at these festivals tend to provoke individual and collective reflection on the socio-cultural and political constructs of society. This can lead to in-depth self-critical reflection.
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New Ideas about Health Education and about Cuba
The film ¡Salud! Cuba & the Quest for Health (Field, 2006) looks at the unusual case of cash-strapped Cuba which the BBC said has one of the best health care systems in the world. Audiences were surprised that 28,000 Cuban health professionals served in 68 countries and 98% returned to their country. These professionals carry with them their experience and philosophy of a community- oriented, preventive, and universal health care model, which is so contrary to the wave of healthcare privatization. At that time Cuba had trained 30,000 international students in medicine including nearly 100 from the USA. The film highlights the competing agendas in the battle for global health. During the discussion after the film, people were comparing the achievements of Cuban doctors to the situation of healthcare in Nova Scotia. The film reportedly left viewers with a lot to think about as people repeatedly mentioned their surprise at how much Cuba contributed to other countries, something that seems to have been totally new information. Something that struck viewers was the obvious care Cuban doctors had for their patients. The word “enlightening” was used which conveyed the fact that the film expanded viewers’ knowledge of Cuba: “Very informative and very inspiring. It filled me with deep respect for a country that manages to not only give free healthcare to all its citizens but also helps countries that are even worse.” Another attendee commented, “A good model for a health care fix for our own problems in Canada; expect a fight.” On a feedback form, another wrote: “What a contribution to world health care especially by a communist country” while in the United States “the health care system leaves forty-seven million citizens without coverage;” Another written comment was that the film was “an opportunity to evaluate popular and common attitudes about Cuba [which] were based on cold war rhetoric, a lazy press, and condescension to a peasant population.” Media literacy is one outcome of these film festivals as viewers realize the narrowness of the information provided by mainstream media which leave out many empowering stories from around the world. As one attendee put it, there is a realization of “the degree to which our news is biased and bought and paid for. Concerning!”
Challenging Perspective on Education and One’s Career
Another film that made a strong impression explores the modern education system. Schooling the World: The White Man’s Last Burden (Black, 2010) suggests that the schooling system plays a significant role in destroying indigenous and traditional cultures and invites us to Ladhakh, a region in northern India that remains an agrarian society. Through conversations with local people and experts we realize that schooling reflects a specific value system that conflicts with definitions of wealth and knowledge in a traditional sustainable culture as youths flee to cities for the urban lifestyle, leaving families and ancient agricultural, cultural, and spiritual traditions. After seeing this film, a retired teacher who worked for 10 years as a
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consultant on education for the United Nations and other organizations in different countries had a profound reflection on the impact of seeing this film:
[Schooling the World] really resonated with me because I have been asking those same questions: What am I doing here? Why am I promoting the kind of education that makes so much sense to me from my paradigm but makes no sense to this small country I was living in in the South Pacific? … Why do we teach the same things at the same times throughout a child’s experience no matter if you were in Somalia, Vanuatu, Canada or Europe? … they don’t necessarily have a better life because they have a grade 6 or grade 12. In fact, a lot of times they have a worse life than their parents because they are so different by both cultures: they can’t make it within a modern culture and they have no place within the traditional culture … because the education or schooling system does not relate to their own situation or their culture or anything else. I find it distressing…The word education … is a drawing out, or the process of the children being able to grow into themselves as they understand the world and themselves. Schooling is a process of framing or developing a child within a certain structure … becoming a certain kind of a person with certain expectations, that’s the difference. I school horses, teach them how to move to my leg, when to canter, when to stop … that’s schooling. Education has a component of freedom of choice in it and unfortunately we don’t see a whole lot of that. … What is interesting is, why did I stay in that field when I really don’t believe in it?’ [laughter]
Schooling the World ignited an insightful reflection that revealed contradictions between her beliefs and the values embedded in a system in which she worked for most of her life, but of which she was critical. What is remarkable is that a documentary could provoke such critical reflection in an experienced educational consultant who names some contradictions and ultimately questioned her own practice. Yet her comment “for some reason, I think I can change it from the inside” held some unresolved tension: why she held such a belief while claiming there has been so little change in education in 50 years? Would discussions with other educators have helped her identify the systemic causes of resistance to change in education? Still, it is noteworthy that watching a one hour long film opened deep questions about her lifelong role in the education system.
INSPIRING HOPE, ENGAGEMENT, AND COLLECTIVE DREAMS
Some of the most popular documentaries highlight social transformation through courage and collective struggles and also through creativity and the arts. The current enormous challenges we face call for a sense of togetherness with others, faith that meaningful change is possible, and dreams not only illusions. Bringing people together is one important aspect of the film festival and sharing inspiring stories of collective achievements highlights the importance of that sense of community.
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Engaging Music: Social Development, Healing, and Activism
Social development. The documentary Tocar Y Luchar (To Play and To Fight) (Arvelo, 2006) revealed the wonderful program of youth development through orchestral music in Venezuela where nearly 250,000 members play classical music with one of the Youth and Children’s Orchestras. Initially a modest program to provide rural youth with music education as a means of personal and social development, it has become a remarkable way of teaching and playing music now recognized internationally. Musical harmony is a means of educating for collaboration and building a community spirit. The film weaves impressive performances with interviews of Placido Domingo and other luminaries who explain the impact of this unusual approach. The program has expanded to include youth with disabilities, even hearing impaired youth wear white gloves and interpret the music they feel. After screenings of this film people did not rush out of their seats as is usually the case, but lingered, talking to those sitting nearby and then getting up and talking to others seated further. In Peterborough it took an unusual 30 minutes for the audience to leave the theatre. Upon reflection it seems that we all witnessed such a meaningful example of community and social purpose, as well as reaching out for excellence and joy, so the audience wanted to soak up the energy a bit longer. Many attendees expressed their desire for something like that in their community. This is also an example of reversing expectations: a country from the south providing the inspiration, creativity, and offering a solution rather than the so-called developed countries. In fact, a result of these documentary film festivals is to challenge the prevalent beliefs that North Americans and Europeans have the solutions: many of the stories, while acknowledging the social and political challenges faced by many, make it clear that when we take the time to look and listen we can find an abundance of inspiring stories of resilience, creativity and courage from so-called developing countries despite what are at times immense problems.
Healing. Another film also featured the power of music, this time in the midst of war. After War/Dance (Fine & Nix Fine, 2007) a viewer referred to learning about the “shocking, brutal, unfiltered truth” about Uganda’s two decades war with the Lord’s Resistance Army (L. R. A.), which employed the chilling process of filling its ranks by the abduction of boys as soldiers and girls as sexual slaves. Yet the film was unexpectedly heartening. A few teachers in a refugee camp passionately and courageously taught their traditional Acholi songs, dances and music to orphans who had suffered tremendous trauma. To the healing rhythms of their ancestors, young orphans found a measure of healing and purpose. It is inspiring how courage and joy are found in the midst of such dire circumstances. As a viewer put it, “What wonderful good to come out of such a tragedy … for such a sad story the film was still so uplifting. Loved it!” Another viewer suggested that “music can affect lives in a positive way, to overcome hardships … and hope is brought about by music even in a war zone – amazing!” Another person commented, “I didn’t realize that
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northern Uganda was in such pain. I am very glad that I was able to see this film” while someone else was curious about these youth in future years:
An uplifting film. Rays of hope in the midst of great trauma. The most helpless and innocent … of Uganda suffered the most and bore the brunt of an insane terrorism. Out of the evil the filmmakers drew a picture of children able to overcome some of that and to face the camera and relate their terrible experiences. The crew should use their creative approach again in another five, ten years, when these children are all adults – such strength of character after/ during difficult times.
Some teachers indicated that they would start bringing more music in their classrooms, others planned on including films about the power of music and dance in their university courses. To Play and To Fight and War Dance are stories of courage and determination, of the power of music, and of creative and ambitious programs offering possibilities of healing and dreams of better futures.
Activism. Some films focused on the transformative power of music on a political level. While we easily appreciate the power of music at the individual level and even community level, we often underestimate it and rarely appreciate its power as a political tool. Soundtrack for a Revolution (Guttentag & Sturman, 2009) weaves interviews about the American Civil Rights movement with historical footage and with the powerful music and freedom songs on picket lines, in paddy wagons, and in jail cells. Singing was a critical aspect of the civil rights struggle as a way to inform people as well as to keep their spirit strong when they faced the brutality they often encountered while engaging in non-violent civil disobedience actions. Another film about a more recent victorious struggle using music was The Singing Revolution: A Single Nation, a Million Voices, the Fall of an Empire (Tusty & Tusky, 2008). This documentary tells the story of Estonians’ use of choral music to successfully defeat the tanks of the mighty Soviet state occupying their streets. Estonia was first under Nazi control in1939 and then under Soviet power which led to more than 25% of the population being imprisoned, in exile, or executed by the Soviet regime. Estonia’s long history of collective singing provided a common cultural root for the popular resistance movement. Estonians got a sense of new possibilities for themselves. To witness their victory using collective organizing and singing to keep their spirit engaged and defiant was very inspiring, and a surprisingly unknown story of victory.
Attendees spoke of the importance of the film festival in general as it brought “a collection of films about activism and social awareness…[and] brings us together around the possibilities of change … of what we can do as participants … and seeing what role we can play in making some changes for our future.” In testimony to building a sense of community, a woman reported that after a film she turned to a complete stranger near her because she “had to” communicate with someone about what she had just seen. In Courtenay, an attendee stated that the film festival “really fed and nurtured that activism over the years” as it offered a venue “for the activists
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themselves to get together and get a bit of reassurance that they are not alone.” According to another, it was especially important
because the corporations are coming at us hard and fast … and they have changed the world in a lot of ways that have not been good for ordinary people. I think we have to be on our toes, getting educated about what the issues are and how we can usefully respond. So I came to the film festival this year immediately following four weeks of labour education … with 220 other labour activists. … And you could say that was preaching to the converted too but I came away feeling very strong … a reminder that I was a part of something bigger and I have the same experience at the film festival, it reminds me that I’m part of something much bigger and that keeps me going … It is so easy to burn out… because it can be very discouraging.
The film festival also provided an opportunity to network and fostered connections that were not made automatically between groups focused on different issues: you get a “traditional pocket of social justice groups… and the pocket of environmental groups… and they just don’t see the connections” but “because the films were addressing a broad mix of issues … we have a common cause.” The hope generated by stories of struggle, resilience, and victory results in inspiration to engage with others:
A lot of times these things seem hopeless, the forces are so big [and] lined up, you know, big corporations, lots of money… And yet, you have a choice, you run away and hide …I felt like just going off and looking after myself or my family. Then you realize, we have to stand here in the pain of all this confusion and not knowing if we are making a difference at all, and be real, and do the best that we can, and sometimes that works. It often transforms you in doing it and that’s how you transform the world.
Some attendees even stated their determination to take action as a result of attending the film festival:
I am going to take on what I feel strongly about and that’s what this film did for me. It helped motivate me to take on issues that I have always sat on the sidelines and thought, ‘oh that’s interesting, I’m glad somebody is taking that on.’ Now I feel that I’m going to get involved and start to be a participant in some of those things, those changes that I would like to see.
CLOSING REFLECTIONS
Voices previously ignored were heard and stories of victory provided hope for people facing their own challenges. Music and singing provided a sense of collective identity, the reassurance that individuals were not alone, and an empowering collective presence. Films and film festivals offered bridges across differences and
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created a collective setting, revealing that others had similar interests. Given that people had seen some of the same films, film festivals offered what an attendee called conversation starters, which broke a sense of isolation and helped to build a sense of community. The documentary film festivals included in this chapter provided stories of transformation that resonated with shared pain and common hope, offered new perspectives, fostered critical reflection, allowed people to consider new dreams and help create visions of our common future, supported activists, and fostered engagement. The confidence building process was facilitated by the solidarity from 8 year old Hannah, Jimmy’s filmmaker friend, Cuban doctors, or teachers in a Ugandan refugee camp who extended themselves for the sake of traumatized youth and watched these youths unexpectedly win at a national dance competition. The message is that injustice and suffering are common, but so are generosity, creativity, and courage. Change is possible. And it starts with listening, empathy, imagination, a desire to connect with others, and taking a risk.
REFERENCES
Arvelo, A. (Director). (2006). Tocar y luchar [To play & to fight]. [DVD]. Venezuala: Cinema Sur & Explorart Films.
Black, C. (Director). (2010). Schooling the world: The white man’s last burden [DVD]. USA/India: Lost People Films.
Ehrenreich, B. (2006). Dancing in the streets: A history of collective joy. New York, NY: Metropolitan Books.
English, L. M., & Mayo, P. (2012). Learning with adults: A critical pedagogical introduction. The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
Field, C. (Producer & Director). (2006). ¡Salud! Cuba and the quest for health [DVD]. USA: Medical Education Cooperation with Cuba (MEDICC).
Fine, S., & Nix Fine, A. (2007). War dance [DVD]. USA: Egami. Freire, P. (2004). Pedagogy of indignation. Ann Arbor, MI: Paradigm. Gorman, R. (2007). The feminist standpoint and the trouble with “informal learning”: A way forward
for Marxist-feminist educational research. In T. Green, G. Rikowski, & H. Raduntz (Eds.), Renewing dialogues in Marxism and education: Openings (pp. 183–189). Houndmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Guttentag, B., & Sturman, D. (2009). Soundtrack for a revolution. USA, France, & UK: Louverture Films, Freedom Song, Goldcrest Films, and Wild Bunch.
Peters, J. (Director). (2007). Hannah’s story [DVD]. Canada: National Film Board of Canada. Preskill, S., & Brookfield, S. (2009). Learning as a way of leading: Lessons from the struggle for social
justice. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Tusty, M., & Tusky, J. (Directors). (2008). The singing revolution: A single nation, a million voices, the
fall of an empire [DVD]. USA/Estonia: Mountain View Productions; Northern Lights; Allfilm. Yoshikawa, M. (Producer), & Hattendorf, L. (Director). (2006). The cats of Mirikitani [DVD]. USA:
Lucid Dreaming Productions.
Carole Roy St. Francis Xavier University Antigonish, Nova Scotia
S. Butterwick & C. Roy (Eds.), Working the Margins of Community-Based Adult Learning, 61–73. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
BEVERLY A. HOFFMAN
6. THROUGH THE LENS OF TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING
A Photovoice Pilot Project with Persons with Diverse Abilities in Belize
INTRODUCTION
Recent trends in adult learning theory indicate that awareness of the sociocultural contexts of the learner, the multidimensional aspects of learning beyond the cognitive, and the role power plays in the learning process are emerging lines of inquiry (Merriam, 2008; Petit, 2010) while transformative learning continues to be a popular trend in adult education (Cranton, 2006). In terms of multidimensional aspects of adult learning, persons with disabilities are rarely seen as learners capable of explaining their own sociocultural realities and critically exploring their own learning (Clark, 2006; Rocco, 2006). Clark suggests that adult educators seldom recognize the complex realities a person with disability faces and emphasizes disorienting experiences of disabled learners rather than focus on issues of power as they relate to learning.
As an American religious Sister of Charity of Nazareth trained in physical therapy (also called physiotherapy in other countries), I used Photovoice to explore the transformative learning of two adults living in Belize with diverse abilities. I was also hoping that the resulting photographs and knowledge could be used to reach policymakers (Wang & Burris, 1997). Belize is situated on the Caribbean coast of Central America. Belize City, the largest urban center, has approximately 65,000 people with diverse cultural groups including Mestizos, Creoles, Mayas, Garifuna, English and Spanish settlers, and English is the official language (UNICEF, 2011). In 2001 the Disability Services division of the Ministry of Human Development was closed (UNICEF, 2011). The gap in services has since been filled by non-governmental organizations and rehabilitation services are limited. The few disability studies in Belize emphasize the situation of children with disabilities (UNICEF, 2011). In June 2011 Belize ratified the United Nations International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNICEF, 2011). Belize Assembly for Persons with Diverse Abilities (BAPDA), the only Disabled Person’s Organization in Belize, began organizing in 2009 and was officially chartered in January, 2012.
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PHOTOVOICE
Photovoice (Wang & Burris, 1997) is a participatory research methodology that allows participants to critically reflect and discuss the photographs they take in naming their experiences. I was interested in the intersection between the disciplines of Adult Education, Disability Studies, and Community Development. I used the framework of critical disability theory (Rocco, 2005) as well as Mertens’ (2009) transformative learning framework while utilizing transformative learning (Mezirow, 2000) and Freire’s (2008) posing problem approach to encourage participants to identify the cultural and contextual realities and issues of power.
Eleven Photovoice sessions were facilitated over a 20 week period and each session was approximately two hours long. Two participants, a male and female, were randomly selected from 13 who expressed interest in the project. Both were members of the Disabled Person’s Organization (BAPDA). All names used here are pseudonyms. Vanessa, a 44 year old woman, used a wheelchair and lived with two children and employed a caregiver. Vanessa had acquired quadriplegia ten years prior. Michael, a 39 year old man, lived with his parents and siblings. He independently walked in the community and had right sided weakness and speech limitations from an aneurysm at age 14. Both participants had completed high school and some additional coursework. Neither participant was employed or had any prior camera experience. I entered into this research project as a non-Belizean, a health professional, and a non-disabled person embracing progressive, emancipatory, and humanistic philosophies. I have lived and worked in Belize for 13 years as a member of the Religious Congregation the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth and as a physical therapist. As a member of BAPDA, I had not held any elected offices and my relationship with members had been only in the area of advocacy.
I was aware that accessibility issues in using Photovoice methodology would need to be addressed to maximize participation so a stipend was provided to cover transportation costs and a wheelchair accessible venue was secured. Vanessa chose private transportation and Michael chose a taxi or to walk to attend the sessions. Both participants chose to use a small handheld tripod and a lanyard attached to the camera. A custom-made cloth holder was designed for the digital voice recorder to allow participants access to the dials and the ability to wear the recorder around their necks. The participants brainstormed issues important to them and decided upon three questions to answer by taking photographs: (1) How accessible is Belize to me? (2) Can I share my talents with you? and (3) What obstacles prevent my access to services? The project concluded with a photo exhibit which is described later in the chapter.
Initial feelings about using the cameras were different. Michael stated, “You just take the picture and it is very easy” but Vanessa was quite vocal about her challenges: “It was a challenge because seeing what you want to capture and capturing what you want to capture can prove quite difficult. I believe that with more practice, things will get better.” Both Michael and Vanessa were aware of the power involved in
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taking pictures as Michael commented that “Say ‘please may I take your picture’ and if they say ‘yes’, then yes; and if they ‘no’, then no.” Vanessa on the other hand stated that “When you take a picture you can’t take it back. The picture would be out there for your entire life time.” Throughout the project, Michael and Vanessa collected signed consent forms from people in the photographs. Over time, when discussing photographs, Michael and Vanessa moved from monologues about their pictures to shared dialogue.
CAPTURING THE AHA! MOMENTS
Several Aha! Moments were experienced by the participants during discussions of the photographs around the issues of accessibility, exclusion, identity, voice and services.
Accessibility
Both participants photographed the Supreme Court building (Figure 1). While Michael stated, “Access granted to the Supreme Court of Law” Vanessa disagreed: “None of our court buildings are accessible to persons with a disability … I remember them taking me up those stairs and it wasn’t a good feeling… and I could recall they almost dropped me.” On another photograph, of a high school this time, Michael said, “I once was a high school student there and access was granted to me.” But the situation with Vanessa was different: “My son went there and I had to make trips there to get report cards. Yes they were helpful, but in the wheelchair you had to be assisted.” Vanessa also showed a keen ability for critical thinking around accessibility, mobility and safety as it related to the increasing violence and young men who are involved in gangs in Belize City. She commented on the photograph
Figure 1. Supreme Court Building, Belize City. Photo by Michael
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that showed a popular monument of a hand holding a leaf, which symbolizes peace (Figure 2);
Figure 2. Monument symbolizing peace. Photo by Michael
A number of people have been left paralyzed as a result of the violence and are of the lower income bracket…It’s sad because it’s mostly guys and they end up giving up or they just shut themselves off from the rest of society. Very few people can be seen sitting outside or moving around after they have been injured in that manner. It’s a situation that needs keen attention.
Over time Michael shifted his thinking regarding accessibility issues. Michael initially did not realize that Vanessa and he shared different realities about accessibility. He assumed since he had access everyone else did. Michael began to recognize that Vanessa, because she was in a wheelchair, could not access any services unless ramps were in place. As Michael’s critical awareness changed he started to take photographs of ramps to bring the accessibility agenda to the public’s attention.
Exclusion
One issue that both Michael and Vanessa spoke of was the pain of exclusion that occurred immediately after their disability. Michael recalled,
When I was fourteen years old this thing called aneurysm happened. I was never sick, and wanted to be a lawyer or a doctor. But I lost my speech and use of the right side of my body. I had to drop out of the technical institute because I had more problems.
Vanessa voiced her experiences of exclusion from education at the tertiary level, employment, and recreational activities;
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Upon my return from rehabilitation abroad, the local university in Belize refunded me my money as the place was not accessible. There were classes that were upstairs… I started making visits to my former place of employment to see where they could accommodate me and to make the bathroom accessible. There were no elevators and so there was no assurance of me getting a place of employment in there anymore… We went out to the restaurants, but as per usual, no accessibility so we went back home. We went to the movies and there were stairs to get into the theatre.
Through dialogue and reflection both Michael and Vanessa were able to move beyond former restrictions in their lives. They initially explained their exclusion, often blaming others. However, later they noticed that people with the same diverse ability dealt with it differently. Vanessa expressed this observation:
Even though there might be two of us sharing the same disability, each of us deals with it on a different level. You notice that there are restrictions, some of them self-imposed, and others not. The ones you impose on yourself are harder to change.
Both Michael and Vanessa moved beyond former restrictions in their lives by becoming critically aware that restrictions that limited them were from others as well as self-imposed.
Identity
Mid-way through the Photovoice project, both participants expressed feelings of increased self-esteem and importance when using the camera: Vanessa stated, “When I have this camera around my neck, I feel important!” Michael remarked, “When you take a picture, it expands your thoughts!” Michael photographed several young people who were deaf, and decided to interact more with these individuals, thus embracing difference and broadening his relationships with this group. Vanessa challenged Michael to think of future employment when she stated,
I think that at the end of this Michael will be able to go to one of the media establishments and get a job taking pictures! He’s good with the camera. So that would be one of the restrictions that you take off yourself.
Michael appeared to be shifting his mindset about employment. Michael had the ability to sing complete songs even though he had difficulty speaking full sentences. I suggested that Michael sing about how he felt about this new identity and he readily agreed and sang a religiously themed song. Later, Michael continued to critically think about his own identity and contribution to society. He stated, “I am one in the world, trying to make the best of my situation in life. That’s my attribute; I sing and touch the hearts of the people.”
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Voice
Each participant found his/her voice in unique ways. Michael acknowledged his speech difficulties but as his confidence and trust in the group grew, he began to express himself by singing songs. Over the course of the research project Michael began to speak more readily and confidently and developed self-esteem. Vanessa spoke very softly during the initial Photovoice sessions and was more comfortable letting others speak. While she preferred not to talk to the media due to accessibility issues, she spoke confidently at the Photography exhibit and gave numerous interviews. There was a shift from using her voice alone to using her voice with others. Vanessa initially discussed her aversion to speaking with the media because of inaccessibility, and then acknowledged that she was afraid of being dropped when carried up the stairs and thus had restricted herself from this activity. As she moved towards critical consciousness, she spoke out and used her voice and saw her voice as necessary if she planned to bring accessibility issues to the forefront.
Services
Vanessa spoke often about the lack of accessibility of buildings for common services. As a wheelchair user, she struggled with the lack of independence she lived with daily due to accessibility issues. When viewing a photograph of a local police station (Figure 3) she expressed her frustration,
This makes me sad that the police station is not accessible to a person in a wheelchair… you can’t get in. When you try to exercise your independence in getting around and doing things for yourself, you find obstacles and they can really break your spirit.
Figure 3. Police station that is not wheelchair accessible. Photo by Vanessa
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Vanessa was aware however of the importance of attitudes that accompany the services she requested. She spoke about a photograph of a local supermarket (Figure 4); “There is allotted a parking space for somebody with diverse ability. The attitude of the personnel is that they’re friendly, they help you in whatever way you direct them.”
Figure 4. A local supermarket with accessible parking. Photo by Vanessa
THE PHOTOVOICE EXHIBITION LAUNCH
From carefully selected photographs the participants created an exhibition. They used a typical Belizean day to allow the viewers to empathize with persons with diverse abilities who have similar lives as the viewers. After trial and error, they agreed to seven stations for the exhibit with succinct titles and the 30 photographs they wanted to exhibit. The storyline they developed consisted of catchy phrases such as ‘Good Morning Belize’, ‘I need a ride!’, ‘Justice too!’, ‘Access granted?’, ‘Inclusive Education’, ‘Employment? Yes we can!’, and ‘All things considered; we like recreation too!’
The Photography Exhibit was entitled, “Picture This: Our Diverse Reality” and was held at the Institute of Mexico in Belize City in early February, 2012. The launch was covered by the media, in part because the Mexican Ambassador had invited the media to a breakfast so the media were already present for the launch, which included an introduction by the Mexican Ambassador in Belize. Vanessa and Michael spoke about their perspectives as the artists.
About 60 visitors and journalists were present to enjoy the exhibit, to dialogue with the artists, to sign the comment book and to check out the educational materials on display. Many wanted to discuss the photographs with the artists and with one another. Approximately 140 elementary and high school students viewed the exhibit in the following week.
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Figure 5. Picture This: Our Diverse Reality Photography Exhibit launch. Photo by Beverly A. Hoffman
Figure 6. Photograph and caption from the Photography Exhibit launch. Photo by Vanessa
In the comment book, viewers of the exhibit wrote of their own transformation; “Very enlightening! An eye-opener!” and a suggestion that “This should be at all the schools in Belize.” Other comments complimented the artists: “Great job – the pictures said it all. I will definitely see things differently now!” Vanessa and Michael received copies of the comments, the cameras, copies of all the photographs they each took during the project, and a certificate of appreciation upon completion of the project.
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TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING
Michael’s most significant change (Davies & Dart, 2005) was his ability to communicate through song and his right to be heard. Michael named communication as the primary skill that he learned as well as how to use the camera. Vanessa’s most significant change was the importance of joining her voice with others to speak about accessibility issues. Vanessa learned how to use the voice recorder and camera and how to use her abilities to reach others.
Critical reflection, personal events, storytelling, and context are factors that play a role in transformative learning (English & Peters, 2012). The findings in this Photovoice project support English and Peter’s assertion. Many components of Mezirow’s transformative learning theory were present and disorienting dilemmas occurred as the participants shared about the photographs and the personal events in their lives (Mezirow, 1978). Perspective transformation (Mezirow, 1994) occurred as Michael changed his assumptions on accessibility and ramps, and Vanessa changed her assumptions of her ability to speak to the media and of policymakers interested in persons with diverse abilities. Both Michael and Vanessa changed their viewpoints concerning the restrictions in their lives; they expanded their sense of possibility.
Several modes of power relations occurred during this research project. Michael and Vanessa were responsive to both the power within themselves as well as power with others. Power within emphasized the participants’ capacity to act and was highlighted when each participant found their voice and became more assertive in making decisions. Power within also arose around feelings of self-esteem and dignity that were felt and voiced when the participants were out taking photographs. Collective power was present as the participants made decisions together and developed their story line for the photography exhibit. Power with others was demonstrated when both participants shared their experiences with each other and with the exhibit visitors.
Empowerment is defined as the capacity to make individual choices and to use those choices for desired actions and outcomes (Alsop, Bertelsen, & Holland, 2006). Individual empowerment of the participants were similar to those reported in the Photovoice literature: getting out into the community, being heard and validated, finding a voice, seeing the bigger picture, and experiencing personal growth (Dahan et al., 2007). Initially Michael and Vanessa did everything I asked. Later there was a shift from passive cooperation to active decision making. The shift from “I” to “us” to “WE” was incremental over the course of the project. Initially, Michael and Vanessa spoke about their own pictures. Later they began to speak about the collective meaning that the pictures had for both of them. As they discussed and selected the photographs for the exhibit they decided on a story line that defined themselves as included individuals in society. This was a subtle shift from an “us” and “them” mentality to a sense of belonging and being included in society.
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Emancipation is defined as a collective activity that promotes positive social change and political transformation while trying to change unjust systems (Inglis, 1997; Kitchin, 2002). Freire (2008) embraces a two phase process of pedagogy; critical consciousness and critical praxis that leads to liberation. Critical consciousness is a process in which the oppressed groups of individuals realize their social, political, and economic oppressive realities (Freire, 2008). Michael’s critical consciousness occurred regarding ramps and accessibility. Vanessa’s critical consciousness occurred around sharing her voice with others. Both Michael and Vanessa became critically aware that restrictions in their lives are from others and are also self-imposed.
REFLECTIONS
Benefits of arts based research practices such as Photovoice include the ability to grab people’s attention, be evocative, and link to the immediacy of the topic (Leavy, 2009). However Barndt (2001) highlights several areas of tension that may be present when using photographs in the analysis and representation of research data. These tensions provide unique ethical challenges. The content of the photograph may be used to represent a personal or a political statement based on the photographer’s intention. The form of the photograph may be valued for either its artistic or technical quality. The tension of process over product may be raised as well as whether the photographer’s role is that of an artist or an animator. The issue of whether the production of the photograph is an individual or collective endeavour may also occur. In regards to the use of the photographs, opinions may differ on whether they should be for private or public use or for educational purposes or for organizing social movements. Last of all, context may play a role especially when photographs may have different meanings for the photographer and for the person viewing and interpreting the photograph (Barndt). Michael and Vanessa discussed many of these challenges during the project. Another ethical issue that surfaced regarding the photographs was who owned them when the project was completed. Through discussion, the participants decided to donate the staged photographs in the exhibit to BAPDA while retaining personal ownership of the original digital photographs they each took during the project.
Participation of marginalized persons without change in power relations can reinforce the status quo of oppression (Gaventa & Cornwall, 2008). The assumptions, attitudes, and practices of both adult educators and persons with diverse abilities may in fact unconsciously promote asymmetrical power relations. It is often assumed that the collective experience of all people with diverse abilities is one of solidarity (Clark, 2006), but people with diverse abilities are not all the same. Their experiences are shaped by impairment, gender, religion, rights, and values (Grech, 2009). The tendency of placing people in a group, assuming they are all alike, and giving them collective characteristics is known as identity politics (Gaventa & Cornwall). When individuals from marginalized populations have experiences of oppression,
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a phenomenon called alienation may occur. Alienation exists when oppression is internalized and the marginalized individual feels powerless to change his/her condition (Rocco, 2006; Rocco & Fornes, 2010). The experience of “group think,” when marginalized learners echo the voice of the more powerful adult educator as a result of their own internalization of the adult educator’s values is also a possibility (Gaventa & Cornwall).
Shared decision-making and renegotiation of power relations as a consequence of empowerment and emancipation can be challenging for both the educator and learner who are called upon to make changes in relationships and assumptions (Prins & Drayton, 2010). Learners may need to learn how to exercise control, recognize low self-esteem from previous experiences, and embrace leadership opportunities. Educators may need to give up control, take extra time to promote participation and see dependency or lack of motivation as a valid response of the participants as they negotiate these power shifts (Freire, 2008; Prins & Drayton). My own transformative learning came when I realized I could be in solidarity with people with diverse abilities and we both have different roles to play to unite against oppression.
As my relationships deepened with the participants of this study, I found myself able to embrace differences and change my facilitation techniques to accommodate the speech and language abilities that Michael portrayed. Initially I struggled with the fact that Michael was not using a reflection journal, nor was he interested in using a voice recorder. I was challenged by my assumption that critical reflection could only occur with reflection journals. I learned to embrace difference and develop creativity in imagining alternatives. By embracing Michael’s unique abilities, which included his ability to sing entire songs, even though he had difficulty speaking in complete sentences, I provided space for Michael to express his thoughts and feelings about the photographs taken. By embracing and accepting Michael’s unique abilities, his thoughts, and his ideas were heard that otherwise would not have been accessible.
Hoggan et al. (2009) suggests that the use of the arts in creative expression, transformative learning, and multiple ways of knowing, work together to expand cognitive learning to include affective, spiritual, imaginative, and symbolic learning. This Photovoice project suggests that other ways of knowing such as the spiritual, the use of music, photographs, and relationships fostered transformative learning in the participants. In their environment, the participants frequently spoke of God and the spiritual. Music played a significant role in providing a medium for Michael to express himself in ways other than speech or reflection journals. Michael and Vanessa broadened their circles and enhanced their relationships with the people they took pictures of, their families, members of the Disabled Person’s Organization, and each other. While the literature indirectly emphasizes relationships as part of the discourse needed for transformative learning to occur, this study found that relationships were a major factor that facilitated transformative learning with the participants of this study.
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This was the first experience of Photovoice for persons with diverse abilities in Belize which provided a space for this population to participate in research and learn new skills. This study contributes to the literature as it links Photovoice methodology with transformative learning and contributes to the limited studies of Photovoice with adults with diverse abilities. The data on the sociocultural realities of persons with diverse abilities collected may assist with future awareness, development, and legislation in Belize. Future Photovoice studies that enable more persons with diverse abilities to participate, explore participation in rural communities, the relationship around violence, and how the role of relationships over time influence transformative learning may broaden the findings of this study.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I gratefully acknowledge the two participants in this Photovoice Pilot project whose involvement was enthusiastic and courageous. I also gratefully acknowledge my Religious Congregation, the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth for funding this study.
REFERENCES
Alsop, R., Bertelsen, M. F., & Holland, J. (2006). Empowerment in practice: From analysis to implementation (pp. 9–28). Washington, DC: The World Bank. Retrieved from
http://books.google.com/books Barndt, D. (2001). Naming, making and connecting- reclaiming lost arts: The pedagogical possibilities
of photo story production. In P. Campbell & B. Burnaby (Eds.), Participatory practices in adult education (pp. 31–54). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Clark, M. (2006). Adult education and disability studies, an interdisciplinary relationship: Research implications for adult education. Adult Education Quarterly, 56(4), 308–322. doi:10.1177/0741713606289661
Cranton, P. (2006). Understanding and promoting transformative learning: A guide for educators of adults (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Dahan, R., Dick, R., Moll, S., Salwach, E., Sherman, D., Vengris, J., … Lee, K. (2007). Photovoice Hamilton manual and resource kit. Hamilton, Ontario: Hamilton Community Foundation. Retrieved from http://photovoice.ca/manual.pdf
Davies, R., & Dart, J. (2005). The ‘most significant change’ (MSC) technique: A guide to its use. Retrieved August 19, 2010, from http://www.mande.co.uk/docs/MSCGuide.pdf
English, L. M., & Peters, N. (2012). Transformative learning in nonprofit organizations: A feminist interpretive inquiry. Adult Education Quarterly, 62, 103–119.
Freire, P. (2008). Pedagogy of the oppressed (30th ed.). New York, NY: Continuum. Gaventa, J., & Cornwall, A. (2008). Power and knowledge. In P. Reason & H. Bradbury (Eds.), The sage
handbook of action research: Participative inquiry and practice (2nd ed., pp. 172–189). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Grech, S. (2009). Disability, poverty and development: Critical reflections on the majority world debate. Disability & Society, 24(6), 771–784. doi:10.1080/09687590903160266
Hoggan, C., Simpson, S., & Stuckey, H. (Eds.). (2009). Creative expression in transformative learning: Tools and techniques for educators of adults. Malabar, FL: Krieger.
Inglis, T. (1997). Empowerment and emancipation. Adult Education Quarterly, 48(1), 3–17. doi:10.1177/074171369704800102
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Kitchin, R. (2002). Towards emancipatory and empowering disability research: Reflections on three participatory action research projects. Retrieved October 12, 2009, from http://sonify.psych.gatech.edu/~walkerb/classes/assisttech/pdf/Kitchin(2002).pdf
Leavy, P. (2009). Method meets art: Arts-based research practice. New York, NY: Guilford Press. Merriam, S. B. (Ed.). (2008). Third update on adult learning theory. In Adult learning theory for the
twenty-first century (pp. 93–98). (New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, No. 119.) San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Mertens. D. M. (2009). Transformative research and evaluation. New York, NY: Guilford Press. Mezirow, J. (1978). Education for perspective transformation: Women’s reentry programs in community
colleges. New York, NY: New York Center for Adult Education, Teachers College, Columbia University.
Mezirow, J. (1994). Understanding transformative theory. Adult Education Quarterly, 44, 222–235. Mezirow, J. (2000). Learning to think like an adult: Core concepts of transformation theory. In
J. Mezirow & Associates (Eds.), Learning as transformation (pp. 3–33). San Francisco, CA: Jossey- Bass.
Petit, J. (2010). Multiple faces of power and learning. IDS Bulletin, 41(3), 25–35. Prins, E., & Drayton, B. (2010). Adult education for the empowerment of individuals and communities.
In C. E. Kasworm, A. D. Rose, & J. M. Ross-Gordon (Eds.), Handbook of adult and continuing education (pp. 209–220). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Rocco, T. S. (2005). From disability studies to critical race theory: Working towards critical disability theory. Proceedings of the 46th Annual Adult Education Research Conference, Athens, GA. Retrieved from http://www.adulterc.org/Proceedings/2005/Proceedings/Rocco.PDF
Rocco, T. S. (2006). Disability as an issue of marginalization. In S. B. Merriam, B. C. Courtenay, & R. M. Cervero (Eds.), Global issues and adult education: Perspectives from Latin America, Southern Africa and the United States (pp. 169–181). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Rocco, T. S., & Fornes, S. L. (2010). Perspectives on disability in adult and continuing education. In C. E. Kasworm, A. D. Rose, & J. M. Ross-Gordon (Eds.), Handbook of adult and continuing education (pp. 379–388). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
UNICEF and Government of Belize. (2011). The situation analysis of children and women in Belize 2011: An ecological review. Retrieved from http://www.unicef.org/sitan/files/SitAn_Belize_July_2011.pdf
Wang, C. C., & Burris, M. A. (1997). Photovoice: Concept, methodology, and use for participatory needs assessment. Health, Education & Behaviour, 24(3), 369–387. doi:10.1177/109019819702400309
Beverly A. Hoffman Sister of Charity of Nazareth Belize City, Belize
S. Butterwick & C. Roy (Eds.), Working the Margins of Community-Based Adult Learning, 75–88. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
BRYAN BOWERS
7. MEETING ON THE RIVER OF LIFE
Fostering Loyalist and Mohawk Exchanges through the Arts
INTRODUCTION
Early in this century, conflict was brewing between indigenous people and settlers in different locations in the province of Ontario, Canada. While some of these conflicts resulted in violence, an initiative in Ontario’s Prince Edward County and a neighbouring indigenous community, the Bay of Quinte Mohawks, was exploring how to use art and artefacts to create conditions for listening. The art and artefacts, witnessed collectively, allowed community members to recognize and hear ‘the other’ in hopes of building collective engagements for social change by opening up spaces for dialogue across differences. The group decided to organize an exhibition to animate a cultural exchange using art, historical artefacts, and literature to inform and engage cultural differences, increase cross-cultural understanding, and resolve an underlying conflict. It was agreed to call it the Meeting on the River of Life as it embodied the original treaty of North America, the Two Row Wampum treaty belt (indigenous expression) and the Silver Covenant Chain (settler expression), between settlers and indigenous Haudenosaunee people, known then as the Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, which included people of the Onondaga, Cayuga, Oneida, Seneca and Mohawk Nations. The reasons for rooting the Meeting on the River of Life in these two important treaty artefacts will be explained later. Today, the Iroquois Confederacy is known as the Six Nations after the inclusion of the Tuscarora Nation in 1722.
As Chair of the Meeting on the River of Life, I will be discussing how the exhibition was created, how it brought Loyalists (settlers) and the Mohawk (indigenous) people of the Bay of Quinte reserve together in two separate locations, one on reserve and one off reserve in Picton, Ontario, as well as my observations of the outcomes. I participated in this exhibition as a community member who had a stake in its outcome. As an advocate for restorative justice and community policing I viewed this exhibition as a test of the practices of restorative justice and the philosophy of community policing. Professionally, I was working as a Municipal police officer at the time of the exhibition having also been a former member of the Ontario Provincial Police. Personally, having lived and worked in-between indigenous and settler world-views all my life has caused me no end of angst as settlers, who live and work
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solely in their epistemology, often react with hostile indifference to indigenous ways of knowing. I want to thank all those who gave permission to let their names stand in solidarity alongside mine as I tell my story. They know my passion is embodied in my art collection, Indigenous Spirit Matters, which has been a work in progress for several decades and captures traditional teachings of indigenous ways of knowing, several of which were used in the exhibition.
BACKGROUND
Dying for Change – Telling a Story
The end of the 20th century went out with a literal bang in the province of Ontario regarding settler and indigenous relations. In 1995, an unarmed indigenous protestor, Dudley George, was shot and killed by a member of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) during a protracted land claim dispute involving Ipperwash Provincial Park, lands that were appropriated in 1942 under the War Measures Act and were never returned to the Kettle and Stoney Point Indigenous bands as promised.
Figure 1. Ipperwash location. Courtesy thecanadasite.com
The OPP’s armed response to the land claim conflict set off a flurry of condemnation and led to a lengthy public inquiry. The revelations of the Ipperwash Inquiry, headed by the Honourable Sidney B. Linden, were nothing short of shocking. The public came to learn that Ontario’s former Attorney General of the time “testified that he heard Premier Harris say ‘I want the fucking Indians out of the park’” (Report of the Ipperwash Inquiry, 2007, volume 1, p. 677), words the Premier denied saying. However, in his conclusion, Ipperwash Inquiry Commissioner Linden commented on this and other similar statements, writing “I have found that the statements were made and that they were racist, whether intended or not” (p. 677). A local politician, the Mayor of the town of Bosanquet, “exacerbated rather than allayed the concerns
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of Ipperwash residents” by penning a newspaper article entitled “Reign of terror continues,” (p. 222) which only served to widen the indigenous-settler divide. The Ipperwash Inquiry took three years to complete and led to a series of recommendations, which unfortunately came at a high cost, the death of an indigenous protestor and a lot of unnecessary expense for all Ontarians.
The Six-Mile Divide – Telling Truths
The start of the 21st century ushered in another long-standing indigenous-settler land claim dispute in Ontario, which was rapidly becoming combustible in the wake of the Ipperwash Inquiry’s revelations. In 2006 the OPP were called to a land claim dispute that had ignited in the town of Caledonia, Ontario, which again pitted settler town residents against indigenous community members of the neighbouring Six Nations, the only reserve in North America where all members of the Iroquois Confederacy live together. Once again settler community members resorted to calling indigenous community members terrorists. The OPP again found themselves positioned between two cultures and two worldviews, only this time they were mindful of the pending Ipperwash Inquiry recommendations and decided to take a
Figure 2. Haldimand proclamation lands. Courtesy sixnations.ca
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non-confrontational stance in hopes of avoiding another armed confrontation like Ipperwash. Instead, they opted to be peacekeepers and took a position standing between indigenous people and settlers, who were enraged by fear and who taunted their indigenous neighbours for setting up a barricade to stop a housing development being built on disputed lands.
The Six Nations indigenous community has historically claimed the land six miles on either side of the Grand River, from its source in central western Ontario to Lake Erie, as was granted to them in the Haldimand proclamation of 1784. Many settler communities have since built their communities on those disputed lands and only saw this land claim as a battle over a 100-acre housing development whereas the indigenous community saw it as a battle over their treaty rights thus they felt forced to take a stand. Now the settler vs. indigenous community question was not just a divide but a six-mile wide chasm. The OPP, for their part, found themselves in a very precarious position as they were being criticized by both sides for their inaction while trying to keep the peace albeit by using a very traditional response i.e. an armed presence. Given the backdrop of the Ipperwash conflict and inquiry, the OPP had learned that forceful intervention would not end well and would be costly. Apart from having to purchase the disputed lands in 2006 for over $1 million, the Province of Ontario also settled a class action lawsuit for $20 million filed by 440 Caledonia residents and 400 businesses in 2011.
Another Conflict, a New Approach: Organizing for Change
In 2007 the OPP were embroiled in yet another land claim dispute, only this time in Eastern Ontario, involving the indigenous Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte in Tyendinaga and their neighbouring settler community, Deseronto.
Figure 3. Deseronto location. Courtesy cbc.ca
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This time the land claim, which was initiated in 1995, involved 932-acres known as the Culbertson Land Tract. When indigenous Tyendinaga community members saw no resolution in sight in 2008, they occupied the disputed lands in an attempt to resolve their land claim just when Upper Empire Loyalists were going to celebrate the 225th anniversary of their settling in Prince Edward County. The violence escalated to the point where Canada’s National (CN) rail line, which runs through Tyendinaga, was shut down. Violent confrontations were often the order of the day. In the wake of these tensions, an OPP Aboriginal liaison officer approached me for advice on how best to quell the situation in a non-confrontational manner. Together we formed a committee to explore possibilities on how to creatively address this explosive situation. The committee came up with the idea to host a Meeting on the River of Life rooted in the indigenous expression of the Two Row Wampum treaty belt and the settler expression of that treaty, known as the Silver Covenant Chain.
Fearing yet another protracted conflict, the OPP had tasked their Aboriginal liaison officers to think anew. To their credit, members of the OPP’s Aboriginal liaison teams decided that if they wanted to move an event from a negative experience to a positive experience they would have to put more energy into positive activities than negative ones. But that was much easier said than done as police officers are mostly seen in negative contexts. Their underlying concern was that if the police were to do something positive, would the “other side” see it as false and self-serving instead of genuine? Having just returned from a course in adult education at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia I had learned how powerful the processes of various art forms are for adult learning and community building and how the arts can communicate both individual and collective perspectives by providing engaging ways for necessary exchanges in multicultural and pluralistic societies. Indeed, I had come to learn that the arts can contribute not only to building community specifically but also to a more just society overall. Thus I was ideally positioned to use my newfound knowledge in a creative way.
My Part: Marrying Various Art Forms in Ways That Support Marginalized Individuals and Groups
As a former member of the OPP and also their Tactics and Rescue Unit (TRU), I had watched the aforementioned disputes unfold with alarm. I knew of the officer who shot the protester and I had worked with one of the OPP’s Ipperwash command staff when the OPP had attempted to adopt and institutionalize the philosophy of community policing. For my part, I did not see a good outcome emerging from the Tyendinaga land claim dispute as the acrimony between the Commissioner of the OPP and the lead indigenous protestor was toxic at best; this was playing out in the media on a near-daily basis. Adding to my concern was learning that the Upper Canada Empire Loyalist settlers were planning on celebrating the 225th anniversary of their settlement in Eastern Ontario that same year, 2009. As a long-standing
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proponent of restorative justice practices, processes focused on the rehabilitation of offenders and reconciliation with victims and the larger community, I was also trying to think anew by asking myself how traditional indigenous teachings and ways of knowing might help deescalate this volatile situation.
I found myself in a very unique position, being a board member of both, Tyendinaga’s First Nations Technical Institute (indigenous/FNTI) and the Picton (settler/Upper Canada Loyalist) Archives and Collections Society, now known as The Naval Marine Archive – The Canadian Collection. Thus, from my vantage point, I could see that their respective worldviews were definitely set on yet another collision course. Imagine how pleased I was to come across OPP Aboriginal Liaison officer Sgt. Steve Flynn. In the midst of all the turmoil and rumours, here was a friend who seemed to exude positive and creative energy, which are necessary ingredients of effective and restorative conflict resolution. I had known Steve for a number of years while serving with a neighbouring Municipal police force as he had sought my counsel during the aforementioned conflicts. Given my interest in restorative policing practices he often referred to me, with affection, as “the wild card.” I liked that name as I had grown up being called nicknames like “Chief,” and the “FBI,” which is an acronym for “F___king Big Indian” and last but not least, “Wagon Burner.” Thankfully my assignment to court services by the Municipal police force, for having an indigenous ideological approach to my policing practice, afforded me time to support Sgt. Flynn as he endeavoured to resolve the conflict creatively. I knew Sgt. Flynn to be the embodiment of intent, integrity, and impeccability. Our friendship became strong enough that we could appreciate and verbalize a “put your money where your mouth is” position on our planning table. And if we did not, then our idea of moving positive energy forward was false. We made it a condition of our collaboration and friendship that if Sgt. Flynn ever did something to offend me that he had to invite and buy me lunch on “the Crown,” and that did occur at least once. Without knowing it, Sgt. Flynn and I had already started to symbolically polish the Silver Covenant Chain, an artefact that symbolizes peace, respect, and friendship.
MEETING ON THE RIVER OF LIFE EXHIBITION
Historical Treaty Artefacts: Two Row Wampum Treaty Belt and Silver Covenant Chain
As a recent graduate of the FNTI’s Indigenous Community Health Approaches Program (ICHAP) I had come to learn of the Two Row Wampum treaty belt, which was the Indigenous Haudenosaunne expression for how the settler and indigenous cultures were to conduct themselves post contact.
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Figure 4. The Two Row Wampum treaty belt. Courtesy: onondaganation.org
The belt is comprised of two purple rows and three white rows. The purple rows signify two distinct rivers running side by side, one river for settler people to sail their ships and the other river for the indigenous people to paddle their canoes, neither interfering with the other. The three white rows signified a covenant to live side-by-side in peace, respect, and friendship.
Early settlers also made their own expressions of the Two Row Wampum treaty belt and called it the Silver Covenant Chain. In 1608 the Dutch were the first to express it by using two pieces of rope made from the bark of a tree or its roots. In 1632, the English reaffirmed this expression by using 3 links of a ship’s iron anchor chain until the 1680s when the British coated those three links of the covenant chain with silver, so they could be polished from time to time to reassert peaceful relations, resolve disputes, and renew peace, respect and friendship between all of North America’s (Turtle Islands) forefathers, including the Haudenosaunee, Dutch, British, and the French.
The British even took it one step further and figuratively tied their Silver Covenant Chain to the Iroquois Confederacies’ Tree of Peace. Today there is a Haudenosaunee teaching that says, “should anyone follow the Tree of Peace’s white roots to their source, they are welcome to sit with them in its shade. For it is their law of the land.” Thus historically the Silver Covenant Chain served to establish dialogue between indigenous and settler peoples. Indeed, it became the root of their negotiations. Its brilliance was not only in its simplicity but also in its inherently collaborative nature. People had to become personal with “the other” by putting their hand on the chain to polish it, while sitting across from “the other.” The question for Sgt. Flynn and I then became how to resurrect the Silver Covenant Chain as a tool to resolve this dispute peacefully. After all, should we not be looking back to the lessons of history when the Silver Covenant Chain was used to break the isolation of each side? If history had anything to teach us it was about the importance of good relationships, so why would we not try to resurrect it?
The OPP: Providing Engaging Ways for Necessary Exchanges
The OPP were quickly discovering that they needed to develop a new plan. They seemed keen to implement the recommendations from the Ipperwash Inquiry
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and were leading the way for other police agencies by being open to the idea that some conflict and unrest could indeed be mitigated if approached creatively. Their Aboriginal liaison officer’s concerns were that their collective corporate memory would likely forget their progress after things settled down; great tactically but not so good strategically. To their credit, they realized they were dealing with an indigenous culture with huge respect for symbolisms that recall stories of historical treaties with the Crown as though they happened yesterday and which considers seven generations as a standard of time. The OPP’s challenge became how to engage this culture in a strategic project and a partnership. Helping to resurrect the Silver Covenant Chain seemed to meet those strategic and symbolic goals.
Sgt. Flynn’s challenge was to convince the Chief Superintendent of the OPP’s East Region that he should finance half of the cost of resurrecting the Silver Covenant Chain. Sgt. Flynn subsequently wrote the business case as though he was writing an application to obtain a search warrant by listing all the facts supporting the proposal and what was to be gained. Ultimately he received approval and the OPP’s financial commitment; thus the OPP became a silent partner in the reproduction and resurrection of the Silver Covenant Chain. At the time there were very few people within Tyendinaga that would have ever considered the police to be a partner in such a project. Sgt. Flynn knew it had to be a delicate silent partnership otherwise the naysayers would discredit any input from the police and the upcoming Meeting on the River of Life would suffer. Sgt. Flynn was subsequently included in all our planning meetings where he reported meeting wonderful people, all with the same vision. It was in those meetings that Sgt. Flynn learned that the relationship between the indigenous Haudenosaunee and Loyalist settlers was still good, that there were some difficulties, the same as there had always been, but, more importantly, it renewed his faith that once again mutual peace, respect and friendship could be realized. Our planning meetings for the Meeting on the River of Life exhibition were in themselves symbolic exercises in polishing the Silver Covenant Chain and an opportunity for socializing to renew friendships. Sgt. Flynn was convinced very early on that it was worthwhile for the police to be a partner.
Planning and Holding the Exhibition
Others who joined the planning group included Rick Hill, a professor at the First Nations Technical Institute (FNTI) who initially posited the idea of the inherent spiritual power contained within wampum-recorded treaties. Indeed, the creators of these wampum belts were said to have actually breathed their life’s breath into them before tying them off. The next key player was James Heffernan who was the chair of FNTI. James had been collecting local artefacts for decades in an effort to make his children proud of their heritage. When I initially saw his collection I felt it needed a public space. Others who helped us achieve our objective were Dr. Paul
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Adamthwaite and Betty Ann Anderson of the Picton Archives and Collections Society. When they saw James’ collection they immediately called upon the services of Ken Swaze, an archaeologist with the Museum of Civilization in Ottawa for assistance. Last but not least was Janice Brant, a Mohawk cultural carrier and a purveyor of rigorous First Nations literature and research as well as a graduate of the St. Francis Xavier University’s Master of Adult Education program. Our plan called for getting the neighbouring indigenous Mohawks and the settler descendants of the Upper Empire Loyalists together by hosting an exhibition that would feature Heffernan’s collection of local artefacts, Brant’s collection of relevant Indigenous literature, and my Indigenous Spirit Matters art collection. The OPP dearly wanted the resurrected Silver Covenant Chain to be part of the art exhibit alongside the artefacts, arrow points, and pottery.
At our initial meeting I was appointed chair of the committee. We immediately began working with the Museum of Civilization to carbon date Heffernan’s artefacts, all of which were from Prince Edward County specifically: some items dated back almost 12,000 years! After six months of planning and hard work the exhibition was ready for its first visitors. One of the key attractions, aside from the artefacts, was the replica of the Silver Covenant Chain, which came from a seventeenth century ship on Lake Ontario, which the OPP had re-coated with real silver. The exhibition was first featured on reserve in Tyendinaga, Mohawk Territory from 22–29 May, 2009 before it was moved off reserve to the town of Picton, Ontario for a month long engagement from 6 June to 6 July, 2009. Over 1,000 people viewed it in Tyendinaga and over 7,000 people viewed it in Picton. When the exhibition opened, the dialogue began, neighbour-to-neighbour, community-to-community. The varied nature of the
Figure 5. L-R, Betty-Ann Anderson (Naval Marine Archive (NMA), the Canadian Collection); Picton Mayor Leo Finnegan; Bay of Quinte Chief R. Donald Maracle; and
NMA Executive Director, Dr. Paul Adamthwaite. Courtesy of the Picton Gazette, Rick Fralick, 9 July 2009
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displays created a built-in reflection mechanism. Activities included fundraising activities, cabinet making, and collaboration with the Museum of Civilization, not to mention media relations and many other related tasks.
Mohawk advisors and committee members ensured that indigenous ways of knowing were incorporated into this endeavour by being present and participating at every step in the planning processes. Some of the indigenous ways of knowing include ‘use only what you need and leave the land as you found it’ and ‘human beings only have one mother, mother earth; by damming Her veins we are only ensuring our mutual destruction’. Unity was the underlying theme of the exhibits that were tied to place and people. The exhibition honoured the primacy of direct experience by getting people to see how incredibly rich their collective and shared history really was. Respect and reciprocity, reflecting a relational worldview were evident when the Chief of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte and the Mayor of Picton greeted each other and posed for a picture with the Silver Covenant Chain in the background.
One of the Indigenous ways of knowing, the principle of responsibility, was evident in the exhibition and did indeed help all partners, including the OPP, achieve their stated objective of fostering dialogue and obtaining peace between the indigenous Mohawks and settler Loyalists. This exhibition was one of historical proportions because much of the art, artefacts, and literature were seen for the very first time. A slide show showed the span of time, the early implements, the travel and way of life of the people who lived in Prince Edward County since time immemorial. The attendance surpassed even our wildest expectations and there was almost a sense of awe in learning this history. For a number of years after the exhibition, members of the public would still come in and ask about the exhibition. The Silver Covenant Chain has taken a message of Peace, Respect, and Friendship to many venues. Sgt. Flynn found it heart wrenching when young children said, “I wish we had that at our school.” The Chain has an important influence.
Artworks in the Exhibition
Paintings by Onondaga artist Arnold Jacobs, Caledonia 2008, Comes the Peacemaker and Discussing the Environment were central pieces of the exhibition as they embody indigenous ways of knowing and being in the world.
Caledonia 2008 was created after visiting the front lines of the Caledonia protest and the artist recounts asking people why they were there and they all responded, “For Our Ancestors.” Everyone on the protest’s front line (foreground) have closed mouths, which is in stark contrast to all those in the Spirit world (background), whose mouths are open. Closed mouths are symbolic of the lack of dialogue between two worldviews, settler and indigenous, whereas the open mouths of their ancestors are symbolic of a time when everyone’s voice was both heard and valued.
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Figure 7. Queenstown Landing – Fall 1811 by Peter Rindlisbacher, Canadian Society of Marine Artists (CSMA)
The painting titled Queenstown Landing – Fall 1811 by Ontario artist, Peter Rindlisbacher, CSMA, depicts what the war of 1812 looked like from indigenous leader Tecumseh’s eyes. Here we see indigenous canoes working alongside settler
Figure 6. Caledonia 2008 by Arnold Jacobs
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ships, readying for the heated Battle of Queenstown Heights with the United States. Canada’s settlers and their indigenous allies prevailed and repelled the American invasion.
Figure 8. Comes the Peacemaker by Arnold Jacobs
This depicts the Peacemaker paddling a stone canoe from Tyendinaga, Ontario to Oshwego, New York bringing a message of peace and unity to the then warring 5 Nations in the 1200’s. The Peacemaker’s teachings were so powerful that they not only helped form an alliance that shaped North America post-contact, they are also embedded in the constitutions of the United States and the United Nations.
CONCLUSION
Unintended Outcomes
While Sgt. Flynn was working, he toured schools and other social groups and even visited a few Mohawk friends while using the Silver Covenant Chain to represent what a healthy relationship should consist of. The Silver Covenant Chain was on display for a period of time at the Moira Secondary School where Mohawk children from Tyendinaga go to school with Belleville settler children. Steve often referred to the Chain’s weight, as it is considerable, which exemplifies the weight of a friendship’s responsibility; indeed it is the symbolic weight of our collective history. He once spoke of a person, who was supposedly connected to Six Nations (Haudenosaunee), whom he referred to as “tobacco people,” who reportedly had an underworld cigarette sales connection and was trying to find some good in his dealings with police but was still very suspicious of police officers. Sgt. Flynn
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recounts making a few connections with him and that the person had hinted that he had heard that the OPP had had some input into the Silver Covenant Chain’s resurrection. While he had lots of doubts, it got him to thinking that maybe, just maybe, the police really did mean it when they said they were trying to keep the peace. The tobacco person Sgt. Flynn spoke of had a son that had been arrested by the OPP at one of the Tyendinaga protests, and he recounted that he was not pleased that his son had associated himself with the protest. Sgt. Flynn decided to bring the Silver Covenant Chain the next time they met and the tobacco person got quite a kick out of the police, of all people, actually putting their hands on it, not to mention that they had an understanding of its meaning and significance, which left Sgt. Flynn with a very nice feeling, wondering if he had shown too much pride in showing it off. In a way, it proved that the OPP’s involvement was real and that Sgt. Flynn had indeed spoken the truth. As Sgt. Flynn told me on 19 August 2015, “I’m thankful no one was killed. It sure came close.”
Personal Reflections
This exhibition was without a doubt the highlight of my policing practices, bolstering my spirit immensely. The Meeting on the River of Life committee worked collaboratively with the descendants of the settler Upper Empire Loyalists and their neighbouring indigenous Mohawks in a slow, methodical, and constructive way to ensure intercultural exchange and dialogue. The OPP had a problem that called for a unique approach. All needs were listened to: the OPP’s, the holder of the artefacts, the curatorial cultural carriers, and the management of the exhibition site in Picton. It was a diverse group that had its challenges but the principles of sound relationships, respect, safety, and listening were used. We achieved a balance between advocacy and inquiry by giving each party plenty of freedom and autonomy for how the exhibition was hosted in their respective communities. Due to being in a near fatal bicycle/transport accident just prior to the openings of the exhibitions, I was not able to attend the Tyendinaga exhibition and just made it to the Picton exhibition on its final day. As fate would have it, I was scheduled to be at a committee meeting on the same day of my accident. Reportedly, I was so concerned about missing it that I mentioned it to the attending physicians in the emergency ward. Obviously my practice was top of mind even when confronted with the most severe near death crisis of my life. When I did finally make it to the exhibit I heard about one response that really touched me. It was from a Tyendinaga elder who, while viewing the exhibition, remarked with tears in her eyes that she always knew how beautiful her culture was but when she saw, for the first time, how intricate the designs were on a 500 year old piece of pottery, it confirmed her long held belief.
My assumption in initiating the exhibition planning process was that if nothing proactive was done, violence would only escalate between the indigenous Mohawks and the settler Loyalists. There is no way of proving that these two exhibitions
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did indeed deescalate the violence between these two differing, yet neighbouring, cultures, but the fact remains that shortly after the exhibitions concluded, violence did indeed cease between them. Significant reflections include the generosity of the human spirit and the lack of it in institutional settings. People really do appreciate the primacy of direct experience as evidenced in the elder’s comments on seeing the piece of pottery and seeing people’s eyes light up when they hold a 5,000 year old axe head. The artefact that gets the most response is the Silver Covenant Chain when it is taken off its presentation board and passed around. As previously mentioned, those three links weigh upwards of 50 pounds; learners thus physically and emotionally encounter its weight as symbolic of the collective history between Canada’s indigenous and settler cultures. The question people are left with is, how can we reclaim our forefathers’ covenant of peace, respect, and friendship?
The Meeting on the River of Life exhibitions undoubtedly expanded attendees’ vision by encouraging critical thinking and broadening their worldviews. Canada currently faces many other serious settler and indigenous challenges. It is my hope that using art and artefacts stimulated hope, openness, and individual and collective imaginations for preferred futures. It was an honour to work alongside so many inspired people who possessed both good minds and energy while working at the edges of their respective communities, and in so doing were able to effectively communicate their shared knowledge for the benefit of the seventh generation. Indeed, I share this, my story, in hopes of a more preferred future for the many faces yet to come.
Meegwetch. All my relations.
REFERENCES
Onondaga Nation. (1613). Retrieved August 12, 2015, from http://www.onondaganation.org/culture/ wampum/two-row-wampum-belt-guswenta/
Report of the Ipperwash Inquiry, Volume 1. (2007). Retrieved May 8, 2015, from www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca
Bryan Bowers Hartington, Ontario
S. Butterwick & C. Roy (Eds.), Working the Margins of Community-Based Adult Learning, 89–101. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
KIM VILLAGANTE
8. VOICE, IDENTITY, AND COMMUNITY
The Possibilities and Challenges of Facilitating Arts-Based Engagement
This chapter begins with my personal story and growth as an artist and my identity as a queer woman of colour, pointing to some defining moments within which I have been impacted by the power of art and music. I then describe several projects where I facilitated arts-based processes including a painting workshop amongst Filipina caregivers and first-generation Filipina women, the creation of a community mural in Vancouver’s downtown eastside, a spoken word mentorship, as well as a rap workshop at a youth detention center. In the conclusion, I reflect on the tension between being an artist and a facilitator, between being tokenized as a queer Filipina activist and the power of my identity as a catalyst for social change.
FAMILY AND SCHOOL MATTERS
My father was a portrait artist in the Philippines; he owned and ran a successful business with many staff. For ten years, after immigrating to Canada, he continued with this business, travelling to different locations in and near Vancouver setting up his portrait stand. I remember as a young child hearing his brush strokes from the kitchen studio and watching him peer through a large magnifying glass to pick up the small details on the photographs. “Make it perfect,” he would say to me as he began, at five years old, to teach me his step-by-step system of art making and drawing a face. In the fifth grade, my class was given a drawing assignment and much attention and praise was given to my completed project. I felt pride in my skills at realistic aestheticism which was viewed throughout my childhood and high school art classes to be the highest and most celebrated form of art.
My working class parents struggled to provide for us and made financial sacrifices to have their children attend a private Christian school. My dad stopped his portrait business and became the custodian at my school which allowed us to get a tuition discount. My classmates made jokes about his job at the school. Immersing myself in the arts through dance (I taught choreography to my friends), theatre, and visual art, was a way of transcending the social and economic differences, the restrictions of religious schooling, the silencing I felt, and it was a way to connect to the outside world. In the last few years of high school, I began to research hip hop culture and rap, breakdancing/dance, graffiti, and dj’ing, googling images of hip hop art and discovered graffiti murals in Venice Beach, California and the subways of New York
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City. My sketchbook filled with pencil portraits of legendary hip hop artists such as Tupac, Notorius B.I.G. and Aaliyah. I was entranced with hip hop culture and identified with its gritty and raw essence that told the stories of struggle of mainly African-Americans growing up in urban ghettos. At that time, I did not recognize that the leaders in hip hop culture to which I was drawn, were people of color. It was the bold expression within hip hop which drew me in.
While I knew early in high school that my future had to involve the arts, my parents invested in extra-curricular Math and English tutoring, hoping I would pursue teaching or business. I performed well in my academic classes, but in grade 10, declared I wanted to focus on art and theatre. Perhaps I was rebelling against the Asian stereotype of academic excellence and asserting independence from my parents. Art also was a way of distinguishing myself from my classmates’ dreams of medicine, business and teaching. I applied, and was accepted into, the Bachelors of Arts program at the University of British Columbia. Throughout university I juggled different jobs as an art teacher, teaching claymation workshops (stop-motion animation through clay sculptures) through a summer camp for kids under 12, and leading weekly art classes at an elementary school. I also taught private art classes.
My road into performing my poetry and music was nurtured at open mic shows put on by the Filipino Students Association (FSA), the Caribbean African Association, as well as Africa Awareness. I began to regularly perform at a weekly open mic show called “Foundation Radio: Back to the Source” which were held at a local restaurant. Many of the performers were artists of color who expressed their struggles through singing and poetry, talking about liberation, their experiences as people of color, and healing through art and music. I was drawn to the power of word and at these shows, I met many others who identified as queer, feminist, and who were also involved in the community’s activism and/or aligned to radical politics. Our conversations encompassed decolonization and redefining the boundaries of love, which began to be reflected in my poetry and art. It was during this time that I came out as queer.
GROWING POLITICIZATION
While in my high school years, self-expression motivated my creative work, however, in my university years, I became more politicized and oriented to the power of arts to create spaces for storytelling for those who felt marginalized. At an open mic show put on by the FSA, I met members of Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino (UKPC), the Filipino-Canadian Youth Alliance who invited me to perform at a 2009 Roots, Rhymes, and Resistance show where Filipino youth shared art that explored what it meant to be Filipino-Canadian. It was here that I encountered Filipino-Canadians performing spoken word including Hari Alluri who used spoken word to tell the story about his experience of police harassment. His political language was fresh, and at times uncomfortable, but I connected to his urgency to understand the pain and struggle of injustice. A few months later, I wrote and performed my first spoken word piece talking about injustice and white privilege. Through the artistic platform
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of spoken word, I was learning to connect the reality of my individual experience to the collective struggle. And I felt heard.
These non-institutional spaces were crucial to my education and art making. Here I found alternative schools of thought and began to learn about myself and the world. While there were a few university professors who provided this opportunity, most of my politicization took place outside of class through groups like the UKPC and through my own research. My drawings and paintings began to change; I quit a competitive dance crew to focus more on spoken word and on musical performances that grew increasingly more critical of the systems around us. In 2011, I graduated with a major in Visual Arts and a minor in Art History and since then have continued to create art both visual and spoken word art. I also began to facilitate arts-based workshops and in what follows, I describe some of these experiences.
ARTS CREATES AN OASIS
In 2012, the University of British Columbia (UBC) Learning Exchange, an outreach centre in the Downtown Eastside (DTES), invited me to coordinate and direct a community mural project. It had been less than a year since I had graduated, and like many Arts alumni, I was always looking for arts-related work. Although this was a volunteer position, my love for street art and the opportunity to take on a leadership role within the community drew me in. The initiative was funded by the Passion Project, an organization that supported arts-based community building initiatives in the city of Vancouver and the desire of the Learning Exchange to build connections between UBC and the DTES. The mural project was conceived as a way to address a sense of social isolation felt amongst the tenants of a social housing unit called The Oasis, specifically their concerns about the alley behind the building being used by non-residents. The hope was that the community mural could uplift spirits, build a sense of inclusion, and reclaim the alley space for the tenants. The project took a little more than a year to reach completion. Starting in the fall of 2012, I went to The Oasis with a bag of pencil crayons, markers, paints, blank sketchbooks and canvases and held a drop-in arts space in the front lobby. I hoped to build rapport amongst the residents and to spark interest in the community mural. In the first few
Figure 1. Kim in front of mural. Photo courtesy of Martin Dee
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weeks there was low engagement, so I adjusted my expectations and also offered coffee and muffins and began to have conversations with many residents which were wide ranging, including one man who told stories of growing up in rural areas and how it influenced his drawing of scenic landscapes. Another man came with large plastic bags full of artwork that he had found in the garbage bins in the surrounding alleyways. An art collector in his own right, he brought his finds back to the Oasis and showed them off to other tenants, pointing out what he liked about each piece. At one session he showed his own painting, something he had salvaged and added to, creating a new picture. In these conversations, I learned a little bit about the lives of these tenants. Some had been professionals and after facing financial crisis, ended up on the street. Others told me about being estranged from their children who were living far away.
After about six art space sessions, I created a poster inviting tenants to come with ideas and sketches to plan the mural. A UBC Learning Exchange representative and myself held a brainstorming session; four residents who had connected with me in the lobby art-space attended. Their ideas were written on a flip chart. My drawings were shown as well as the sketches they had brought; others were created on the spot. They told me what they wanted to show in the mural: a whale, dolphins, and cats (to show the many cats roaming the unit’s grounds). I drew a cat reading a book while leaning against a palm tree and another one wearing sunglasses. In this session, the theme for the mural was identified – “oasis” – reflecting the name of the housing unit and the notion of a beautiful get-away.
Figure 2. Sketch of panel for the mural
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Figure 4. Sketch of panel for the mural
Figure 3. Sketch of panel for the mural
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Over the next couple of weeks, I compiled and summarized the ideas collected from the tenants into three sketches for the murals to be painted on the three large garages in the alleyway. I added some of my own images such as the face of Mother Earth blowing a breath of wind. I scanned these drawings into my computer and tested colors out on Photoshop. I printed them out and gave them to the housing unit coordinator who posted them on the community bulletin board. A week later, another resident contributed a sketch depicting a woman holding an umbrella amongst a rainy scene of large droplets and a rainbow. This became the third sketch we used for the third garage.
The sketches were sent to the city for approval which took almost half a year; the surrounding businesses and housing units had to be consulted. After receiving approval, the painting began in October of 2012. I had a small budget to purchase art supplies. I was nervous about leading the painting of the mural; I sought out and received excellent advice from Melanie Schambach, known for her paintings and murals. She recommended that participants be invited to pick up a paintbrush, choose a section, and remember to step back and watch the process unfold. She also suggested I use blue chalk tape to help create a grid for transferring, section by section, my small sketch to the garage doors. Through my social media networks, I invited a group of about 15 participants. They had never heard of the Oasis housing unit before. Ten young artists and ten elders from the Oasis began to paint; they were stationed side-by-side. Other participants observed and found the process very entertaining. Tenants from the Oasis that I had never met before stopped to talk or comment on the transformation taking place as the grey garage doors were gradually being covered in bright colors. There were jokes and laughter as the cats were painted on the corners of the garage. One participant was reluctant to paint so I gave him a camera and he walked from one end of the alley to the other, capturing film footage of scenes and objects in the alley. Strangers pushing shopping carts full of empty cans would stop to watch and two police officers pulled up in a car to ask what we were doing. One of the tenants, a First Nation woman, ended up bringing and sharing air-dried salmon.
While I had feared the detail of line work or color in my sketches would not be captured, participants frequently checked in with me about the colors. Many offered their opinions; others worked quietly. We painted from morning until sunset over two days. On the third day, I returned and did some touch ups on the final pieces.
Witnessing young artists from outside the area helping local residents bring to life an imagined utopia was a beautiful and humbling experience. While the university press wanted to glamourize my work with the poorest and largest homeless population within British Columbia, I tried to point out how the residents, through their stories, had taught me the history and origins of the place. My own assumptions around people living within the DTES were also challenged. Walking away, I also realized that creating a space for story telling was more important than the finished mural itself.
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ABANTE BABAE – GO FORWARD WOMEN
In the last few months of my final year at UBC, I became more involved with the Philippine Women’s Center (PWC) and the FSA. I jumped at any opportunity offered to me to perform and became more connected with those communities and non-profit organizations which were grounded in solidarity building through anti- oppressive based work. Working with the PWC, in 2012, I applied to and received funding from a grant through the Girls Action Foundation, a national foundation based in Montreal (http://girlsactionfoundation.ca/en). We proposed a PWC Center International Women’s Day conference called “Abante Babae,” which in Tagalog meant “Go forward women!” or “March on women!” Funding was secured for a full day of educational, creative workshops, a panel discussion to combat violence against women, and a painting workshop. Participants were Filipina university student activists, current domestic caregivers, and ex-caregivers who were heavily involved or loosely affiliated with the PWC center.
The day began with topics including Canada’s Live-in Caregiver Program (for domestic migrant workers) and the feminization of poverty, followed by afternoon creative workshops. These activities were designed as a way of processing the morning’s discussions and began with a circle process; each woman was encouraged to share what had stuck with her. Hope, pain, struggle, strength, freedom and community were some of the issues raised. Then participants closed their eyes, visualizing colors, symbols, or images that arose as I repeated back their words. They wrote down or drew the images and, in groups of three, shared and discussed them. All the groups then came together and shared their observations. One envisioned a blue sky and another talked about her kids and her husband back home in the Philippines. The women then chose a canvas from those laid out on tables and began to paint. I reminded them to not be concerned with skill or technique. Colours and
Figure 5. Completed panels. Photo by Kim Villagante
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images quickly filled the white canvases; in one image a woman is crying with a bridge in the shape of a rainbow connecting her to a Filipino style home. Time was running out so younger participants helped older ones to complete their images.
Figure 7. Painting workshop with the Philippine Women Center for “Abante Babae” conference. Photo by Kim Villagante
Figure 6. Abante Babae poster. Artist: Kim Villagante
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Participants then offered their observations of each other’s paintings. Words such as “hope”, “struggle,” “pain” were spoken; the creators then shared their thinking behind their art. Due to time limitations, the sharing period had to be cut short. This taught me that it was more important to give space and time for participants to share and less time with my giving instructions. I also learned that while unpredictable, these processes provide opportunities for participants to share their pride for the work produced as well as their appreciation for the collective process and building connections amongst participants.
ARTQUAKE: SPOKEN WORD
In the summer of 2013, I led a group of 5 youth, most were Filipino (under 23) in the art of spoken word through a youth organization called Artquake whose motto was to use art as a tool for social change. Throughout a period of 3 months, I was given creative freedom as the facilitator to develop a curriculum that engaged the youth in talking about the theme of “Identity” through the art of spoken word. The six participants that applied were young writers and aspiring spoken word artists. As spoken word was not my specialty, I wondered what I could offer these youth but what I did know was how to work their writing brain like a muscle and to encourage each participant to write and perform their own experience. I also knew that being together as writers and creative minds, bouncing ideas off each other, was a valuable opportunity and one that I could facilitate.
Prior to the first session, each youth was given the assignment of sending me a few Youtube links of their favourite and admired spoken word poets’ performances. When we met, we watched each poem on the big screen with each participant explaining to the group what it was that moved them. I asked each of them to comment on each poet’s style and cadence, how they compared or contrasted with another poet, and the artists’ topics. My role was to facilitate sharing, rather than teach them techniques. I observed both connections and differences amongst the youth. The majority were youth of color, two were Filipino males and two Filipina females, another girl was from Jordan, and there was one Caucasian/white male and two were queer-identified. The spoken word artists the Filipino youth selected were poets exploring identity struggles around being a person of color; the young Caucasian participant selected an artist who spoke about the inner artistic journey. As the sessions went on, the topics that emerged from the spoken word pieces of the youth of color included: the objectification of the female body of color, being disconnected from the motherland, and the experience of ableism. Before the end of the sessions, the one young Caucasian participant dropped out. While it was unfortunate to lose a member of our already small group, the confidence of the remaining group members grew stronger and they were more frank about their experiences of race, gender, and sexuality. As facilitator, I also felt I could speak more freely about my own experiences as a queer woman of color. Near the end of one of our final sessions, I invited participants to share their final poems. One Filipina girl shared a poem letter
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she wrote to her single mother in which she expressed pain of never knowing her father and watching her mother struggle while raising her on her own. As she cried, the rest of us listened and witnessed her pain. I do not know the full impact, but what I do know is that together, we shared a significant moment.
Reflecting on this workshop, I learned about relinquishing control and the importance of stepping back and allowing the process to unfold so that each participant has an opportunity to find their own personal learning. Perhaps my early experiences, learning the rules for creating art, remains with me. I have also began to appreciate how emotion is embodied and how it is stored in the body-memory of the creator as well as the witnesses. We return to these embodied memories when, in our own lives, we feel like we are falling from the weight of our pain. To this day, I can still feel the emotion of that circle as we listened to this girl’s poem. It is here, in the discussions and in the questions, where confusion, frustration and fears can be aired. Through the medium of spoken word, the youth grappled with difficult questions around what it meant to navigate the world with complex identities, such as compromising and reconciling between one’s queer identity and religious background, the effects diaspora has on relating to one’s ancestry and nationality, how it feels to live with a disability in an ableist society, and what feminism means as a queer woman of color. By centering the lives of youth of color, youth were able to speak to their own perspective and story and reclaim power.
RAP WORKSHOP AT A YOUTH DETENTION CENTER
I was asked by Vancouver’s Urban Ink Theatre Productions to lead a rap workshop at Burnaby’s Youth Custody Services Center. Urban Ink Productions is a theater company that creates, produces, and disseminates original live performance works by Indigenous and Intercultural artists. They run a long-standing hip hop program for youth called Boldskool, facilitated by local hip hop artists and theatre artists, aimed at empowering youth to develop their creative voices through the elements of hip hop (graffiti, rap, dj’ing, and breakdancing) and theatre. In this particular workshop, there were six facilitators and 25 youth between the ages of 13 and 20 years old. Teachers and security guards were in attendance during our whole day. Once the large group of youth had poured into the gymnasium, each facilitator introduced themselves (a local break-dancer, a beat-boxer, an actor, and myself as rapper plus two co-facilitators) and then we performed for a minute each. The youth were very receptive and the energy was high. We then reviewed a list of community agreements we had written on large charts and posted around the room; these included no expressions of homophobic, racist, and sexist discrimination. Once this was finished, we broke out into two smaller groups for the rap and dance workshops.
My rap workshop started with 15 students of both girls and boys. I felt the energy of the boys right from the start and was able to notice cliques forming including a group of four hefty boys (two were white, one was Asian and another African); this group was also amongst the oldest in the Center. In contrast, the girls were shy,
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giggling every now and then, and mainly kept their heads down and stayed together in the corner of the room. We gathered in a circle and I gave a brief introduction about the history of rap and how it emerged out of a struggling marginalized community. I then shared one of my raps while another facilitator beatboxed, which is a form of vocal percussion that involves using one’s mouth, lips, tongue and voice to mimic drum machines and other musical instruments. I also reminded them of the guidelines and rules: there would be no tolerance for homophobic, sexist, and racist discrimination in the workshop.
I led some warm up exercises around rhythm, volume, and cadence over rap instrumentals. The last exercise was called “rhyme banks” where youth created lists of words that rhymed, storing these “rhyme banks” in their heads so they could refer to these lists while freestyling (rapping without pre-planning). The youth also shared their rhyme-banks and I wrote them on the white board. I suggested they freestyled without referring to these lists. The first to rap was one white male of the dominant boy’s clique. With his chest up and his voice confident, he held a freestyle rap for a good five minutes. While I was concerned with how much space he was taking up, I also appreciated how he was the first to step up and to see the enthusiasm expressed by the other youth participants after his performance.
For the final activity, I had the youth write a rap individually to an instrumental song that I had playing on the computer. As I walked around the room, I noted that many of the young boys had half their page filled within the first ten minutes, but the girls’ pages were blank. As I worked with one of the girls, I found that she was more receptive to writing a rhyme with me. During the sharing session, many boys enthusiastically shared their rhymes and experiences of gang and family violence, hatred for the cops, addiction, and depression. There were also many times when, despite the guidelines we had reviewed, their rhymes included offensive language, violence and misogyny. I also noted that the circle had become a semicircle: the dominant boys creating a kind of stage, while the rest of the group watched. It was not until the group performance that a young girl shared a poem she had started during the rap workshop and completed near the end of the day. Her piece was about the domestic violence and drug use she had witnessed in her family and the depression she dealt with in her life. Her performance was less about impressing the audience and more of an honest telling, as if she was reading a page from her diary.
The fact that the youth were sharing in the first place was a big deal to the teachers and administrators who later thanked us for our work and told us that other organizations, which had previously visited the Custody center, had failed to engage the youth. This was no surprise to me as I believe hip-hop is the language and vehicle for marginalized youth to be heard. After the workshop all the facilitators debriefed. We were pleased with the high level of engagement but were disappointed with the sexism being expressed. “Hot women” and “no fatties” were common to the youths’ description of their “ideal world”. One participant had made a figure with his hands portraying a curvaceous woman. We discussed if we should have incorporated a brief anti-oppression session that went deeper into talking about the
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different oppressions and noted that there was no curriculum that involved a deeper analysis of the intersecting oppressions. Would this have influenced the decisions youth made when creating art and sharing their thoughts during discussion? We also recognized the limits of control we had on youths’ expressions. Even with an anti- oppression workshop, would sexism still be present; would the young white male participant have taken up less space; and would the young girls be more inclined to share? We acknowledged that creating these spaces does not mean that we enter a magical world of peaceful non-violent and non-oppressive expression. If anything, art becomes a window to see clearly and uncomfortable truths will often resurface.
THE ART AND POLITICS OF FACILITATION: REFLECTIONS
These workshops have been incredible learning experiences for me. As an artist and arts-based anti-oppression facilitator, I engage in a dance of tension between these two roles. As a performing artist, my focus is entertaining as well as speaking truth to power, and as a facilitator, I want to nurture honest storytelling together with critical awareness. A great deal of time and energy are required to plan and run workshops and these are also energies I need for my own art practice. My own critical aesthetic lens is crucial to my artistry but does it interfere with my engagement and feedback to participants? In my art, I seek to unearth and challenge oppression; as a facilitator, what does it mean to offer support and to be responsive and honest in those moments when racism and sexism are expressed? How much is the performer in me present during my facilitation, telling me that I need to entertain; or the woman in me, telling me that I need to smile and be cheerful; or the representative for queer women of color in me, telling me that I should have all the answers?
As a queer Filipina anti-oppression artist, there have been times where I have felt uncomfortable and tokenized. Youth workers want me to lead an art workshop and tell my story of migration, the resulting intergeneration trauma, and being a queer Filipina artist in the community. Fulfilling these expectations from organizers has at times interfered with making genuine connections with participants. Time is also an issue: I am often asked to complete a collective art piece with the youth, all in a span of one or two hours. I struggle with accepting these invitations and time restrictions in order to pay for my groceries or rent. For all the above reasons, I have often declared I would never do this type of work again, yet I keep coming back. It is fulfilling and essential for social change to happen in our society; members from marginalized communities, such as myself, are sought out and paid to do this type of work because it is the oppressions we face that make us ideal candidates. Because of systemic barriers that impact our capacity to give, there are too few of us doing this work and fighting on the frontlines. And so, I understand it is necessary for me, despite my discomfort, to keep sharing my story because telling our stories builds trust and growth. In telling our stories, we are also modelling how to be critical and honest in our analysis of the intersecting oppressions. Youth can access this language and perhaps feel safer to share their own story.
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Through poets, emcees, and artists who have courageously told their stories, I have been able to understand myself on a deeper level and heal. Through these stories, I can see larger movements for revolution and social change and, as a result, locate my own activism. I hope I will learn to be gentle and to take care of myself. I seek a balance between contributing to the growth of my community, taking care of myself, and developing my own artistry.
Kim Villagante Independent Artist and Facilitator
S. Butterwick & C. Roy (Eds.), Working the Margins of Community-Based Adult Learning, 103–114. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
GORDON MITCHELL
9. THE ART PEACE PROJECT
Valuable thought and social processes occur in the creative arts, which can enrich any curriculum (McIntosh & Warren, 2013). We1 have for almost ten years been working on trying to develop and understand arts-based educational processes. It is a story of trial and error, in which we have explored the two roles: the participant as artist, and the participant as researcher. I am Professor for Religion and Intercultural Education at the University of Hamburg, Germany. Hamburg is a cosmopolitan city, with almost half of its younger population having a migration background. In our workshops – which are oriented to creating a culture of human rights – there are usually a mix of university students needing credit points and a cross-section of people who have been attracted by advertising flyers. Questions of minority marginalisation and self-empowerment are the most common themes addressed in the art produced. What I have personally appreciated about arts-based learning is the way in which it has been possible to switch roles: to be the organiser, to be the professor, but also to be able sometimes to slip into the role of participant.
BACKGROUND AND MY ROLE
I grew up in apartheid South Africa with all the privileges that go with being white. Equal parts of my life have been spent teaching at universities and in educational projects with marginalised people. The power differences involved in such roles brings into acute focus the unavoidable dilemma of replicating structural and cultural violence in the classroom. The search has been a relentless one, for ways of educating, which might provide space for participants to empower themselves. When I started in Germany in the year 2000, the draw of troubled issues was very familiar. One of the first research and education projects was on how minority young people related to German-Jewish history (Mitchell et al., 2007). It soon became evident that ways needed to be found for people to challenge issues of discrimination. Most of our workshops have been held in Germany or in South Africa, but every year, two or three are held in conflict regions elsewhere, for example, Kazakstan/Kirgistan (2011), Georgia/Armenia, Azerbaijan (2014), Jordan (2015). The choice of location is often arbitrary, determined by funding availability, or by thesis topic of a doctoral student. The funders are both private, such as the Gustav Prietsch Foundation, and public agencies, such as the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).
The aims of the workshops are formulated in the language of self-empowerment and social cohesion. Even though some might be advertised as anti-bias education
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and others as peace education, there is not much that is different between these initiatives, apart from their labels. In this chapter I will relate the history of the Art Peace Project, highlighting issues that have taken on a particular importance (cf. Art Peace Project).
PLAYING ON FAULT LINES
In summer 2008, I met two young artists in Cape Town, twin brothers, Hasan and Husain Essop (cf. Knoll, 2015; Salley, 2014). In this early work, they would select a location, set up a camera on a tripod, and take turns at photographing themselves in different poses. Because the background remains the same, it is possible to superimpose the pictures on top of each other. The end results are various images of a person, interacting with each other, making possible a play on controversial issues of identity and power. I met them at a time when I was looking for ways in which the creative arts could be used in promoting intercultural and interreligious exchange; and their art seemed to fit in exactly with the experimental work we were doing. We invited them to come to Hamburg to exhibit their work and to conduct workshops, and so began a model, which has been used over and over again.
Figure 1. Fast Food, Hasan & Husain Essop Photo Courtesy of Hasan and Husain Essop
In one of Hasan and Husain’s earlier works, called Fast Food, the setting is Cape Town’s Clifton Beach, the time is sunset during Ramadan. The same person can be seen guzzling food, robed in white with slow dignity praying in the direction of Mecca, or a Bollywood character enjoying the beach, or someone trying to decide whether to have chips or the traditional dates to break the fast. This is all
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very confusing if one likes to categorise people into ‘religious’ or ‘secular’. Under apartheid this beach was reserved for whites only. Now it is a playground for the international super-rich: making you out of place if you are local, not white, and clothed.
The settings for their photographs are usually controversial, or are made so by the performance being staged there. There is a lot of conflict in their pictures, but once the viewer realises that it is the same person differently clothed, it becomes more difficult to take sides or jump to quick conclusions. Globalised conflict may be introduced by Palestinian scarves, white robes, or US American flags. The same person can be on one side and on the other side, can be protagonist or opponent, or simply an interested bystander. One of the pictures, from their stay in Cuba, plays on the stereotype of young religious Muslims as dangerous. Here, they are portrayed as being tremendously excited about a pair of rusty Cold War missiles. There is something South African about their work. Apartheid sought to categorise people according to outward characteristics. Its opponents ridiculed and continue to ridicule such oversimplification, emphasising instead, fluid, constructed identities – as reality, ideal, and as play. Like language, the pictures do not so much describe an identity as create a new, ongoing and therefore elusive reality.
Inspired by Hasan and Husain’s use of photography, we began to use this approach in our workshops, which are a mix of people, mainly young, and mostly with no specific background in the arts. The format of the workshop is nevertheless that of the art school where individuals produce their own work, but in constant interaction with more experienced artists and with their peers. By the time the shooting takes place, participants have usually discussed their plans with each other or with the artists. At the place which they have selected, usually a controversial place, they position the camera and look through the lens. The place is now bordered, and becomes a stage where various positions and poses are rehearsed. Conversation with other participants and the person behind the camera occurs quite naturally. Once things are underway, there is a noticeable increase in group-solidarity. When clothing is changed or to keep the place free from pedestrians, a circle of friends strengthens the sense of the group as protection. For the first workshop, it turned out that only one camera was available for sixteen shootings. The additional time involved and the size of the group did nothing to reduce the intensity of the social process. Involvement in each small drama is sustained, participants being really interested in each other’s creativity and preparedness to risk. Because there is a sense of play, with roles being changed all the time, there is a freedom to experiment with new ways of being. Even though the images are personal, there is generally a readiness to discuss one’s own project in a detached way.
In one of the workshops, a mix of high school and university students, one of the younger participants produced a picture entitled “One Erik is not enough”, it is a protest against stereotyping. As one of the most active and talented graffiti artists in Hamburg, Erik had experienced his share of marginalisation within the schooling and judicial systems. When he produced his picture during the workshop,
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he did not want to be seen simply as an anti-social teenager or as an innocent victim. In the foreground, confronting the viewer, the image of himself as dangerous is provocatively exaggerated. In the centre, he is sprawled on the stairs drunk, but alongside he is seated holding a red rose. At the top of the stairs he is both attacking dog and postman! On the left of the picture he is doing a headstand, his outspread legs balanced and pointing in more than one direction.
Figure 2. One Erik is not enough. Photo by Eric Finn Oltmanns
Producing these pictures needs two to three days of sustained work, and even though digitally literate younger people get into the method quickly, there always needs to be some expert tutoring available, and enough computers loaded with Photoshop or equivalent open source software. Working with artists is a luxury, but this is often not feasible financially. What is much more difficult to forego is another much more important dimension brought by artists such as Hasan and Husain Essop. In the five workshops with them, in Hamburg and in Cape Town, they have contributed above all the credibility of their own minority experience and their sustained resistance to oppression. This aspect is much more difficult to replace, and without them, usually more time is then needed before participants themselves begin to take over such a role in the group.
A number of other workshops have made use of photography, with the best camera equipment that we can manage. One such workshop was in Tbilisi, Georgia in Summer 2014. Participants developed concepts of the issue that they wanted to take up in their art, and for many having oneself in the picture meant that it became
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a personal statement. They also selected backgrounds, usually controversial, where the photo-shooting would take place. For the picture below, Nika Gogichaishvili had chosen the saloon in Stalin’s armour plated train coach parked next to his birthplace in the town of Gori. Initially Nika had been deeply embarrassed, in the nearby museum, when his striking likeness to the young Stalin had been noticed.
Figure 3. Stalin, artist Nika Gogichaishvili
In the picture he is looking at himself in the large mirror, where he sees not only his face but the faces of his victims, in this case fellow students from the small former Soviet Union countries of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia. In the text which he wrote for the exhibition afterwards, he captures an intensity of feeling:
It’s always hard to link hegemony to arts. Or create a feeling inside your body, like you are going to destroy the whole world. The most interesting part for me while being Stalin was an idea: that we probably keep that violence in ourselves, anytime we may be ready to decide others’ lives like gladiators. Enjoy and play with them. I believed that ‘love makes fear’ … of losing someone or an idea … now I have found that fear makes love … You want to fight?! Feel the victory of defeating yourself.
The art produced is the result of intensive conversations with oneself and with others. In film footage of the interaction between participants, it is very evident that there is also a great deal happening at a social level. With a mixture of curiosity and camaraderie they observe the concept development and photo shootings, they
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offer advice, assist each other with the mechanics of artistic production, and together celebrate the results at the end. Each is able to discuss their own pictures as well as those of others, with almost the same degree of authority. By means of art, people have tools to express a varied relationship to religious and other values, keeping existential questions in a balancing act, without the comfort of closure. Art created like this is, from the start, a conversation with various anticipated audiences. In the art school format, participants experience the self-empowerment of exhibition, they learn from each other’s artistic journeys, they practice offering and receiving critical appreciation of ideas. As they do all these things, they can develop a deepened understanding of the big questions of human existence. This does not happen all the time, and there are workshops and participants where nothing really seems to happen at all.
Where it is possible to locate activity in an art studio, or to work with a professional artist, the sense of being in an aesthetic space is easier to achieve. When the workshop is led by an enthusiastic amateur, an atmosphere in which people do their artistic best can also be achieved but might take a bit longer. Photography has, over the past few years, become a very accessible medium for self-expression. We often begin a workshop with an exercise where people introduce themselves with an autobiographical story, which might be fictional and might not. This is usually entertaining, and at the same time makes the point that art can be a safe space, where it is possible to hide and to reveal. Warming up exercises used by actors can be a good preparation for the playfulness of holding a pose in front of a camera.
ACADEMIC SPACE
Within the Art Peace workshops, there are three stages of activity: creation, exhibition, and reflection. Reflection has become a major structural feature of the workshops, which came about almost accidentally. An understanding of research which views participants as subjects, and not as objects of research, means that reflection becomes a major part of any learning. Towards the end of a normal three to five-day workshops, photographs of group processes taken over the previous days are used to explore how people were feeling and thinking at different points. A method of ‘photo-elicitation’ (Harper, 2002) is used as a means of thinking about and discussing the learning. This often turns into a very vibrant learning exchange, and occupies now almost a third of the workshop time. The artworks produced are themselves an ongoing reminder of moments of uncertainty and courage, warmth and alienation.
Such exercises in abstraction and synthesis are more than a routine evaluation of impact: they are central to the workshop itself. It is important for participants to be able to make the role shift from artist to researcher. Reference to theoretical literature is, for students, a recognisable distancing device. Discussion in relation to texts, which they had been required to read beforehand, then occurs in a clearly demarcated academic pace. One of the perspectives often used in the analysis of the
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artworks is Johann Galtung’s (1990) distinction between direct violence, structural violence, and cultural violence. When the workshop is introduced at the beginning, the process is described in relation to educational theory, particularly the work of John Dewey on the interconnectedness of artistic experience, education, faith and political action. Producing art involves observing and interpreting the world around us, with a particular intensity and focus. In Dewey’s words, “Art enhances, prolongs and purifies the perceptual experience” (Dewey, 1954, p. 30).The starting point of artistic work is to be excited and troubled by one’s experience of the world. Serious art will therefore not seek to provide neat answers but will continue to challenge its audiences. It seems that one of the reasons why the creative arts are so effective as learning is that they offer a very direct access to people and to the existential questions they regard as important. Also on offer is a range of ways of communication, as well as provision for complexity and emotion. Learning outcomes are difficult to predict, but it seems that in the creative arts, those moments when we take up issues of human existence have a tendency to occur more frequently. And it would be helpful to know why this might be so. It is not as though the work of art is the mirror image of an initial experience: the process of production is itself part of a sometimes lengthy engagement. Just as the sculptor chips away at stone, there is an inner chipping that occurs during the artistic work – both happen together in the act of expression. Art is not only a consequence of an inner reality but an ongoing conversation. Not everything happens in the same way for everyone, although it is possible to discern a pattern. There is a shift that seems to take place during artistic production, where ‘aesthetic space’ becomes a distancing device from which to reflect on direct emotional experience, what Cassirer (1969) calls ‘mythic space’. When one studies the pictures produced in the workshops, there is clearly some intense engagement with questions that really matter to people, and one can guess at what thought and social processes are to be found in the archaeology of such art. When they have been encouraged to read some of John Dewey’s key texts, participants share a vocabulary with which to understand and describe their experience. They also have tools with which to critique the way the workshop was structured.
In Democracy and Education, John Dewey (1916) develops the central ideas in his philosophy of education. Learning is a democratic process in which learners are encouraged to make their contribution in such a way that the classroom models the ideal of a democratic community. It is to be centred on life situations in which learners are encouraged to explore and experience the world for themselves. Experience is used in the sense of experimentation. By means of ‘direct experience’ learners themselves generate knowledge and shape their environment. The curriculum should therefore not be overloaded with content. All fields of knowledge are best introduced in relation to their human dimension. It is in the unsettling, the ambiguous, that fresh thinking emerges. In Dewey’s terminology, “To maintain the state of doubt and to carry on systematic and protracted inquiry – these are the essentials of thinking” (1910, p. 13). The imagination is the medium of appreciation in every field, and the creative arts become an important venue for learning. As Dewey (1934, p. 77) plainly
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says it: “If all meanings could be adequately expressed by words, the arts of painting and music would not exist.” Finally, a key element in his view of understanding is the role of reflection. We do not learn from experience, we learn from reflection on experience (Dewey, 1910, p. 78)!
Activity in the creative arts brings paradoxes of human existence to the fore. Here reference to Dewey is particularly helpful, in that he makes use of the concept of ‘faith’ to speak about those aspects of experience, which are of particular significance to us. In his book Common Faith, Dewey (1986) speaks of a “religious aspect of experience” which belongs to a range of experiences, from aesthetic, scientific, moral, or political, to experiences of companionship and friendship. Faith is “in every aspect of human experience that is concerned with estimate of possibilities, with emotional stir by possibilities as yet unrealised, and with all action in behalf of their realization. All that is significant in human experience falls within this frame” (1986, p. 39) Echoing Matthew Arnold, Dewey understands the religious as “morality touched by emotion” (1986, p. 16). These categories offer participants a way of reflecting upon and communicating some of their intense experiences. Artists, such as Hasan and Husain Essop, want to be explicit about faith issues, and sometimes use recognisably religious symbols in their work. How to speak about faith within the public sphere will often be a bit controversial, but Dewey’s broad definition offers a way of doing so.
The setting of a university means that students need to produce work on theoretical reflection, which can be graded. What we have seen is that this can be an exercise, which is of significant benefit to the goals of peace education. We would be keen to see the extent to which the use of ‘academic space’ can enrich learning processes in groups beyond the university. In the meantime, I want to illustrate in more detail how theoretical approaches have their place in self-reflection.
SELF-EMPOWERMENT
Participants often report a degree of self-empowerment after arts based workshops. Three possible factors come to mind: the scope for playful experimentation, the encounter with people who are very different, and sometimes the disorienting function of the settings themselves. Victor Turner (2001), in his studies of the interrelationship between ritual and performance, introduces the term ‘liminality’ to describe a short-term state of being, when one can become another person. To push the metaphor further: this would see artists as ritual specialists, whose authority is not just from a professional self-awareness or their public role, but because they have much experience in that liminal space. The aesthetic, presided over by such ritual specialists, becomes a place where it is possible to express feelings of outrage or of utopian longing, it is where one says things which might otherwise be too difficult to put into words. It provides moments of personal democracy. Initiates emerge stunned and exhausted after the workshop. And perhaps the special quality of social relationships formed, speaks for the link between liminality and communitas. Even
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if the ritual metaphor is overdone, there is little doubt that the experimental, playful atmosphere of aesthetic space offers an unusual learning environment. Roles can be tried, altered, and discarded. Opportunity to turn the whole business into a game of hide and seek can be wonderfully liberating.
For a few days participants have been in the role of artists and have experienced the intensity of creative work. Afterwards they are asked to be researchers, and reflect on their experience. The temporariness of the experiences seems to be a factor. The workshops create an art school format, in structure and in atmosphere. Participants are not just using art – they are temporarily artists, and are being coached by professional artists. Being with an artist who expects real art to be produced pushes people into a way of being which is new to many. The artists with whom we have worked have, without exception, lead people to the fault lines in society and in the human psyche. It is in this place of instability, of risk and tabu, that they choose to work. Unlike many educators in secular settings, they seem unafraid of emotion. Experienced in looking deeply into themselves and into the world around them, the artists communicate insight and passion. With energy, humour and integrity, an environment is created in which participants are able to explore issues, sometimes painful, which mean a lot to them. And in the midst of playfulness, there is a dead seriousness.
It is however not usually possible to work with an artist. Replicating such an atmosphere is not always straightforward, particularly when it is obvious to all that instead of a professional artist, there is a very ordinary educator trying to get people involved in a medium, which is equally unfamiliar. While it has its challenges, the gains are a flattening of the hierarchy and a lessening of pressure. This does not mean that the expectation to enter the role of the artist need be in any way diminished. The language of ritual and performance enables reflection on that liminal space where it is possible to experiment with new ways of being and relating.
As Dewey maintains, we never educate directly, but indirectly by means of the learning environment that is structured. Where groups with high degrees of human diversity are brought together, strangeness can become an important educational tool. To formulate the significance of an experience, a person must take into conscious account the experiences of others. It is in communication that learning takes place, and the greater the differences between people, the more the effort that needs to go into anticipating responses and trying to understand someone with a very different life experience. An increase in novelty is a challenge to thought.
Most of our workshops have been conducted with university students. When external funders in Hamburg insisted that workshops be opened to any resident, the response to the advertising flyers meant that workshops became strikingly diverse with regard to age, sex, social status, and cultural affiliation. This principle was applied in workshops that we began to do in conflict regions such as the southern Caucasus: the greater the differences, the better. Equal status contact is ensured by having participants for whom using the creative arts is equally unfamiliar. A feature of such encounters, which is seldom to be found in the literature of intercultural
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education, is the shared moments of incompleteness when encountering big questions of human existence. Communication in education is that which takes place between people of differing backgrounds as they explore new paths together. Each is at the same time fully involved in producing their own art, and at the same time fully aware of what others are doing within this art school format.
Strange activities, strange people, and now strange places, each can serve to unsettle established patterns. Heterogeneous space is “the space that claws and gnaws at us” (Foucalt, 1998, p. 3). What happened there and how did that makes us feel? Who is seen to own the place, and what do we think they feel about our intrusion? Places are unsettling because they force us to deal with historical memory. The scene below is also from a workshop in Tbilisi.
Figure 4. Bigger Punishes the Smaller. Artist: Assaf Quazbano
The Metekhi Bridge spanning the Mtkvari River is one of the best known tourist landmarks in the capital. Every year in November citizens gather for a ceremony organised by the Georgian Church to commemorate the Hundred Thousand Martyrs who are reputed to have died there. According to tradition, these were those who refused to renounce Christianity when the city was captured in 1226 by Sultan Jalal ad-Din. The waters of the Mtkvari, we are told, ran red with their blood. This is the setting that Assaf Quazbanov, an Azejebani student, chose to choreograph his observations on the fickleness and the brutality of human beings, “like animals in the forest”. It was his way of sharing culpability and taking a stand against selective interpretations of the past, which legitimise contemporary conflict.
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Along the route of creating, exhibiting, and reflecting, there are moments of courage as an individual faces the big questions of identity and human existence, and clarifies what is really important. As an observer I have been deeply privileged simply by being nearby. On the occasions when I have risked and participated, I have learned a great deal about myself and the situation, I have experienced the intensity of the process and been encouraged by the supportive warmth of others. For someone usually safe in the role of the facilitator, the sense of discovery and camaraderie, have formed my most memorable experiences as an educator.
Activity in the creative arts brings paradoxes of human existence to the fore. It makes possible serious engagement with questions which have no clear-cut answers. At the same time there is room for experimentation, commitment, and political engagement. A valuable precondition for reflection is an open, non-coercive learning environment. Equal status contact is best ensured in activities, which are equally unfamiliar and structured to challenge individuals deeply. In such liminal space it becomes possible to doubt, experiment, communicate, and think. It then becomes the task of the educator to seek out and structure these spaces, where they too can be inspired.
NOTE
1 Gordon Mitchell, Sofie Olbers, Galina Kondratieva, Cornelia Knoll, Juliane Tutein, Regina Stober, Harry Hauber, Nathalie Dickscheid and Hamida Behr.
REFERENCES
Art peace project, blogs, University of Hamburg. Retrieved from http://blogs.epb.uni-hamburg.de/ artpeaceproject/home-english/
Cassirer, E. (1969). Mythic, aesthetic and theoretical space. Man and World, 2(1), 3–7. Dewey, J. (1910). How we think. Chicago, IL: D.C. Heath & Co. Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education. An introduction to the philosophy of education. New York,
NY: Macmillan. Dewey, J. (1934). Art as experience. New York, NY: Perigee. Dewey, J. (1954). Experience, nature and art. In J. Dewey, A. Barnes, L. Buermeyer, T. Munro,
A. Guillaume, M. Mullen & V. de Mazia (Eds.), Art and education (3rd ed., pp. 22–31). Merion, PA: Barnes Foundation.
Dewey, J. (1986). A common faith. In J. A. Boydston (Eds.), John Dewey. The later works, 1925–1953 Vol. 9, 1933–1934 (pp. 1–58). Carbondale & Edwardsville, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.
Foucault, M. (1998). Different spaces. In J. D. Faubion (Ed.), Aesthetics, method, and epistemology: Essential works of Foucault, 1954–1984 (Vol. 2, R. Hurley, Trans.). New York, NY: The New Press.
Galtung, J. (1990). Cultural violence. Journal of Peace Research, 27(3), 291–305. Grießbach, D. (Producer). (2009). Images in place. Hasan and Husain in Hamburg [Motion Picture].
Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceFcjAbx2sk Harper, D. (2002). Talking about pictures: A case for photo elicitation. Visual Studies, 17(1), 13–26. Knoll, C. (2015). The art of “Unrest” – The work of Cape Town artists Hasan and Husain Essop.
Retrieved from http://africasacountry.com/the-provocative-art-of-unrest-by-cape-towns-hasan-and- husain-essop
McIntosh, P., & Warren, D. (Eds.). (2013). Creativity in the classroom: Case studies in using the arts in teaching and learning in higher education. Bristol, CT: Intellect.
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Mitchell, G., Mueller, C., Brandt, C., Brajtigam, S., & Putschbach, K. (2007). “Wenn wir die ganze Sache nicht machen würden, dann würde Gras darüber wachsen …”. Deutsch-Jüdische Vergangenheit in interkulturellen Schulklassen. Frankfurt am Main: IKO Verlag.
Salleya, R. J. (2014). Remembrance: The Essop brothers, formative realism and contemporary African photography. Social Dynamics: A Journal of African Studies, 40(3), 495–513. Retrieved from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02533952.2014.992255
Turner, V. (2001). From ritual to theatre. The human seriousness of play. New York, NY: PAJ Books.
Gordon Mitchell University of Hamburg
SECTION 3
ENACTING & EMBODYING
S. Butterwick & C. Roy (Eds.), Working the Margins of Community-Based Adult Learning, 117–131. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
SHAUNA BUTTERWICK AND MARILOU CARRILLO (With Kim Villagante)
10. SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER
The Political Fashion Shows of Filipino Activists
INTRODUCTION
In 2004, 2005, and 2008, the Philippine Women Centre of British Columbia (PWCBC) held three political fashion shows that included dresses and performances created through a collaborative community based process. Each dress and scene told a particular story about past and ongoing colonization of the Philippines, the exploitation of Filipino women as domestic migrant workers, and challenges of family reunification. In this chapter we provide some background on the PWCBC and the origins of a research project that explored these fashion shows. In its activist work, the PWCBC is speaking truth to power and raising consciousness about these realities. We then introduce some of the dresses and conclude with a discussion of how the format of a fashion show, not usually associated with women’s empowerment, proved to be a powerful and creative way to organize and to educate. A picture is worth a thousand words and these dresses and productions created conditions for a powerful kind of engagement and understanding by the audience members.
IN THE BEGINNING…
How did our collaborations and study of the PWCBC’s fashion shows come about? Between 2006 and 2009, the National Alliance of Philippine Women Centres of Canada (NAPWC) ran a three year project (federally funded) aimed at developing a national activist network of Filipino individuals and organizations. Marilou was involved with this project called “Making the Filipino Community Count”; the NAPWC needed an external evaluator of their federally funded project and invited Shauna to take on this role and to provide feedback on their activities. This project involved three annual meetings, one in Vancouver and two in Toronto and between meetings, Filipinos in various municipalities (e.g. Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, and Montreal) came together to explore and document their lived experiences, particularly in relation to migration, settlement, and integration into Canada. The results of these local activities were then shared at the annual consultations. In addition to traditional presentations and panels, various art forms
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such as theatre, dance, poetry, fashion show dresses, and other performances were used as ways to share the results of community-based engagements. As a feminist adult educator interested in liberatory forms of adult education that used arts and creative approaches, Shauna was greatly intrigued with the power of these formats to engage and educate. With NAPWC activists she explored the idea of conducting further research on the creative dimensions of Filipino activism. A proposal was prepared and submitted to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) which was successful.
In the fall of 2011, our study of the political fashion shows of the PWCBC began and Kim was identified as the community-based researcher to work on the project. She brought skills as a visual artist, a strong commitment to community activism, and a powerful creative energy (see Chapter 8 where she speaks about her other arts-based work). Marilou was a long standing active member of the PWCBC; she had participated in all three fashion shows, and her knowledge of the creation of the shows, the individual dresses and garments, and her lived experience as a model were invaluable. She is also a wealth of information about the history of the Philippines and of feminist resistance to colonization and exploitation having conducted her doctoral research on that topic (2009).
THE ARTS-BASED ACTIVISM OF THE PWCBC
The PWCBC was formed in 1989 “to empower Filipino women to understand the roots of their challenges as migrants, immigrants, women of colour, and low- income earners, and to collectively assert their struggle for their rights and welfare” (Philippine Women’s Centre of British Columbia [PWCBC], n.d.). The PWCBC’s activism has been oriented to illuminating and interrupting the exploitation of Filipino women and illustrating how sexism, racism, and classism underpin the commodification of majority world women through globalized capitalism1 and how women’s work within globalized capitalism is “intimately linked with social exclusion, abysmal working conditions, sub-standard living accommodations, sexual and racial discrimination, and exploitation on the part of employers, labour brokers, and employment agencies” (Khan, 2009, p. 23). As the PWCBC reached out to Filipino domestic migrant workers, they were encountering what has been called “the feminization of survival”2 that is, the increasing dependence of families and nations on the exploited labour of women. The activism of the PWCBC is a powerful example of transnational feminist praxis, a process which links local issues and international activities.3 As noted, Marilou researched the transnational nature of Filipino activism, exploring the work of activists in Canada, the Netherlands and the Philippines, and illustrated how Filipino activists are systematically uncovering the exploitation of late capitalist globalization and women’s forced migration to many countries. These activists have formed new transnational relations and demonstrated women’s ability to effect social change even while occupying seemingly marginalized spaces.
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Since its beginning, the PWCBC has conducted participatory action research4 often in partnership with academic researchers.5 Their research has explored how Filipino women, many of whom arrive in Canada with post-secondary education and professional backgrounds, become deskilled through their employment as migrant domestic workers. Even after becoming permanent residents of Canada, the process of deskilling continues as few are able to find work in their professional field; many enter a hidden and exploited subclass of workers and become trapped in a vicious cycle of intergenerational poverty.6
Few Canadians realize the extent of this exploitation. While on the one hand, Filipino domestic workers are quite visible in our communities; we see them as nannies caring for our children and elderly loved ones, at at the same, their daily lived reality remains hidden. Few Canadians realized how our own government is complicit in creating racist, sexist, and classist policies that leave Filipino women socially vulnerable, thus contributing directly to their economic exploitation. In its activist work, the PWCBC is speaking truth to power and raising consciousness about these realities. In addition to their research, the PWCBC has also used, to great effect, a variety of creative formats. In addition to the fashion shows, the PWCBC had made quilts with each square telling the story of Filipino women’s struggles with oppression and also painted suitcases (called ‘maleta’ in Tagalog) to depict individual Filipino family members and how they were trapped in the ever growing phenomenon of migrant workers traveling the globe and working in low-waged jobs.7
The political fashion shows were the most elaborate of the arts based projects and so we decided to focus on these activities. They had occurred several years prior to the start of the project and we faced challenges in finding information including photos, films, and other forms of documentation of the fashion shows. Many of the original participants had moved away and we had no contact information for them. Other archives of the PWCBC had been lost.8 We were fortunate to find some members who had been involved with the fashion shows who provided us with information and helped us identify others who had participated. Kim and Shauna conducted 35 interviews and three focus groups.
THE POLITICAL FASHION SHOWS
The idea for the fashion shows originated in the Philippines. GABRIELA (General Assembly Binding Women for Reforms, Integrity, Equality, Leadership, and Action), a national feminist coalition in the Philippines, has used political fashion shows in their activism. Cecilia Diocson, a founding member of the PWCBC, brought a video about the fashion shows to share with others; she thought the fashion shows could be a powerful format and that such a creative approach would be enjoyable and attract a lot of participants. Indeed, creating the dresses and scenes involved many kinds of participation from many different people and proved to be a pathway into activism for some. The PWCBC was the first organization in North America to use the fashion
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show genre. Subsequently, PWC-QC and PWC-ON (Philippine Women’s Centres in Quebec and Ontario, respectively) and the Los Angeles GABRIELA group also launched political fashion shows.
The first two PWCBC fashion shows focused on the history of colonization of the Philippines and migration, issues that PWCBC and the Kalayaan Centre had been exploring for several years. The third and last show shifted its focus to the larger problem of violence against women, which included the struggles with settlement and integration of Filipinos living in Canada. The shows were created through a communal, intergenerational, and collaborative approach that involved the PWCBC and other groups that were part of the Kalayaan Centre, a Filipino umbrella organization, including SIKLAB, an acronym for Sulong, Itaguyod ang Karapatan ng Manggagawang Pilipino sa Labas ng Bansa, which in English means “Advance the Rights and Welfare of Overseas Filipinos Workers.” Also involved were the UKPC which refers to Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino sa Canada and includes youth born in Canada, immigrants, and children of women in the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) Canada’s domestic migrant worker program. Work study groups and a writing committee were also formed. For most of the participants we spoke with, creating a fashion show was a totally new experience. We now turn to highlighting a few of the dresses from each of the three fashion shows.
SPANISH COLONIZATION
Music and dancing depicting Filipino indigenous culture were the first opening scenes in the 2004 show. This history was depicted in the indigenous garb worn by
Figure 1. Political fashion show posters9
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Marilou. As she entered the stage, she was followed by two soldiers, each carrying wooden crosses, while at the back of the stage, another model stood wearing a long robe also painted with a cross. Marilou was seized by the two soldiers and then several women came on stage and removed her garments and redressed her in the Maria Clara dress. Maria Clara is a character in the epic Noli Me Tangere by José Rizal, a national hero of the Philippines. She is a demure, domesticated, privileged Filipino woman whom Rizal also used as a symbol of the Spanish colonization. “Maria Clara” in current lexicon of the Philippines refers to a woman who is demure, submissive, and religiously devout. The scenes from that part of the first fashion show are shown below in Figures 2–4.
Figure 2. Indigenous woman (Marilou) (Photo: PWC Archive)
Figure 3. Undressing (Photo: PWC Archive)
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Figure 4. Maria Clara dress (Photo: PWC Archive)
This scene was shocking to many in the audience. As Marilou explained, it depicted a transition that occurred under Spanish colonization and how Filipino people, women in particular, were stripped of their identity and history and domesticated. The difference between the bright, earth-toned dress and the subdued almost colorless Maria Clara outfit speaks to the erasure of indigenous culture and vitality.
Prior to Spanish conquest, the Philippines was a group of island-based, seafaring Malay kingdoms. In pre-colonial times, there were different levels of development among the many islands of the archipelago and little class stratification or division of labour. Men and women participated equally in subsistence fishing, hunting, and agricultural activities. Under Spanish rule, a class and gendered system developed with women assigned domestic and agricultural work, planting and food gathering, and men were involved in hunting, development of weaponry, claiming of territory, and eventually warfare.10 With beginnings of private ownership, class lines also emerged. Earlier indigenous social groups were sometimes matriarchal and generally egalitarian. In pre-colonial times, indigenous women were diwatas, healers or spiritual mentors, and babaylanes (priestesses). Their positions of leadership and prominence are well known from documents left by Spanish friars and oral traditions in indigenous communities today (Mananzan, 1998).
Encountering women completely different from those in the streets of Spain, the Spanish colonizers set out to domesticate the indigenous women through education and religion (Mananzan, 1998). From 1521 to 1898, Spain conquered the islands by force through its army and by deception through Catholicism. The Church established schools, translated training manuals for young girls, and promoted the
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cult of the obedient Virgin Mary. Later, the Spaniards also used the model of a doncella (a little dona) named Maria Clara, who was sweet, docile, obedient, and self-sacrificing. Maria Clara became the image of the ideal Filipino woman, an image that also looms large in the reverse image of the Filipino woman as prostitute in global sex tourism and sex trade.
EXPLOITATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES
The second fashion show continued with the theme of colonization and included dresses that illustrated the exploitation of natural resources. One such image was the Rice Terrace Dress (see Figures 5 and 6) which depicted the abundant natural resources of the Philippines. The front of the strapless dress made from potato sack fabric was plain and as the model moved down the walkway, the complexity of the rice terraces became visible. While it appeared to be a heavy garment, participants described it as quite light, although entering the stage was challenging because of its structure. Creating this dress was very labour-intensive and involved a workshop process. Parts of the dress would be created and then others would participate in adding another dimension. There was a lot of learning and teaching as some members who had more sewing skills helped others with little experience. Participants also remarked on how, despite the awkward dimensions of the dress, the model appeared very serene and beautiful.
Figure 5. Rice Terrace dress, front (Photo: PWC Archive)
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Figure 6. Rice Terrace dress, back (Photo: PWC Archive)
The difficulty of making this dress reflects the many years of labour it took to create the Banaue Rice Terraces of Ifugao of the northern Cordillera mountain region, which are now a UNESCO World Heritage site. Carved out of steep mountains by indigenous people 2,000 years ago, it remains a most endeared ancient site and a source of authentic history and national pride. Today, minority indigenous tribes continue to fight for their cultural and economic survival as transnational corporations, including those from the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, etc., engage in extensive mining in the region (Norberg-Hodge, Goering, & Page, 2001).
During the 333 years of colonization, the Spanish government extracted much of the Philippines’ natural resources, including minerals such as gold, silver, and copper and marketed products such as sugar and coconut materials. The Spanish galleon trade to and from Mexico and the Philippines, and from there to Europe, was a global transport system. The opulent structures seen in Spain today were built during this era of colonization. They are evidence of economic plunder of resources from the colonies (of Central and South America and the Philippines in Asia) as goods were transported to the markets of Europe, and profits transferred to the coffers of the Spanish Crown.
SO FAR AWAY
From a distance, the following dress appears to be a very form fitting cocktail dress made of stiff brightly coloured pieces of plastic. As the model comes closer, it becomes clearer that the dress is made up of hundreds of plastic cards linked together with small metal rings. The moderator informs the audience that the dress
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was made up of hundreds of phone cards which had been saved by Filipino domestic migrant workers who brought them to a small group discussion about their lives as nannies. These phone cards represented to them the heart-wrenching transitory yet vital link and their struggles to stay in touch with their families and children back home in the Philippines.
The dress is a powerful representation of the complex and contradictory reality facing many Filipino nannies when they come to Canada. The attractiveness of the dress spoke to the desire of Filipino women to earn enough income as nannies (domestic migrant workers) to support their families back in the Philippines. Wages in the Philippines are very low and so many Filipinos travel overseas as foreign workers; they send most of their wages home in the form of remittances which make up a significant portion of the national economy of the Philippines. Indeed Temporary Foreign Workers (TFW) are considered national heroes; recent reports indicate over 10 million Filipinos work overseas (Commission on Filipinos Overseas, 2013). While attractive, the dress is also uncomfortable; the model walked very carefully and her movements were restricted which speaks to the restrictions imposed on them by the Canadian LCP the program under which domestic migrant workers come to Canada (over 90% of them are from the Philippines). Until late 2014, the LCP regulations required nannies to live with their employers. They must also leave their children and other family members behind. LCP workers can, after working full time with one employer for 2 years, apply for permanent residency; however, they face further barriers in the process and the average time of separation from their families is five years (Pratt, 2009). Family separation was the focus of the dress discussed in the next section.
Figure 7. The Phone Card dress (Photo: PWC Archive)
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THE FAMILY SEPARATION DRESS
The dress modelled in this scene appeared to be a very simple design – a white apron stamped with a postal delivery address worn over black top and pants. Around the model’s waist was wrapped a bright blue sash which had a long train, the end of which was held by two little children and a man.
Figure 8. Family separation dress, front (Photo: PWC Archive)
Figure 9. Family separation dress, back (Photo: PWC Archive)
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The dress and performance illustrated the harsh reality and suffering due to family separation. Ten percent of 80 million Filipinos now leave their families to work abroad, and 70% of the 3,000 Filipinos who leave daily are women. Analyses of the Philippines’ economic and political situation confirm the slave- like coercion of overseas work. Today, 80% of Filipinos in the Philippines are unemployed or underemployed and live in semi-feudal conditions in an economy that officially has 12% unemployment. The minimum wage is not a living wage in light of rising commodity and food prices (Aguilar, 2003; IBON, 2005). These women, who are often well educated, are relegated to low-paying domestic work, low-status manufacturing jobs, or sexual exploitation for profit.11 A Filipino woman in the Philippines today with no employment (even though she is well trained) has only three forced “choices” (PWCBC, 1997c). She can either work in a factory in export processing zones, which are not likely to be close to her home; enter the “entertainment” industry (i.e., prostitution or the sex trade); or go abroad as a domestic worker or mail-order bride.
As noted earlier, in addition to family separations and estrangement between mothers, their children, and their spouses, the LCP also leads to deskilling. Many Filipino women who come to Canada through the LCP are post-secondary/college graduates or professionals; however, after spending several years as LCP workers, they face significant hurdles finding work in these careers. They have not been working in their professions and they face barriers to the recognition of their foreign credentials.12 Thus, they become trapped in a vicious circle of low-waged domestic and service work, and a cycle of intergenerational poverty begins. LCP workers’ children, when reunited with their mothers, face their own struggles. In addition to family estrangement, many encounter racism in schools and the wider society and, as a result, drop out of school, thus limiting their work options to the low-waged service industry (PWCBC, 1997b).
REFLECTIONS ON POLITICAL FASHION SHOWS AS FEMINIST POPULAR EDUCATION
We see the political fashion shows of the PWCBC as powerful examples of feminist popular education. Popular education is called ‘popular’ because it is an educational process that is conducted by, with, and for community members and is powerful because is involves “intentional and facilitated processes of collective learning and knowledge production that enable and provoke self-and social transformation toward the realization of contextually determined feminist goals” (Manicom & Walters, 2012, p. 3). These collectivist and community-based approaches are also effective because they not only reveal truths about oppression, they create forms of engagement that spark our imaginations and move us to think about taking action.
The political fashion shows illustrate the transformational potential of arts- informed learning. After such a project, women’s awareness or in Freirian terms,
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conscientization, moved forward and more deeply. Their personal empowerment and community advancement were the result of a multi-faceted, many- layered arts- based project. Their actions were more informed and rooted in community research of their own history and policy analysis through arts methods. Designing, sewing, use of fabrics and other materials, dramaturgical techniques, visual arts, music, poetry, stories, remembrances and memories changed the women personally; but more so, the integrative processes undertaken cultivated their knowledge production, allowed expression and witnessing of their own history in the making, and transformed their identity and life as a feminist, activist community.
The embodied and performative aspects of these fashion shows connect with the performers in a deep way. Colonization, trauma and the scars of exploitation are held in our bodies. Creating and wearing the colonial history and its ongoing expression through global capitalism and its hunger for cheap human labour and natural resources interrupted colonial and neo-colonial relationships, bringing agency to the actors and the audience. The dialectics of action and reflection were concrete, grounded experiences for women who were growing in their social and political consciousness. The very action and participation in fashion shows, were hands-on, fun, creative, and filled with moments of camaraderie and solidarity. (Recalling these are women who work 5 or more days a week with little or no access to spaces and resources of leisure and unhindered socialization.) These experiences influenced their critical analysis and understanding not only of their personal situation but more so of complex social and political policy. As their more systemic understandings expanded, these, in turn, influenced them to take deeper and bolder actions. This spiral process of adult and popular education was most evident in their communal participation in these fashion shows.
There is knowledge being created through the embodied and performative dimensions of these fashion shows. Ellsworth (2005, p. 5) describes this process of “knowledge in the making,” as “the embodied sensation of making sense, the lived experiences of our learning selves that make the thing we call knowledge” (p. 1, emphasis in original). The political fashion shows illustrate the transformational potential of arts-informed learning.13
Popular education methodology and pedagogy and the principles of feminist praxis maintain the change process and avoid stagnation in social struggles. In recent history, desires for a liberative national agenda or socialist future are not uncommon of struggles in many countries in the majority world. Why have Philippine women of this political persuasion been so effective? What is specific to this group? What makes their praxis unique is that the struggle is structurally oriented from the outset, with gender equality and women’s liberation at the core. The fashion shows, as political action, illustrate how what is achieved is unlikely to be sustained without the development of historical consciousness grounded in community, a process that grows from knowledge of where activists come from and where they return to. They are supported by other communities of women—locally, nationally, and transnationally—who have parallel struggles of violence.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We wish to thank members of the PWCBC who have contributed their time, photos, memories, passions, and perspectives to this study and who continue to push for the rights and freedoms of Filipino women. The PWCBC has given permission to use the photos from the fashion shows for our research and publications. This chapter builds on an earlier publication: Butterwick, S., Carrillo, M., & Villagante, K. with the Philippine Women’s Centre of B.C. (2015). Women’s fashion shows as feminist transformation. Canadian Journal for the Study of Adult Education, 27(2), 79–99.
NOTES
1 See Cohen (1991); Khan (2009); Lindio-McGovern and Wassiman (2009); Ong (1999). 2 This is a phrase coined by Sassen (2002, p. 1). 3 See Alexander and Mohanty (1997); Nagar and Swarr (2010); Grewal and Kaplan (1994). 4 Reports of PWCBCs research were released in 1996, 1997a, 1997b, 1997c, and 2000. 5 For example the PWCBC has partnered with Geraldine Pratt (1999, 2003, 2005, 2009, 2010a, 2010b,
2012a, 2012b; Pratt & Johnston (2009) and Zaman (2006, 2012; Zaman, Diocson, & West, 2007). 6 For further information see Moors (2003). 7 The PWC in Ontario (located at the Magkaisa Centre) has carried on with the Maleta shows adding
many more painted suitcases. The Toronto based centre has also engaged in many other arts forms in their advocacy work and has participated in the annual Nuit Blanche arts festival for many years. For more information go to: www.magkaisacentre.org
8 The PWCBC was located for several years in the Kalayaan Centre on Powell Street in Vancouver. The centre was an umbrella organization with which the PWCBC was affiliated. Kalayaan is a Tagalog word for “freedom,” a key word for those involved in the struggle for national and social liberation of Filipino people. The centre was called “Kalayaan” to symbolize that freedom and to signify the centre as a political and liberating space. This centre housed many other Filipino groups and was the gathering place for many events. It also provided some short term housing for domestic migrant workers. The building needed major renovations and funding could not be found for these repairs. Unfortunately, the building and its contents were destroyed when the building next to it collapsed.
9 The 2004 and 2008 posters were created by Carlo Sayo; the 2005 poster was created by Reva Diana. The artists who created these images have given their permission to use these photos.
10 Many studies of colonization have noted how it leads to the dramatic change in gender roles. 11 The 2015 unemployment rate was 6.5%. See http://www.tradingeconomics.com/philippines/
unemployment-rate 12 On October 24, 2014, the federal government announced a new panel that will look into the issue of
recognizing foreign credentials (Government of Canada, 2014a). 13 For more exploration of the role of the arts in imagination and transformation see Clover and Stalker
(2007) and McGregor (2012).
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Pratt, G. (in collaboration with the Philippine Women’s Centre of BC). (2009). Circulating sadness: Witnessing Filipino mothers’ stories of family separation. Gender Place and Culture, 16, 3–22.
Pratt, G. (2010a). Collaboration as feminist strategy. Gender Place and Culture, 17, 43–48. Pratt, G. (2010b). Nanay (mother): A testimonial play. Cultural Geographies, 17, 123–133. Pratt, G. (2012a, November). Critical transnational praxis: Seeing beyond the state. Paper presented at
the Kalayaan Centre and Counterspin Secretarial Conference, Vancouver, BC. Pratt, G. (2012b). Families apart: Migrant mothers and the conflicts of labor and love. Minneapolis, MN:
University of Minnesota Press. Pratt, G., & Johnston, C. (2009). Translating research into theatre. Nanay: A testimonial play. BC Studies,
163, 123–132. Sassen, S. (2002, February). Countergeographies of globalization: The feminization of survival. Paper
presented at Gender Budgets, Financial Markets, Financing for Development, Heinrich-Boell Foundation, Berlin.
Zaman, H. (2006). Breaking the iron wall: Decommodification and immigrant women’s labour in Canada. Oxford: Lexington Books.
Zaman, J. (2012). Asian immigrants in “two Canadas”: Racialization, marginalization and deregulated work. Toronto: Fernwood.
Zaman, H., Diocson, C., & West, R. (2007). Workplace rights for immigrants in BC: The case of Filipino workers. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Retrieved from http://www.policyalternatives.ca/ sites/default/files/uploads/publications/BC_Office_Pubs/bc_2007/bc_workplacerights_full.pdf
Shauna Butterwick University of British Columbia
Marilou Carrillo Feminist Activist
S. Butterwick & C. Roy (Eds.), Working the Margins of Community-Based Adult Learning, 133–144. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
INGRID HANSEN AND PETER BALKWILL
11. FRACTURED FABLES
A Prison Puppet Project
INTRODUCTION
In theatre there is often a battle of egos between the actors and the audiences. The audience member sits back and says “Ok let me see what you’ve got: Do you possess the talent to suspend my disbelief? Will you be able to make me believe your story”? With puppet theatre, there is no battle of egos; a puppet has no ego, it is an empty vessel asking for any and all egos present to give it life. The puppeteers stand as fallible humans undertaking an impossible task, holding nothing more than a doll that they are begging to come to life. But we all have strong and capable egos and so the puppet inherits all of the inner most desires of every member present – we all want the little creature to live. But there is more to it than that. In this chapter we tell the story about a puppet theatre project created in William Head Institution, a minimum-security men’s prison in British Columbia.
Figure 1. The baker steals an ostrich egg. Photo by Jam Hamidi of the production Fractured Fables: The Prison Puppet Project
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THE PROJECT
Each fall, deep in the woods of Metchosin, on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, the inmates at William Head Institution begin work on a new show for the public. William Head is the home of Canada’s longest-running prison theatre company called “William Head on Stage,” or WHoS. Inmates perform in the shows, build sets, sew costumes, promote the shows, coordinate ticket sales, and act as ushers, concession, stage managers, and backstage crew. The only outside assistance comes in the form of directors and designers – professionals the inmate board hires to come into the prison and work with the men on their productions. Anyone over the age of nineteen may buy a ticket, drive forty-five minutes through the woods to the remote prison, get processed through prison security at the front gate, step into the prison gymnasium where an inmate usher shows you to your seat. Audience members then watch the show and at the post-show Q & A, ask questions of the inmate actors. This is not drama therapy. The genuine goal is to operate as a professional theatre company. While there are clear therapeutic benefits for the participants (confidence, teamwork, self-expression, empathy, diligence, trusting the unknown), the creation process is never approached as therapy. Any therapeutic benefits are a by-product of the enormous task at hand: creating a show together. As inmate puppeteer “Ben”1 wrote in his post-show reflection letter:
By being involved with WHoS, I am able to stop harbouring greed, hatred, grumpiness, self-pity, and other counter-productive contents and put in grace, kindness, patience, and compassion, and reflect a wonderful nature. They gave me the trust I needed to put one foot in front of the other, gratitude for being in their care, peacefulness about my destiny, trusting that some day I will be home.
Over the years, WHoS has produced several plays, including the works of Shakespeare, Beckett, Sartre and many other challenging and well-known playwrights. In the fall of 2013 the show was called “Fractured Fables” and it was the first WHoS puppet theatre production. It was co-directed by Ingrid Hansen and Peter Balkwill. Ingrid Hansen is the Co-Artistic Director of SNAFU Dance Theatre in Victoria, British Columbia which creates and tours independent theatre across Canada, producing work in theatres, parking garages, fields, bike trails, washrooms, national heritage sites, art galleries, and prisons. Ingrid first saw a WHoS prison production while earning her BFA at the University of Victoria. She remembers laughing so hard at the prison’s brilliant production of Waiting for Godot that she disturbed other audience members, and earned comments from the inmates afterwards. Since that day, Ingrid has designed, choreographed, directed, taught, and performed with William Head on Stage, while also continuing to create new work with SNAFU. Peter Balkwill is a founding member and Co-Artistic Director of the Old Trout Puppet Workshop in Calgary, Alberta. The Old Trouts are a group of friends who met long ago working as camp counselors. Ingrid and Peter met in
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January 2012, when she took his course at the Banff Puppet Intensive. They began to talk about pioneering a puppetry project with the WHoS prison theatre program and agreed to co-direct an original piece built on material generated by the inmates.
Inmates have been running William Head on Stage Theatre Company (WHoS) since 1981, passing the reigns to the next round of men as those running the company reach the end of their sentences. This company has, as one audience member wrote in the WHoS Post-Show Audience Commentary Guest Book, “the most passionate actors and audience I have ever seen. This program is priceless for the questions it raises and the barriers it takes down.” For the inmates, working together on a show “takes an amazing amount of courage and boldness, and a daily confrontation of fears,” says Carolyne Birch, an actor hired to work with WHoS in 2005:
If anyone truly knew the work involved with putting on a production in here, perhaps WHoS would be changed from a leisure activity to punishment. There is no conning in theatre. Either you show up and do the work, or you don’t. It becomes evident to all involved which course of action you have taken. The way with which these gentlemen took personal and professional responsibility for this project is why it grew. Perhaps it was the first time that some were able to be a part of a community where there was a positive end result.2 (Carolyne Birch interview in the inmate-run Out of Bounds Magazine, 2005)
The program is voluntary. Inmates choose to join, stay, and commit themselves to this monster of a project and to venture together into the unknown. After living in prison day-to-day, two months working on a play is very intimidating, yet they work as hard and are as dedicated as just about any professional theatre artist. They care a great deal about the journey of the play and through this care the inmates come out of their shell and learn to trust again, as they gear up for their eventual release back into society to live as our neighbours.3
THE CHALLENGE
To attempt a puppet show is attempting the impossible. We might have a notion of theoretical perfection, but reality often carries different results. This is at the root of our human journey: we strive to achieve that which is unachievable and through this paradox we learn more about ourselves as human beings, how we fit into the grander scheme of things, if only for a brief moment of time. One of the first steps of this journey is to admit that they know nothing about the subject at hand even though some may have done it many times before. In this manner true initiates may have the upper hand over experienced individuals, for they have no way to judge success or failure; all they can do is muster their courage, put their head down and damn the torpedoes. And so it was with the members of the Prison Puppet Project. Puppets have much in common with prison inmates; they are both bound to behave at the beck and call of their masters, but they also have minds of their own and often rebel against this control. These two qualities are what make puppets such permitting
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vessels of creation: they attempt to do what you ask of them, but let you know when that direction is unacceptable, forcing you to change direction. They make you seek solutions that are often more artful than the original idea. They send you off on a journey of creation and discovery that is unexpected and unpredictable.
Creating something without knowing the end result is daunting. Contrast that with living in the confined routine of a federal prison, knowing what will happen at every minute of the day, the week, the month. Then, being invited to begin a task that has no parameters, no rules, nothing upon which you may forecast an outcome, that requires you to stand before an audience of strangers, not to speak of the criticism of your fellow inmates. A palpable terror can overtake even the strongest constitution. In this manner we found ourselves in a great fog with zero visibility, all of us searching for safety as we floundered forward, and we began to understand that the safety rope is ourselves, the group, and thus trust builds and begins to lift the veil of doubt. But you still need an idea to plant the seed.
We decided to invite participants to create a collection of seven fables (short stories conveying a moral) and bring them to life with puppetry. The puppet fables would unfold physically, to live music, without words and without narration. As a transition from one puppet fable to another, an inmate actor would stand alone on stage and tell the audience a true story from their life that had a subtle relation to the puppet fable’s theme. For example, the audience watched the inmates puppeteer the fable The Doctor, The Judge and the Two Bakers, in which one baker is wrongfully accused and the guilty baker runs free. Then an inmate actor told the audience his true life story titled Expensive Light Bulb, about how he blamed his little brother for breaking a light bulb in their house, and for the rest of his life his brother never forgave him.
THE EARLY PROCESS
In the spring of 2013, SNAFU theatre artists Anne Cirillo and Ingrid Hansen led three weekend workshops within the walls of the prison to unearth some original fables and raw material for the show. Together the group began to dip their toes into the medium of puppet design and manipulation, building rough puppets using only newspaper and masking tape. They also began to share true stories from their lives through playback theatre which involved inviting any willing member of the group to tell a short true story from their life, and then watch as four inmate actors replayed their story in a live improvisation.4 To connect their own life histories to a sense of fable and lore, the men were then asked to write their own origin stories: for example, Spiderman’s origin story of being bitten by a radioactive spider, giving him super spider strength and starting him on a path of wearing spandex and fighting crime. Crafting their own origin stories, the group wove together real aspects of their childhoods together with magical realism. Out of these initial story-gathering workshops, a few themes emerged: parents and children, interconnectedness/the people you affect without even knowing it, unrequited love, and childhood arson.
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Pete and Ingrid took the material created and fused seven fables which reflected some of these themes: “The Children Who Played with Matches,” “The Doctor and the Two Bakers,” “The Greedy Man and the Envious Man,” “Birds of a Feather,” “The Beetle Who Fell in Love with the Bird,” “The Giant Who Fell to Earth,” and “The Seal Boy.”
At the end of August, a group of professional artists drove together through the West Coast rainforest to the prison where they met the team of twenty-seven inmates who had been corralled, cajoled, and “voluntold” by WHoS inmate leaders (members of the initial writing workshops) to come out to the first meeting. Each person around the circle indicated what aspect of the project they might be interested in. There were quite a few tentative, self-deprecating voices. We did not realize until later that most of the men in the room did not know each other because, while incarcerated together, a lot of the men keep to themselves. Many had no idea what the WHoS project was, or how it might unfold. Peter would later reflect upon this first meeting of the participants and experiencing the environment of William Head.
Entering the prison for the first time I was overwhelmed by the magnitude of the institution. I wondered how we could possibly create anything in this environment. I was consumed by fear and doubt. … I find these feelings ironically reassuring, it confirmed for me that this was something worth doing. I wasn’t sure how to respond to the questions of these individuals, I didn’t know their rules of conduct. I only knew what I had been told I wasn’t allowed to do from the formal Corrections Canada volunteer training that happened prior to the project. It became clear that none of these individuals had any experience with puppets. Hilarious I thought, this is going to be an honest collaborative creation process because we all truly needed to rely on each other to find the missing pieces, create the bridges and fill the gaps. I knew I would learn and grow a ton from this engagement.
One of the reasons puppetry was such a great fit for the project is because it provides creative outlets to people who hesitate to get onstage and call themselves actors. It also offers an instant access point to the audience and draws upon that innocence and confidence we experienced as children at play, puppeteering our toys to bring them to life. A puppet show is something best performed by the individuals who have devised the story and created the tools with which to tell it. It takes a great deal of investment; it begins with a single step that sets in motion a chain reaction, starting with an idea and desire to tell a story, an impulse in all humans. The initial idea then begs a character and the artist imagines and designs a puppet. Construction begins and soon a physical puppet emerges and some basic testing begins; folks get on their feet and experiment with puppet manipulation and movement. In the early stages the puppet does what it is told; the artist is rewarded and encouraged to move forward, fuelled by success and inspiration. But the puppet may also defy the imagined outcome and fail miserably at the task at hand, testing one’s will to create. It may also demonstrate a fully unexpected
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ability, something so brilliant that it MUST be included in the action of the story and thus the course of the show’s narrative changes. In this manner the puppet takes control and now a truly collaborative relationship of creation begins, the lines between creators and created are blurred. In the creative process, it is very difficult to ascertain where the ideas are coming from and in some sense you are now in total concert with the cosmos.
A moment where this was evident was in ‘Birds of a Feather,” the journey of a cluster of ostrich-like birds bullied by one Very Loud Bird. One bird stands up to the bully and through the support of the others the group overcomes the tyranny. Through a journey of collective design a shape of the birds emerged. There were many suggestions and ideas about the form of the birds but the final product came about through discussions on what the puppet had to accomplish, and what would be possible to create given their specific skill sets. Once the birds were nearing completion adding a plume upon the top of their head was suggested. Even though a real ostrich has nothing like this, puppets are representations, so the puppeteer takes licence in the creative journey, which enables the artist and is one reason why puppets are such clever agents of the folk artist. Pete, in his hunt for puppet construction materials, found a novelty headband with dangling bits that lit up in neon colours; it flashed and bounced about like an adolescent rave. This became the ostrich’s plume which prompted one of the inmates to suggest that the birds should dance, and so all the creatures were outfitted and a raucous dance number was choreographed. This put a nice final ‘button’ on the scene and brought a level of energy into the show; it was not conceived by a singular mind, it was a gift from creation heaven. As new ideas emerged new puppets were needed, and the production’s build list began to snowball and grow unmanageable. As the puppet show neared its opening night, the studio became a chaotic mess of desperation. Watching each other’s discoveries in the construction lab and the rehearsal hall, inspiration fed upon itself and fostered a connection between the puppets and puppeteers, between the inmate puppet builders and the inmate performers. There was a unified desire not to let each other down, to tell the best story ever told and to lift each other up to the heights of success. It was in its purest form a kind of artistic comradery.
THE BODY OF WORK
WHoS inmate Lee wrote in his post-show reflection letter,
At the beginning of each production I find myself in a room full of shadows that are trying not to stand out and who are of little voice. Then as time passes and their confidence grows their voices softly rise and they start to request more and more responsibilities. By opening night they no longer resemble the inmates that came to the first “all-call” and, albeit somewhat nervous, they are confident in the hard work that has been put forth and it is up to the audience to decide whether or not they have truly succeeded in their endeavour.5
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This original fable was written by one of the men; it is his origin story. The Seal Boy became the final fable in our show Fractured Fables: The Prison Puppet Project.
THE SEAL BOY
***
Alice married when she was seventeen and moved with her husband to Seal Bay. There she would sit on her sundeck seventy feet above the ocean. She loved to watch the seals frolic down below. Then one day, a mother seal gave birth to twins. She would leave them for hours on end to forage for food. During these absences, Alice would go down to the beach and play with the twins. After a few weeks, Alice noticed that one of the twins paid her special attention.
So on a sunny summer morning, Alice stole away with the baby seal. She put this baby in the spare bathtub in the basement. After a few months the baby would squeal and grunt in a manner that she could understand. His seal features started to morph into human looking appendages. At one year he moulted, and there before her was no longer a baby seal but a butt-ugly little boy. As the years passed by he learned to walk, talk, and after each yearly molt, became less of an ugly boy into somewhat of a normal-looking kid. The years turned to decades and his life unfolded no better yet no worse than any of the other kids in their neighbourhood.
However, once he hit seventy his skin began to wrinkle at a very fast rate. The wrinkles quickly became folds. His toes became webbed and his arms shrivelled and shortened. His double chin became immense. His nose grew large and bulbous. His once lean body took the shape of a football wrinkled beyond description. As he sat on the deck at his family home in Seal Bay, his mother long passed, he now too enjoyed just sitting and watching the seals frolic. The seals were barking and as he listened he started to realize that he could understand what they were saying to each other. It was a sunny summer morning when he waddled down to the beach and slipped into the water and was last seen frolicking with the seals in Seal Bay.
As we shared true-life stories sparked by each fable, the group’s tentative voices gave way to authentic and revealing experiences, and in a handful of days we were able to gather five true stories. These would eventually become the monologues that acted as interludes between the wordless puppet fables. With two co-directors, a band leader, and a design coordinator, we had a total of four active creative sites: men building puppets with Carole Klemm; musician Katrina Kadoski leading the inmate band; one director shaping puppet scenes, and the other director holed up in the WHoS company office, a former basketball storage closet, dissecting monologues with the actors. Kadoski, a professional bluegrass singer-songwriter, led the newly
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formed inmate band in breathing and listening exercises. The musicians retreated into their ‘band cave’ in the prison’s F Unit and started making noise together. We left the band undisturbed for several weeks where they collaboratively composed the show’s musical score. The inmate stage manager went to other inmates’ houses and quizzed them on their lines; he took it upon himself to organize extra rehearsals for the team during days off. It cannot be said enough, these guys worked harder than many who consider themselves professionals.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
Carole Klemm, our design coordinator, wrote a master list of puppets on the chalkboard—more than forty puppets emerged that we would be building from scratch: The Fat Baker, the Skinny Baker, The Judge, Seven Ostriches, An Egg, An Egg Cracked Open, An Eyeball, A Giant Eyeball with a dangling optic nerve, and so on. Participants chose puppet characters they were interested in building, and we divided up the list. Pete, Carole and Ingrid purchased glue, dowel, strapping, eyeballs, and things for puppet construction, while the inmate team investigated the prison’s junk heap for foam, wood, and fabric. That was the beginning of a truly horizontal creation process. Remarkably, that is the way with building puppets—there are no experts. No formulas. No patterns to follow. You mash things together and see what you have, testing how the puppet’s joints move, how the tiniest adjustments in the placement of the puppet’s eyeballs can change a puppet’s entire demeanour, whether it falls apart when you fling it around. One person would start a puppet, another three might consult on how the thing looked, someone else might finish building it, and then yet another person would paint it.
The first two weeks there was a lot of confusion as the inmate puppet builders asked again and again what their puppet was “supposed” to look like. We readily offered feedback, support, and advice, but refused to design anyone’s puppet for them. We were far more interested in what the men might come up with. At the prison, any materials the outside artists wanted to bring in needed security clearance—a process that takes at least two days. Often we did not know what materials would be needed until we were elbow-deep in paper-mache. So the inmate builders would rustle up a piece of Something from Somewhere and make it work, and in some instances would find results better than those previously theorized. Nothing teaches ingenuity quite like living in prison, where men have been known to jury-rig their Walkman into a homemade tattoo gun.
THE FINAL STRETCH
As we neared the deadline, one of the inmate puppeteers was sent to another institution and another man offered to cover his roles. He thought he was too old to play the child puppet and through encouragement he began to work with the
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puppet. His childlike qualities emerged, having been given permission by the puppet to express young and foolish behaviour. Deep in our hearts lies our truest nature that can be brought out through play. On opening night, the WHoS inmate team always gets nervous. For most of the team it was the first time on stage, singing, or puppeteering, first time in front of a large group and interacting with the general public in years. Imagine living twenty years in a closed-off institution, learning to hide your emotions and survive within the rules of that system, and then stepping on stage in front of the public to tell strangers, in your own words, stories about who you are. Plus the first-ever performance – the night drenched in the most adrenaline – is performed not for the general public, but for the rest of the inmate population and the other prison staff.
The show began with the inmate band’s bluegrass overture as the audience waited anxiously for the show to start. When the first three kid puppets from our “The Children Who Played With Matches” fable ambled on stage and lit the first match, one could imagine the audience members asking themselves, “What did I just get myself into?” It took the audience a bit of time to get used to the format, and by the third story people were laughing their faces off. At the end of each evening’s performance the audience could stick around for a Q & A session with the inmate team. Marilyn Brewer, former programme manager at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre, wrote in her open letter to WHoS that the interaction between actor and audience was “a rare interchange between those inside and the outside world,” and that she found the whole evening “uplifting, engaging, funny, compassionate, seriously undertaken, and beautifully realized.”
Figure 2. Ostriches fighting over the best pillow to sit on (with Anne Cirillo). Photo by Jam Hamidi of the production Fractured Fables: The Prison Puppet Project
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SOME NOTES ON PUPPETRY
There are four practical components to what gives a puppet life: manipulation, focus, fixed point, and breath. At the core it is the act of manipulation that initiates animation. Manipulation can often mean the very technical matter of figuring out how to move a puppet’s limbs and head in a way that makes it appear to be believably walking, standing, sitting, jumping, or lying down. When creating a puppet show the character of the puppeteer must always be considered as well. Who are the puppeteers? What is their relationship to the puppet, or to the audience, or to each other? Even in a costume of “neutral” black spandex the puppeteer has a relationship to the puppet that cannot be ignored.
Focus refers to the way in which the puppeteer channels their own eye and energetic focus onto the puppet. Focus allows the spectator to follow the eye of the puppet, we see what the puppet sees, we begin to understand what the puppet might want, what it fears, where it wants to go, its relationship to the world becomes clearer.
Fixed point is the quality that allows a sense of skeletal structure – it grounds the puppet in gravity and makes it a real thing in space and time. From this point a puppeteer can begin to decide how this creature moves which furthers the development of character, and the tools of the actor begin to emerge.
Breath is connecting the puppeteer to the puppet through breathing. When the puppeteer is rehearsing and holds the puppet with a natural and relaxed grip, the puppeteer’s own breath is naturally and immediately transferred to the puppet. This joining then has two effects – firstly it helps create the illusion that the puppet has little lungs working life into the creature. Secondly the puppet’s breath helps to tie the character’s journey to the dramatic tension that occurs within the arc of the story. Without tension there is no drama, and tension must either be rising or lowering. Breath helps us to track this change. An inward breath might show a rising level of tension, an idea or thought entering into the character, and the puppet seems to grow slightly in stature or expectation. An outward breath might show a lowering of tension, a release or the execution of an idea or thought.
All these elements contribute to a puppet’s journey but there is one final component that cannot be dismissed, one that is inexplicable and creates the sense that the puppet is actually a living creature. In our work we call this the transference of vital human energy. This energy is universal in its nature, the energy that flows through all living things – we call this energy Ki energy. Ki energy is present in everything we do, it moves around us, into us and extends out of us, most efficiently out of our hands. When someone begins to create art they extend their vital energy out of themselves and into the work that they are creating. In this manner what we make becomes an actual part of ourselves. This energy is also the electricity of live performance and is physically shared amongst those on stage and those in the audience. When people
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initially gather in a theatre their focus is random and undirected, but once the lights go down they direct their attention to the stage and extend their Ki energy to what is about to happen on stage. Performers on stage receive this energy, digest it and send new energy back to the audience. When we put a puppet into the equation we now have a conduit for this force which puts a community of life into the animated object and in some way the puppet actually is alive.
CLOSING REFLECTIONS
Based on this project and others we have been involved with, we suggest the following recipe for building trust in a collective environment:
Show up Shake everyone’s hand, learn everyone’s name within the first two days Ask the group for ideas, questions, stories, criticisms Listen Share personal stories, including some of your own Have high expectations but exercise flexibility – be patient Laugh a lot Lead by doing
This show was a massive undertaking. Everyone met the challenge, buzzing with fear and adrenaline and ready for new beginnings. We laughed a lot—we had to, the whole project seemed so impossible and the potential for growth was unending. The most amazing thing was to watch inmates who are “old hats” at the theatre company counsel the newbies, and talk them down from the ledge when the stage fright set in. This project awoke in us a strength that comes from working together on these types of seemingly impossible group projects. We had such a whirlwind experience together and it will continue to inspire us for years to come.
NOTES
1 All inmates’ names in this chapter are pseudonyms. 2 Carolyne Birch, 2005 interview the inmate-run Out of Bounds Magazine (the magazine is written by
inmates at the William Head Prison). 3 Studies of the impact of prison arts-based programs (e.g. Brewster, 2014) indicate these programs
have a significant impact on inmate’s attitudes and behaviours including pursing further education. 4 Source: http://www.playbacktheatre.org/ 5 All post-show reflections by inmate participants are included with permission.
REFERENCE
Brewster, L. (2014). The impact of prison arts programs on inmate attitudes and behavior: A quantitative evaluation. Justice Policy Journal, 11, 1–28.
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Ingrid Hansen SNAFU Dance Theatre Victoria
Peter Balkwill Old Trout Puppet Workshop Calgary
S. Butterwick & C. Roy (Eds.), Working the Margins of Community-Based Adult Learning, 145–155. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
VERNA MACDONALD
12. THE PARK BENCH PLAYERS
Telling Stories of Living with Mental Illness with Sincerity, Humour, and Respect
INTRODUCTION
The Park Bench Players (PBP) is a collaborative community-building project involving healthcare professionals, community volunteers, university students and individuals living with mental illness who created a play about what it is like to live with a mental illness. The goal is to educate the public, improve mental health literacy, reduce stigma and enhance the confidence and self-esteem of the cast members while building a safer community through acceptance and tolerance. Each cast member attests to their experiences of social isolation, lack of opportunities, job loss, low self-esteem, discrimination, and generally feeling outcast in their own communities, for no fault of their own. The three-act play, With a Little Help from My Friends, has a script based on the cast members’ lived experiences with mental illness, their tortures and triumphs. The honesty of the first-voice narratives has resonated deeply with audiences who became better informed and as a consequence, were moved to think and act differently about mental illness.
What began with the premiere performance in the fall of 2011 has continued, by popular demand, to find a deserving place in both a community and professional partnership, exceeding our initial expectations. The adventures that accompanied the 55 performances of the past four years opened up a world the cast members never expected to experience in their lifetime. Five of the cast members live with schizophrenia and one lives with another chronic illness and has endured bouts of depression. The organizing committee turned production crew are health professionals volunteering outside their work alongside community volunteers. Everyone contributes generously and is an integral part of the group. There is no hierarchy as all efforts are based on mutual respect and equality. Through the PBP, we have witnessed what is possible when we focus on the strengths of a marginalized population rather than their vulnerabilities. Municipal leaders remark about the change in attitudes and behaviours towards mental illness in their communities since the PBP took to the stage. A survey completed by cast members, crew and audiences validated the significant impact of this creative, first voice/ lived experience effort. Indeed this artistic project has become a true celebration of the human spirit.
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About the Author
I am the executive producer of the PBP. At the beginning of the project I was a manager of adult outpatient mental health services in the Guysborough Antigonish Strait Health Authority (GASHA) in northern Nova Scotia. It was truly serendipitous when I was appointed to the position of education coordinator for the Health District and my request to include this project in my responsibilities was granted. Little did anyone know that this play would become a significant form of health education and earn awards for its positive impact. The opportunity to be part of this creative project is a real privilege for me. I am combining my background in nursing, musical theatre, public relations and community development for a unique contribution in the field of health education.
Joining me on the production team were Maria vanVonderen, a mental health nurse with a counselling background and over 30 years of healthcare experience as well as years of volunteering in community theatre. Maria is the general manager of the show and assumes the central role of clinical support to the cast which remains a top priority. Jim Mulcahy, a retired English and drama teacher, agreed to write and direct a play with a script developed from the lived experiences of cast members. Through his creative gifts, caring personality, and sharp wit he gained the trust of the cast. Collectively the production crew created a comfortable, safe environment for the cast to share their personal struggles and challenges of living with mental illness. Dana Mason, a public health educator suggested the play idea and added his experience in music and community development to the first two years of the project. All people named in this chapter have given consent for the use of their name.
Figure 1. Logo by Simon Hillyard
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THE PROJECT
It was the spring of 2011 and the department of mental health services was challenged by growing demands on its resources. Our colleagues in Public Health were offering to assist with any prevention/promotion efforts. Other community health partners advocated for more efforts towards prevention and health promotion which would enable a much needed dialogue in the community about living with a mental illness and hopefully reduce stigma.
Dana and I explored ideas and possible outside funding sources since the mandate for our clinical mental health services budget is primarily treatment. Two ideas emerged. First, information sessions including topics of mental illness diagnoses, coping strategies and medication treatment presented by professionals from mental health, addictions and public health services over a 12-week period. The second idea was really ‘outside the box’. We explored the possibility of utilizing artistic expression through theatre to feature mental illness. This would involve community collaboration and most importantly, mental health clients willing to share their lived experiences, which would, in essence, become the script.
Proposals were submitted to potential funding sources. Of the two, we thought the unique idea of a play would surely intrigue and capture the attention of a selection panel so Jim, Maria, Dana, and I continued to meet weekly. We became giddy imagining the exciting possibilities of involving adolescents from our outpatient mental health service to share their stories of life with a mental illness. It was our intention to present this play in schools, to help young people better understand the realities of living with mental illness. We also hoped that the play would encourage much needed conversations about mental illness inside schools, despite the stigma. Our preliminary discussions of the play idea had built up our optimism and we were convinced of its merit. So, we had continued to meet regularly brain-storming and exploring exciting possibilities and became quite committed to actioning on this idea. In the end, though, we did not receive funding for either proposal and were greatly disappointed.
So instead, we channelled our passion and identified a silver lining to the dark cloud of disappointing news. I committed to continue working on this project ‘from the corner of my desk and to contribute volunteer hours after that, to make it happen’. Jim was ‘actually happier with the grant money out of the way’ as he saw the grant as imposing certain scheduling and outcome restrictions that would prohibit us from developing the production in the ‘organic’ manner we all agreed was the best process. Without those restrictions, we would be free to let things move at their own pace and allow the design of the play to be more fluid in creation and more reflective of the needs and limits of the actual participants. Both Maria and Dana also agreed to continue as part of their work, when possible, and contribute any additional time as volunteers. We were all in! So now we could let this process take on a life and rhythm of its own and see where it would take us.
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Initially, we were optimistic to recruit adolescents from our outpatient service to develop a play. Maria worked tirelessly with young clients discussing the possibilities of joining our efforts. We knew that because of stigma they might hesitate to participate. We had reassured them that their personal information and case histories would be kept confidential as we built the script. We also welcomed their participation in other ways such as creating programs for the show; set painting; working on promotions; playing a musical instrument; or taking to the stage under the guise of another ‘character’. We encouraged them to identify their creative inclinations and make suggestions. We would hold open auditions too throughout the community and invite adolescents to perform in this community theatre project with a theme of ‘living with mental illness’. However, stigma being powerful and pervasive, the adolescents struggling with the signs and symptoms of mental illness feared discovery by family and classmates should their story of personal struggles and innermost pain be told on stage. So, once again, stigma won out due to fear of reprisal.
Rather than admit defeat we started to recruit from the adult outpatient client population. Hopefully enough time had evolved since adolescence that they could safely revisit and share the many trials and tribulations of their youth with mental illness. I made 15 phone calls to members of our Outpatient Community Supports for Adults Program. Each client was puzzled and yet intrigued by the invitation to discuss the possibilities of doing a play. Most had questions for which I did not have answers. The few that ‘took the plunge’ trusted us when we said that we would sort out the answers together with everyone’s input to build a real grassroots effort. The one common, appealing theme that caught their attention was our intention to use this play to educate healthcare professionals and the general public about what it is like to live with mental illness. I recall the frequent reaction was, “oh yes, I want to help. I’d love to educate people about mental illness because there’s so much unknown out there. There’s so much negative reaction to mental illness.”
So, on a Wednesday in May at Health Connections located in the People’s Place Library on Main Street in Antigonish, our organizing committee met for the first time with four clients-Stacey, Mike, Catherine, and Pat. Fran joined us the next week. And so began a meeting of minds and long chats that eventually landed on stage. Our weekly conversations were built around social get-togethers like afternoon tea/coffee with snack and evening potluck gatherings. During dessert one evening, Pat shared a collection of his artwork which spanned his years of illness, hospitalizations, relapses, and better times. These visuals captured in stark detail the torment, anger, and disillusionment of his illness and we knew sharing this kind of raw creativity would have a profound impact on any audience, just like it had on us that night. At our next meeting, Fran brought along her friend, Louise, a graphic artist who also lived with mental illness. Louise was quick to tell us that she was not at all comfortable about being on stage. After some encouragement from Jim over the many weeks, a script prompter was born: Louise Hall’s prompting from the wings would join Patrick Chisholm, Mike Martell, Fran Nunn, Catherine Tétu and Stacey Septon on stage, the cast members of this creative, therapeutic art endeavor.
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The Development of the Play
One of the wonders of these gatherings was how smoothly our group made the important transition from a collection of health professionals, community volunteers, and people who live with mental illness to a tight group sewn together by their shared interest in mental health education and a strong desire to change people’s perspective on mental illness. By putting a human face on a health condition that is usually not discussed openly but instead kept hidden in the dark shadows of society, maybe, just maybe, we could make a difference. Very soon our writer/director Jim, who worked with the cast as a group as well as in one-on- one meetings, gained the trust of the cast and learned two very important things about how they wanted to move this project forward. First, Fran suggested that although education was the primary focus, she insisted that we not come off as ‘too preachy’. Instead, she wanted to use humour and show that the cast could laugh at themselves despite living with a serious and sometimes debilitating illness. Second, our original offer of anonymity, if clients preferred to protect their identity while their lived experiences became the script, was turned down. The cast were in total agreement that they would play themselves since no one else could do that any better. Mind you, there was great trepidation about getting on stage in public but we would cross that bridge when we came to it.
From May to September 2011, through regular meetings and Jim’s one-on-one meetings we developed possibilities for a performance. Without a strict timeline which may have been imposed by a grant, we could take the time to honour each cast member as they developed their own story with Jim’s guidance and, as a group, shape the direction of the plot. It was of utmost importance to maintain the creative environment as a safe place. We incorporated themes of social justice and empowerment with a strengths-based approach consistent with outpatient mental health services psychosocial rehabilitation model of care. And so, a three-act play called With a Little Help from My Friends began to take shape. It was based on the personal narrative of each cast member’s lived experience. They became excited to share their stories of a life journey with mental illness. Through their individual courage and strength, the cast opened not only their hearts to audiences but also risked disturbing the deep wounds of illness whose scars had created a tough exterior that helped them to weather the trials and tribulations of life with a chronic and persistent mental illness.
And, of course, we needed a name. One of the interesting yet sad revelations of our discussions was that some cast members and many of their friends, being part of marginalized populations by virtue of mental illness, poverty, unemployment, etc, spent hours sitting on park benches along the main street. They just watched the world go by but rarely felt part of it. So, when we planned a simple set-up, it was only fitting that a park bench be centre stage and the group name became The Park Bench Players. The play became a celebration of friendship, courage, and hope, which succeeded in educating, entertaining, and inspiring audiences.
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The Premiere
The premiere took place on November 13, 2011 in the Clare Marie Gathering Place, a multipurpose space which was formerly the chapel of the St. Martha’s Hospital School of Nursing—an ideal setting, we thought. We were convinced the Spirit of the Marthas was on hand to lend support. We knew we were in unchartered waters with a play performed by an amateur cast of individuals talking about living with a mental illness. Who would ever come to that? We sent special invitations to each cast member’s family and close friends hoping the familiar, friendly faces in the audience would help the cast manage their nervousness. I invited a few health administrators and local dignitaries as part of a strategy to garner wider appeal. If they saw the show and all went well, their support might ensure another performance for health professionals and the general public.
Opening night saw a packed house, a sea of eager, friendly faces. The cast managed their jitters very well and were feeding off the energy and excitement of what seemed like acceptance by the audience. In fact, during the first intermission, audience members came forward and scolded us for not having charged an admission. They said the cast members were wonderful and insisted that we at least provide donation boxes for an appreciative audience to show their gratitude for the courage of the cast. As they stuffed twenty dollar bills into our pockets, we gazed in amazement and said to one another, “They get it! They really do get it!” After the show, as the cast mingled with family and friends, there were lots of tears. Siblings, mothers and fathers reached out to hug their loved one—one who has suffered for years with chronic mental illness as well as isolation and backlash— who had now taken to the stage and performed as would never have been imagined possible. The players were cheered as fearless, courageous, and really very funny by an audience of over 100 people. The success of the first show guaranteed a second. Within two weeks, the Park Bench Players returned to the stage with a full house of healthcare staff. Once again there was a standing ovation from an appreciative audience amazed by the courage and bravery of a group of people who had long felt ignored and victims of discrimination in their community. The timing of this second show coincided with the Health Authority’s accreditation, a healthcare system performance review based on meeting standards with a focus on safety and quality. Peer reviewers from across Canada for this exercise were in the audience. Accreditation Canada’s 2011 report for GASHA included a special mention for the creative, inspiring work of the Park Bench Players. This solid, credible endorsement bolstered our spirits for more shows!
THE IMPACT
In the case of the PBP project, we were surprised by the impact; surprises for the cast, the crew and our audiences. When people asked me before a show, “what’s it about?” I would do my best to explain; after the show, those same people would
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exclaim in amazement through tears: “Why didn’t you tell me it was going to be like that!” I believe seeing the play was a form of ‘contact-based education’, an experiential event described by Louise Bradley of the Mental Health Commission of Canada in a May 2015 webinar on Workplace Mental Health. When we learn through the lived experience of another person, it can resonate with us and develop greater meaning than through more traditional methods. After performances for St. Francis Xavier University Bachelor of Education and Master of Education students, Dr Chris Gilham, assistant professor commented:
The PBP performance creates the space in which we come to better understand and embrace the complexity of mental health as a conversation that involves each and every one of us. This performance exemplifies and enlivens an expression from the disability movement, ‘nothing about us without us’. The performance is an extremely powerful reminder that our understanding of mental health must not be reduced solely to signs, symptoms, and medical diagnosis. The ancient Greeks understood the power of the play, of stories, and the cathartic and unifying role they play in society.
The play has exceeded our expectations. We have done 55 presentations throughout Nova Scotia, including to prison inmates at the Nova Institution for Women in Truro. We have also contributed to first responders training for provincial departments of Health and Justice called Understanding and Responding to Mental Illness. Recognition has also come from municipal and provincial bodies signifying this work as ground-breaking and valuable. Awards received include the 2012 Community Health Advocacy Award from the Guysborough Antigonish Strait Health Authority (GASHA), the 2013 Inspiring Lives recognition from the Mental Health Foundation of Nova Scotia and the Canadian Mental Health Association- Nova Scotia, the 2013 Good Neighbour Award from the Town of Antigonish, NS, and the 2014 Meaningful Involvement Consumer Award (MICA) from the Nova Scotia Department of Health and Wellness (DHW). After seeing the show, Patricia Murray, Special Advisor to the Nova Scotia Associate Deputy Minister on Mental Health and Addictions DHW, said,
I was blown away by the performance by the Park Bench Players. I had heard lots of good reviews of their play With a Little Help from My Friends but I didn’t fully understand how amazing it was until I saw it for myself. It was poignant, touching, inspiring, honest, and hysterically funny. I admire the actors for their bravery and wisdom. Everyone should see it but maybe especially those with lived experience [of mental illness] to appreciate for themselves what is possible with a little help from your friends!
We also received national awards, namely the 2013 Quality of Life Award from the Canadian College of Health Leaders (CCHL) and an Honorary Mention for the 2014 Champion Award for Patient Safety from the Canadian Patient Safety Institute (CPSI) and Accreditation Canada. Ray Racette, President and CEO of CCHL
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commented, “This award recognizes outstanding work in healthcare and The Park Bench Players is certainly a creative and ‘outside the box’ program. We need more of this kind of creative work in healthcare delivery.”
In addition, we travelled to Vancouver, British Columbia where we performed at the National Psychosocial Rehabilitation Canada Annual Conference and received the 2012 Pioneer Recovery Award of Excellence from Psychosocial Rehabilitation Canada (PSR/RPS). When the news arrived in the summer of 2012 that the PBP would receive the PSR award in Vancouver, we agreed that both cast and production crew had to go. It was all or nothing and so started a quick community fundraising campaign. In less than six weeks, a goal of $10,000 was exceeded. Raffles, including a print of a park bench by local artist Anna Syperek; a park bench donated by Central, a local building supplies store; a five-course meal with wine at Gabrieau’s Bistro; and proceeds from a Gala Performance of the play before a packed audience altogether totalled $14,000.We were off to Vancouver to pick up our first national award. When The Players returned to Antigonish, they were met at the entrance to the town with horns blaring and lights flashing and given a Heroes Welcome parade down Main Street to celebrate their accomplishments. The community wanted to show how very proud they were to call The Park Bench Players their own.
For The Players, involvement with the drama group has meant an increase in self-confidence and self-esteem; the development of new friendships and a close support group; and the opportunity to share with their community the struggles they face. The fact is they are really just members of the community who want to be full citizens, just like everybody else. The smiles on their faces when they talk about their experiences with the play are broad, and the camaraderie and good humour is infectious. They describe themselves now as being “addicted to applause.” However, it was not always easy for them to contemplate being on stage and openly talking about their personal lives. For one player, the journey from backstage to on stage took two years. Cast members’ comments demonstrate transformation: “I am more aware of my strengths and I feel better about myself overall;” “I find I am a happier person. Life has meaning and purpose now. I wake up early, looking forward to going on with my day” and “I don’t think we’re invisible anymore.”
In the introduction before each performance we state our intention, “to entertain, educate, and inspire while reducing stigma around mental illness and improving mental health literacy.” From the response of audiences, it seems we are fulfilling those intentions. In surveys, audience members report being transformed, with a deeper appreciation of what it is like to live with a mental illness on a daily basis. Some say, “This show has changed the culture of our community. It has made it possible for us to talk about mental illness and we’ve learned so much from The Park Bench Players;” someone added, “Everyone needs to see this play. It’s funny, educational, and tells the story of living with mental illness in a sincere and respectful way.” The reported change in attitudes toward mental illness in Antigonish has been profound. The Players are recognized on the street; people stop and congratulate them on their performances and inquire as to their well-being. One store clerk who
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had previously ignored one of the players when she shopped, now greets her by name and wants to talk about the play. The Players notice a big difference and are proud to be new community ambassadors.
Expansion: School Performances and the Teacher Resource Tool
Although our intention to engage local youth in the creation of a play about mental illness did not materialize, we wanted to bring the play and its important messages to schools. After witnessing the significant impact it had on audiences, we knew not to rush to perform in schools. Instead, we encouraged guidance counsellors, principals, and school nurses to work with the students in advance, preparing them for the topic of mental illness and building capacity for support and safety after the show. The powerful messages covered in the play can trigger youth who are beginning, or have already experienced, a mental illness so in advance of a school performance, Maria works with the school staff to offer important mental health support. Based on the first experience with a youth audience, we added a resource tool, a mental health education/support package for school performances which includes pre- and post- show surveys to gauge outcomes. The original package has been perfected as a result
Figure 2. The Park Bench Players cast and crew add the 2015 St. Francis Xavier University Community Partner Recognition Award to their award cabinet.
Front row (l to r): Jim Mulcahy, writer/director; Verna MacDonald, executive producer; Stacey Septon, cast member (kneeling) and seated on the bench: cast members:
Fran Nunn, Louise Hall; crew volunteers: university student Connor Mahaffey; Margaret Boudreau, production assistant. Back row (l to r): cast members: Catherine Tétu, Mike
Martell, Pat Chisholm, Maria vanVonderen, general manager/clinical support, and technical volunteer, Ken Kingston. Photo by: Margaret Boudreau
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of two Service Learning projects completed by students in the St. Francis Xavier University Bachelor of Education Program. The whole experience has become a tremendous contribution to mental health education for students and educators in a safe and supportive environment. One teacher commented, “In all my years of teaching, this is the most valuable tool I have ever used in my classroom.” The impact on students is significant: “I am a hard rock to move when it comes to changing my opinions and what The Park Bench Players did to move me was phenomenal,” reported a high school student.
After a show, young people quietly come forward to talk about their own mental health challenges and some asked to volunteer with The Players. In the end, we have reached the youth. “You are so cool” is a frequent compliment from local teens when they ask the cast for autographs. Who would ever have guessed that a group of individuals talking about living with mental illness would become role models for youth? Indeed our goal to educate with the play has been formally validated. We received the 2015 St. Francis Xavier University Community Partner Recognition Award which acknowledges a local, regional, national, or international community partner who has made a significant and sustained contribution to the growth and development of educational (teaching and/or research) opportunities in the St. Francis Xavier University Community.
We will continue with this journey. The players currently perform two presentations, a three-act play and a short Readers Theatre piece, each based on their experiences including early symptoms, diagnoses, and daily struggles. Their work is a powerful testament to the strength of relationships and personal growth built through shared creative activity as suggested by the titles, With a Little Help from My Friends and the Readers Theatre, Sometimes Life Has a Way of Surprising You.
Keeping the Show on the Road—A Journey of Hope and Recovery
The success of the Park Bench Players needed to be recorded for posterity and to maybe help other communities replicate the concept. We wanted to represent a grassroots initiative that leads to positive outcomes for mental health and wellness through artistic community building. In 2013, a grant from the Nova Scotia Department of Health and Wellness financed a documentary film on The Park Bench Players, which was showcased at the 2014 Antigonish International Film Festival. Funds were also provided to keep the show on the road and continue to spread the word of hope and recovery. The filmmaker spoke of the show’s impact on him:
As an experienced independent filmmaker and son of a mental health professional, I was intrigued when I heard about the Park Bench Players project. I thought it might make an interesting film. I would just have to film a performance and a few interviews… However before I knew it I was embraced by the cast and the production crew and for the next two years, I became an “embedded filmmaker.” My camera and I travelling with the crew
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to performances, social gatherings, meetings, practices, as well as intimate conversations on their personal history of dealing with mental illness. I experienced the ups and downs of the cast and crew…the hard work and effort they put into the play, their fears, worries, and nervousness about revealing their life story on stage with a live audience … their bravery. I also experienced the satisfaction, the elation and pride they must feel when they get one of their many standing ovations. If that isn’t enough to realize what a powerful effect they are having on their audience, then seeing individuals come up to the “actors” after each performance and pour their heart out makes the case. It’s obvious the message is getting through. In my film Sometimes Life Has a Way of Surprising You, I was able to capture much of this inspired phenomena that is the Park Bench Players and hope my film will help in the battle for Mental Wellness. (Peter Murphy, SeaBright Productions)
CONCLUSION
The play reminds audiences of two important messages. The first is that those who live with a mental illness are so much more than their illness. For example, Fran shared her gift of poetry and the enjoyment of her writing in which she is so articulate. Everyone has their ups and downs on life’s journey but each of us aims to strike a balance in overall health and wellness. Another message we emphasize is that you are not alone. It is ok to come out of the shadows, there is help. There is hope for a better quality of life. The power of the play lies in the storytelling. Each cast member shines a light on their story hoping to break down barriers and bring real life into conversations. For the cast, it has succeeded in building confidence and supporting social inclusion in the community and a sense of empowerment in their lives.
This experience reminds us of the power of creative expression in life fulfilment and balance. This project illustrates the gift of creative talents in each of us which, once awakened, can empower us to find our voice and create a sense of wholeness. For the cast members who once felt invisible, theatre has taken them to centre stage where their voices are now heard and respected. “The power of The Park Bench Players is in the honesty, creativity, and integrity of people with deep challenges sharing meaningful and beautiful lives. They are working for change, surely we can too,” said Dr Alan Warner of Acadia University.
Verna MacDonald Nova Scotia Health Authority Nova Scotia
S. Butterwick & C. Roy (Eds.), Working the Margins of Community-Based Adult Learning, 157–168. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
JAN SELMAN AND JOHN BATTYE
13. TELLING OLD STORIES IN NEW WAYS
Popular Theatre in Western Kenya
Western Kenya, Kisumu Cultural Centre. A group of fifteen Luo actors improvise a scene from a time many years ago. An unnamed beautiful young woman is cajoled and coerced by her tribe’s elders to go to an enemy tribe (the Luo) to lure their amazing warrior into marriage. She is to spy for her community and learn the secret of the undefeated warrior’s success in battle. She protests. She defies. She weeps. Elders try strategy after strategy to get her to agree: it is good for the people; she will save her community; the enemy is taking what belongs to them; it is her duty; she will be showered with gifts. She protests: she has a boyfriend she wants to stay with; she has never been away from her family; she is afraid of the enemy; she doesn’t speak their language. The elders stand firm. They attempt to persuade her with demands, bribes, appeals to her responsibilities for the tribe, and more. There is no way around it, they require her to go. The improvisation completes as she moves off with commitment, resignation, assurances of glory, a promise of payment for her sacrifices, determination. We take a breath, add this scene to our story line, and debrief. Someone says, “This story is told and retold in our community. But never has this part of the story been told. We never hear about the Nandi woman’s story before she becomes warrior Luanda Magere’s second wife.”
The project “Old Stories in New Ways” involves multiple partners including Luo-Kenyan performing artists, a Canadian popular theatre director, plus Canadian and Kenyan academics from several disciplines. The chapter’s authors, Jan Selman and John Battye, both affiliated with the Department of Drama at the University of Alberta, co-direct and organize the project. The events described above happened during the project’s first creation workshop, an exploration of the local traditional story, Luanda Magere.
INTRODUCTION
Old Stories in New Ways is a multi-year creation and research project focused on theatrical adaptations of resonant traditional stories, aiming to address contemporary issues important to Kenyan communities. Canadian and Kenyan artists and researchers are exchanging insights throughout processes of adaptation, critical
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reflection, performance, and evaluation.1 Urbanization, technology, health risks, environmental degradation, and global economics are challenging and rapidly transforming societies built on powerful traditions of cultural homogeneity and stability, traditions reinforced in their stories. While a traditional story reflects a culture in its complexity, it also can support entrenched viewpoints. We are exploring whether by investigating multiple perspectives within a story, we can open it up to reveal, challenge and possibly redress community problems. Can we tap stories’ powers yet divert or adapt them towards current and localized goals for change? We wonder whether the complexity, nuances, imagery, and ubiquitous nature of local stories can be re-visioned to offer both cultural specificity and the contemporary complexity that can enrich and deepen reflection and action. The issues are urgent. In addition to facing significant poverty and social upheaval, Western Kenya is home to minority cultures, and this exacerbates governance and inclusion issues in the region. Throughout Kenya, youth from over forty language and tribal groups flock to cities and embrace the internet and global pop culture. Times are exciting and perilous.
Luanda Magere is the first story our team worked with, exploring ways to open it up to non-traditional readings and theatricalization. It was a valuable launch-point for our long term goals, to create several kinds of performances that weave traditional stories and contemporary action agendas. Building on local artists’ knowledge and commitments to their communities and on research-based evidence that story and theatre engage audiences and can affect behaviour and action,2 we aim to transform while preserving powerful (and empowering) stories, reaching individuals and communities through performance to contribute to transformation.
FOUNDATIONS
While this project is at the beginning of its imagined three year process, we build on foundational relationships previously developed. In Kenya for other work, Jan sought out community-based theatre artists to learn how that field is faring. Kenya holds a remarkable place in community-based, popular theatre annals, given an outstanding literacy-to-theatre project based in Kamariithu.3 As we started this consultation process, a remarkable young Luo-Kenyan organizer, Raphael Omondi, suggested we look beyond the capital city.
I saw outstanding theatre work in village markets, outside NGO buildings, in open air shelters, in classrooms and library halls.4 Generous artists showed me work in progress, performances, and rehearsals. I asked about their organizations, work processes, funding and goals. Artists wanted more theatre training. They live with very interrupted funding opportunities. They wanted more exposure for their work. I said I hoped to return and work with them some day. (from Jan’s personal records of experiences in Kenya)
Out of these beginnings came the creation of an umbrella arts-producing organization, Ignite Afrika Trust, and a well-attended festival which is now an
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annual platform for artists to present their work and see each other’s performances. Artistic relationships grew out of this consistent and responsive set of initiatives. We strive to listen and hear one another.
As I watched huge crowds appreciating local artists’ short presentations in this festival format – contemporary and traditional dance, plays, comedy, storytelling performance and music, in Luo, Swahili, and English – I wondered what might happen next. I wondered what would happen if some of these fantastic artists tried to create together. (from Jan’s personal records of experiences in Kenya)
We could not start this new conversation without a history together. A time of listening, watching, asking questions, being willing to be naïve, learning, and actively trying to understand what was being said, on and off the stage, is essential to building across our cultural differences. Trust and bluntness are requirements for setting the stage for conversations about a new project, at least certainly this one, where we want to create collaboratively. We had to earn the space to be frank with one another. We seek to build a context-sensitive space, yet also to create conditions where there is room for the creative talents and critical social insights of Canadians and Western Kenyans.5
TURNING STORY INSIDE OUT
We started with workshops aimed at theatricalizing a traditional Luo story. We wanted to find new ways of working for everyone, as we come from such differing performance traditions and believe one of the innovations that may lead to high impact will come from a mash-up of very different, yet recognizable and contemporary performance forms: rap and hip hop, East African storytelling and theatre, among others. We imagine that traditional dance may morph into hip hop, drama may be interrupted by digital media, audience interaction, and contemporary song, and an old resonant story may be intercepted and changed up as it confronts a contemporary one. So, as most of the artists are specialists in one or more of these forms, and to capitalize on our varied backgrounds, we decided to take a short test drive. Selecting one of the most popular traditional stories of the region, we set out to dig into it, exploring it on our feet, through planned and spontaneous improvisation. We intend that its adaptation will reveal latent issues, and will expose current challenges to gender equity, dislocation, good governance, and inclusion/exclusion. This is the story we started with:
In the Sidho region of Kenya a large rock sits, off the shores of Lake Victoria. This is what remains of Luanda Magere, the “fierce rock,” a great warrior of the Luo people. Long ago Luo and Nandi tribes were at war. The Luo had a wealth of cattle and sugar fields, and the Nandi raided them often. However, they were rarely successful because of the great warrior Luanda Magere. He
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had been gifted by the gods with stone skin, so no spear could harm him. He would often come out during the night when the Nandi raided, and beat them back single-handedly.
After many losses, the Nandi elders decided to try a different tactic to rid the world of Luanda Magere. A beautiful young girl was chosen and sent to him as a second wife. In his pride Luanda agreed to the gift, and there was a brief time of peace. Unbeknownst to him, the Nandi girl was sent to find his weakness, and report it back to her elders.
One day while home by herself, the Nandi wife was confronted by Luanda Magere, who had taken sick and needed tending to. Unexpectedly, he instructed her to cut his shadow and rub medicine into it. She did as he asked and was shocked to see that the shadow bled when she cut it!
That night she snuck back to her homeland and told her elders of Luanda’s weakness. The next time the Nandi raided, they did so during the daytime. When Luanda Magere came out to fight them off, a warrior snuck behind him and struck his shadow with a spear. The spear hit true and he fell to the ground, turning instantly to stone. The Nandi were victorious, and Luanda Magere remains to this day as a reminder of their strife.6
Figure 1. Luanda Magere falls sick and asks Second Wife to help. Actors (left to right): Claris Tina and Collins Ochieng’
Why use story? Popular theatre and theatre for development have traditions of drawing on “the people’s stories.”7 Popular, or “of the people,” suggests using performance forms as well as content that are familiar and meaningful to audiences,
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and one of the ongoing challenges in this field is to find both content and form which have powers of the familiar while challenging the status quo. We wondered: what if old (resonant) stories were looked at with the new (contemporary) eyes of a rapidly changing local culture? Could we tap into the importance and need for folktales and myth, while using them to spark and build significant community change around pressing issues? We align ourselves to viewpoints such as those of novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2009):
Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity. (https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_ story/)
Activist theatre, or theatre for social change, often uses personal experiences to discover and interrogate issues faced by a community. But rather than working within local cultural performance styles, much of this work imports processes such as forum or magnet theatre. These approaches usually take local life experiences and turn them into performance, to create a platform for studying and problematizing local challenges. When these experiences are fictionalized, the performances can lead to powerful explorations of possible interventions for change, in a risk-free environment. There are pitfalls to these approaches, however. The trade-off of the immediacy in these processes and their search for fixes to problems can mean audience experiences are reduced, the narrative and characters made thin to express the immediate goals of the performers.
We build our lives around and through story; they explain ourselves to the world. In defining ourselves through story, we reach out to others, and we reflect on the roles we play. Social psychologist Donald Polkinghorne (1988) suggests they surround us, we send them out, and receive them in kind. We reflect and explain but also conjecture:
The products of our narrative schemes are ubiquitous in our lives: they fill our cultural and social environment. We create narrative descriptions for ourselves and for others about our own past actions, and we develop storied accounts that give sense to the behavior of others. We also use the narrative scheme to inform our decisions by constructing imaginative “what if” scenarios. On the receiving end, we are constantly confronted with stories during our conversations and encounters with the written and visual media. We are told fairy tales as children, and read and discuss stories in school. (p. 14)
But what of folktales, such as Luanda Magere?8 Reaching beyond the day-to- day stories which elucidate our lives, folktales are told and retold, surviving over generations. But does this make for strong starting points for an activist agenda? Perhaps Luanda Magere (and story/folktales like it) is long-lasting not only because it reifies cultural norms; perhaps it also offers the potential to be turned inside out,
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to question those norms. Social problems are not easily solved exactly because they are complex, involving multiple points of view, and constructed with multiple narratives. We conjecture that when these perspectives are brought to the surface, an audience will recognize and cherish the familiarity of the story, yet also have to confront other meanings the story may hold. In driving a performance through a beloved story, we are not necessarily setting out to solve a community’s problems, but rather presenting them in a new light so that audiences might look at their story and the issues embedded in it from new angles. By using story-driven performance of community-owned stories as a basis for understanding communal issues, the task falls to the community to answer things themselves.
THE FIRST WORKSHOP: ASKING QUESTIONS THROUGH THEATRE
Luanda Magere contains a number of characters that, while important as narrative devices, are never really fleshed-out, so to speak, into fully three-dimensional characters. They become allegorical cultural symbols in the guise of characters, or as we call them, ciphers. As ciphers, characters such as Luanda Magere’s first wife, the Nandi woman, and both tribes’ elders hold latent potential in terms of adaptation. By virtue of their unexplained actions, origins, and motivations, they become perfect vessels to fill, giving performers leave to use them to wonder and make argument.
It seems everyone in the Luo community knows something about this story, and as we immerse in it, it grows, taking on a mythic scale with characters that may be seen as archetypes. Archetype as a concept has many origins, coming from a background of psychology, influenced by literary and new media criticism. Marshall McLuhan suggests the archetype is a “retrieved awareness or consciousness” (2001, p. 18). When we apply this concept to a character or characteristic of traditional stories, we take it to mean that these elements somehow reflect or reinforce an aspect of cultural memory; they are “extremely cohesive” (p. 19). However, archetypes can be thin characters, more narrative device than flesh-and-blood. The Warrior Hero or Vixen Intruder become ciphers instead of rich characters, full of contradictions. Yet by expanding the character, we challenge, argue with, and increase the breadth of the archetype. An archetypal character deeply investigated becomes a powerful vehicle for a storyteller. As Jungian analyst Anthony Stevens says, archetypes are “‘active living dispositions’ or ‘living organisms, endowed with generative force’ [and] have the capacity to initiate, control and mediate the common behavioural characteristics and typical experience of our kind, even though we are, for the most part, unaware of them.” (Stevens, 2003, p. 44). Our project set out to reveal these characteristics, to reveal experiences and social conditions these characters could hold.
We wondered: how can we tap these powers? Can we adapt this favoured story to challenge some of the very social conditions that it reflects and reifies? Resonant stories owe their survival to the age-old and ever-living tradition of narrative performance. Storytellers adapt these ancient creations to appeal to different generations through the immediacy of performance. Luanda Magere is one of these
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constantly retold stories. But could it be radically adapted, to challenge some of the very things it appears to support?
The creative team decided to find out, not by holding discussions on a pressing issue facing Western Kenya then inventing a story to address the topic, but instead by simply asking questions that arise out of the story itself. Who was the second wife? Where did she come from? How did she attract Luanda Magere? What do we think happened at her home before she came? We tried to answer these questions on our feet, through improvisation. The version that we describe above was one of the theatre-based answers, generated by collective theatrical exploration. We hope that adapting resonant stories to performance through these methods will, on one hand valorize the community and its history, yet on the other hand invite dialogue and debate in light of contemporary insights.
We played and played, always in terms of the story. We followed our noses: what could happen next, what could have happened; resetting perspectives and what ifs led this early investigation. We found much richness in explorations of the two women in the story: the first (Luo) wife and the second (Nandi) wife. How did they catch Luanda Magere’s eye? Who was the first wife? How did she come to know the secret of his strength? Was the second wife welcomed by the first? How did she learn the language and customs of the Luo? We explored possible answers through creating images, sub stories and improvisations, learning as we went, and building a stock of possibilities for a future adaptation.
Figure 2. Elders and the Langi Girl’s family debate her fate.9 Actors: Sheilah Onguo, Collins Ochieng’, William Ochieng, Velma Atieno, Vincent Oduor
We call this “exploding the story”. Using this phrase gave the work importance and freedom. A question was a fuse, and an improvised answer a little or large explosion
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which turned things on end, revealing enticing fragments of the story that were previously inside, under a smoother surface. For example, we spent considerable time wondering on our feet about what happened to the second wife after she learned of Luanda Magere’s secret. How did she get home? What was her reception back home? What happened to her? Some extensions of the story say she was pregnant and later bore Luanda Magere’s son. We explored multiple possible versions of this part of the story:
Version One. Nandi Woman arrives home. She goes to the elders and tells them what she has learned. Celebration and preparation for battle. Success on the battle field, the fierce enemy warrior is dead, her tribe victorious. The tribe celebrates. She goes to the elders to ask for her reward. Her pregnancy is showing. She is shamed, rejected.
Version Two. Her family accompanies her to witness her glory. When things turn bad her father defends her, and challenges the elders. Who are we if we shame her for doing what we asked. They face this.
Version Three. Nandi Woman arrives home. She goes to her favorite aunt for advice. She has the secret, but is pregnant. The family decides to barter the information for her reward and protection. Huge scenes of elders taking various positions. They want the secret of how to defeat Luanda Magere. But she has shamed them, is unclean. But they sent her, they can’t ignore that they knew, even if they did not say, how she would get close enough to get the secret, but …
Another fruitful approach for delving into the story involved telling it many times through varying eyes. We constructed a huge image, encompassing all the characters and roles that the story suggests: the key characters were placed at the centre and we worked out from there. Again we worked by asking questions. Who else is in this story? We added children. Who is behind the scenes? We added elders. Who are allies? We added warriors. What were they fighting about anyway? We added cattle. What happened between battles? We added families. We added shepherds. Then actors told the story from each point of view. How did a warrior who was guarding the cattle see the situation? What about the First Wife? The mother of the Nandi Woman? What about the cows? As an actor in character told the parts of the story that their character witnessed, characters (and actors) grappled with: what do these events mean to me? What do I want and need? What do I accept without question? What do I want to challenge? What do I dream of? What is in the way? A sentry wanted glory. A warrior wanted to go home. Another wanted the enemy to show, so he could fight the fight he was meant for. A Luo woman wanted the new wife to learn the right way to dance, the right way to dress and behave. A cow just wanted to be left alone, to stay in one place and eat grass. Each version offered not only new facts and textures but also varying themes, values, and ideas.
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This workshop gave us rich fodder for a future theatricalization and new adaptation of this old tale. In the moment it assisted us to ask: what is in this story that matters to us, now, today? By asking on our feet, doors kept opening, unknown layers were revealed and contradictions kept emerging. We were blending what “I” think as we explored what “my character” experiences.
At one point in our workshop the creative team stopped focusing on the story. We needed to pause and step outside the story development, to reflect on what our activist agenda could or should be. As a new group, we needed to check in about our views on what Western Kenya is grappling with. We ended our day by just brainstorming a list of pressing issues in current day Kenya. The list included: gender equity, land rights, tribalism, corruption, racism, sexual abuse, religious differences, discrimination, poverty, insecurity.10 After the session that day a co-director and I stood by the list. Almost simultaneously we turned to each other and remarked on how all items on the list are sitting right in Luanda Magere, the “old” story we are exploring. (from Jan’s personal records of experiences in Kenya)
THEORY INFORMING PRACTICE
The urgent nature of the issues faced by these artists and their communities impacts our methodology. We need to maintain a sense of rigorous critique without falling into inaction. Several strands of cultural, art, and theatre theories interconnect with enacting this creative research. Critical discussions of voice, enfranchisement/ disenfranchisement, appropriation, ‘authenticity,’ and listening across difference inform this work, yet must not stop us in our tracks. Rather, these concepts must and do assist us to design and assess each phase of the project, every day. We find that these concepts must inform us while discussions of interculturalism and adaptation theory focus, challenge, and shape the longer term reflective yet action-oriented conversation.
When applied to performance, adaptation theories, and practices can be used to tell an old story in a new form or with a new subtextual meaning. Adaptation can also lead to telling new stories through old ones, the latter providing inspiration for the former. While the original Luanda Magere is resonant with its community, it remains in some ways a problematic depiction of the people and culture, given many community members’ views on what needs to change. Adaptation, especially towards contemporary concerns, can mean that the new story “destabilizes the authority of the original text [enabling] multiple and sometimes conflicting production of meaning.” (Sanders, 2006, p. 3) So far, the work on our feet suggests that we may find ways of disrupting this story to expose issues of gender inequality and tribalism, among others, while evoking the culture and history of the Luo people. This exploration has implications in realms of cross-cultural understanding, reduction of prejudice
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and misinformation, and xenophobia, all of which are readily named issues in this region. The team hopes that this theatrical adaptation can bring people from many backgrounds together within a common theatrical experience, link generations, tap powers of important stories, and yet suggest new relevance. Moving forward, the creative and critical teams will debate and intersect around these issues, and consider whether parallel or contradictory stories of contemporary characters should weave through this culturally significant story. At a time when gender inequity and tribalism are in the spotlight in Kenya, the stakes are high and there is little room or time to cushion or soft peddle these divisive problems.
We understand interculturalism as the drive to create a class or society that has common goals despite containing different cultures; one importantly problematized outcome is that each culture is placed into a hierarchy that strives to homogenize the minority elements of any culture within its bounds, ostensibly to create a place of common good. In post-colonial Kenya nation-building is a pre-occupation, given histories of intertribal and colonial-induced violence; multiple languages and cultures jostle to keep vibrant, while hierarchy and economic spoils drive many agendas. Theatre, via its collaborative nature, can enable a strengthening of intercultural dialogue, effectively showcasing “how inequities in the cultural mix can be dissolved and solidarities forged across difference” (Knowles, 2010, p. 6). This notion of mixture is important in this setting; for intercultural theatre to be effective, to rise above a taxonomy reinforcing difference, it needs to be “dedicated to the principle of observing and honoring cultural and historical specificity, theater that refuses every temptation to universalize, generalize, and allegorize the specific cultural crossings from which it arises” (Chaudhuri, 2003, p. 35). Western Kenya is a culturally diverse area, with many active tribal demarcations. Keeping Chaudhuri’s principle in mind, our work may seek to transgress traditional boundaries of tribal identity.
Figure 3. A medicine man prophesizes at the birth of Luanda Magere. Actor: Edward Otieno and other Old Stories in New Ways members
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Luanda Magere is told from the Luo perspective and the titular warrior is seen as a great man of their people brought low through treacherous means. By investigating the story and enacting it from a number of different perspectives, two things are accomplished. First, these cipher characters become fuller, more sympathetic, yet also controversial by virtue of being seen from multiple angles. Second, the story itself is exploded outwards, dispelling any notion of an easy answer to whom is in the “right” and “wrong” in this conflict.
MOVING FORWARD
As we take steps beyond our first stimulating investigations, we will meet a lot of these questions head on, in practice, within our group as well as within the adaptation itself. We are conscious of upcoming challenges of process, relationship, collectivity and adaptation. Can we harness the power of an old story, yet invert and explode it to challenge the status quo? We hope that once complete, this project will contribute beyond this local initiative, to define a model of community-engaged participation in identifying, transforming, and using communities’ meaningful, traditional, and contemporary stories as tools for timely social intervention.
To fully plumb the inherent possibilities of this project, we must first challenge ourselves to ask questions for as long as possible, to collectively stay open to discovery. Can we continue exploring on our feet as a way to get at and under critiques of gender inequity and tribalism? Are there other issues that are both latent in the story and pressing? We must be willing to ask and re-ask questions from our separate positions (researcher to artist and Canadian to Kenyan) as well as together, to take the risk to pose increasingly difficult and more uncomfortable questions across our differences.
NOTES
1 Researcher areas of expertise include adaptation, interculturalism, post-colonialism, ecology, evaluation and the East Africa context. Kenyan-based researchers include: Alex Awiti and Peter Simatei. Canadian-based members include: Shaniff Esmail, Tololwa Mollel, Stefano Muneroni, and Onookome Okome. Researcher John Battye manages media, documentation, and communications. Co-directors of the creation project are: Desai Ogada, Raphael Omondi, Chunga Otiende and Jan Selman. The Luo creative team includes: Christabel Adhiambo, Edward Otieno Amollo, Sheilah Onguo, Velma Atieno, Belinda Khama, Collins Ochieng’, William Ochieng’, Christopher David, Vincent Oduor, Nancy Okuku, Shalton Omondi, Lindah Opany, Collins Ouma, June Rapsha, and Claris Tina Awuor.
2 While anecdotal evidence of impact is readily found in this field, systematic evidence is still rare, yet growing. See for example Esmail, 2015.
3 In post-independence Kenya, a literacy project used popular theatre to build large scale citizen participation in cultural and social reclamation. Led by Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Ngugi wa Mirii, they rallied via creating and performing Ngaahika Ndeenda (I will marry when I want) (Kidd, 1983; Ndigirigi, 2007).
4 Companies that hosted Selman include: Amazon Theatrix, Lagnet Theatre, Tattoo Arts, Story Makers’ Society, Laser Arts and Cottage Theatre.
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5 Future phases include: creation workshops; skype encounters to cross-fertilize and explore researcher/ artist and Canadian/Kenyan intersections and dilemmas; a symposium to explore on our feet where concepts, theories and critical reflection meet creation practice; performances and evaluation.
6 While there is no definitive or known original version of this story, many details remain consistent across several iterations. This version is an amalgam of the project’s partner artists’ oral presentations of the story, and a paraphrase of one of several written versions, by Okoiti Omtatah.
7 See for example Bappa and Etherton (1983) and Kidd (1980). 8 Some believe Luanda Magere is not a folktale, as in an oft repeated but fictional tale from the mists of
time. Some suggest that the events of the warrior’s life occurred; some claim direct lineage to the hero. There are counter arguments to such claims including a rejection of events that can appear as ‘magic’ and sources from political and social history and geology.
9 In this scene we are exploring untold stories of the Second Wife. 10 From Old Stories New Ways workshop documents, July 4, 2015.
REFERENCES
Adichie, C. N. (2009, October). The danger of a single story. TED Talks. TED Conferences, LLC. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story/
Bappa, S., & Etherton, M. (1983). Popular theatre: Voice of the oppressed. Commonwealth, 25(4), 126–130.
Chaudhuri, U. (2002). Beyond a “Taxonomic Theater”: Interculturalism after postcolonialism and globalization. Theater, 32(1), 33–47.
Esmail, S., Munro, B., & McKinnon, J. (2015). Consumer report: Yes but does it work? Program assessment. In J. Selman & J. Heather (Eds.), Theatre, teens, sex ed: Are we there yet? (pp. 291–331). Edmonton, AB: University of Alberta Press.
Kidd, R. (1980). People’s theatre, conscientisation, and struggle. Media Development, 27(3), 10–14. Kidd, R. (1983). Popular theatre and popular struggle in Kenya: The story of Kamiriithu. Race & Class,
14(3), 287–304. Knowles, R. (2010). Theatre & interculturalism. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. McLuhan, M., Watson, W., & Gordon, W. T. (2001). From cliché to archetype. Berkeley, CA: Gingko
Press. Ndigirigi, G. (2007). Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Drama and the Kamiriithu popular theatre experiment.
Trenton: Africa World Press. Omtatah, O. (1991). Lwanda Magere. Kenya: Heinmann. Polkinghorne, D. (1988). Narrative knowing and the human sciences. Albany, NY: State University of
New York Press. Sanders, J. (2006). Adaptation and appropriation. London: Routledge. Stevens, A. (2003). Archetype revisited: An updated natural history of the self. Toronto, ON: Inner City
Books.
Jan Selman Department of Drama University of Alberta
John Battye Department of Drama University of Alberta
S. Butterwick & C. Roy (Eds.), Working the Margins of Community-Based Adult Learning, 169–179. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
ELIZABETH JOHNSON
14. A MOTHER/DAUGHTER DISTANCE DANCE
Virtually Connecting Incarcerated Mothers and Their Daughters through Choreography
INTRODUCTION
Anchored within the Arizona State University Art Museum, A Mother/Daughter Distance Dance engaged inmate mothers at Estrella Jail in Phoenix, Arizona and their daughters in a participatory, creative endeavour that virtually connected the estranged mothers and daughters through images, words, and the ineffable experience of movement. A Mother/Daughter Distance Dance sought to use choreographic craft and artistic practices to create connections, even through distance, between pre- sentenced inmate mothers and their daughters.
The intensive six-week choreography program gave new tools for those often silenced to find their voice. Bodies moving with meaning gave participants, jail wardens, and various witnesses a sense of humanity in an often inhumane system. It brought the power of art in multiple forms; music, poetry, visual art, and dance, into the lives of inmates who could be seen as powerless. Through creativity and imagination, the program opened a world of possibility within the confines of a jail, and sparked a love of dance in children, teens and adults who had never before participated in formal dance education. And it moved me, the co-conceiver and director of the project, deeply, thoughtfully, disturbingly, and joyfully.
CONTEXT AND NEED
Incarceration of Women in the United States
A Mother/Daughter Distance Dance grew out of an interest in incarceration in the United States, and a concern for those directly involved. Research for the artistic project and post-project writing opportunities has led me to learn more about the bleak reality of our overtaxed criminal justice system and the effects of mass incarceration on families. More Americans are currently incarcerated than ever before. Over 7.2 million men and women are incarcerated or on parole in the United States (Hart, 2011). Within this landscape, Arizona consistently ranks among the top 10 states for incarceration volume, growing by an alarming 1062% between 1979 to 2009 (Hart, 2011). Prior to the 1980’s having children was a mitigating factor in
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sentencing decisions for women. But as a result of gender-neutral pro-arrest policies, the number of women in prison has grown by 646% (nearly double the rate of men), in the past 30 years (Dodge & Dodge, 2006).
Incarcerated Mothers and the Effects on Families
More than 75% of incarcerated women are mothers, averaging between 2 and 3 children under 18 (Belknap, 2007; Hart, 2011; Trusts, 2010). These women are far more likely than incarcerated men to be the financial and emotional supporters of their children (Belknap, 2007; Sharp et al., 1999). It is not surprising then that one of the primary goals of many incarcerated women is to be reunited with their children and to re-establish custody after release. One study demonstrated that “one of the most painful problems confronting mothers in prison is the possibility of the gradual loss of their children” (Belknap, 2007, p. 202).
Despite an attempt by incarcerated mothers to maintain contact, primarily through letters and phone calls, many mothers report difficulties maintaining their relationships (Belknap, 2007; Block & Potthast, 2008). There are fewer prisons and jails for women, and as a result, women are often incarcerated far from home, sometimes more than five hundred miles away from their residences (Hoffmann, Byrd, & Kightlinger, 2010; Soltes, 2012). Therefore it is not surprising almost half of incarcerated mothers have never had any personal visits with their children (Project, 2012b). Stemming from a concern for the welfare of their children, incarcerated women report anxiety, depression, guilt, low self-esteem, and a feeling of helplessness (Hoffmann, Byrd, & Kightlinger, 2010; Block & Potthast, 2008).
Caretakers of the children of incarcerated mothers often report children’s negative emotions and behaviours, such as depression, eating and sleeping disorders, anxiety and hyper-arousal as a consequence of the parental separation (Hoffmann, Byrd, & Kightlinger, 2010). Some studies detect severe emotional problems in children such as posttraumatic stress, similar to children whose parents have died (Sharp et al., 1999). Additionally, children often exhibit behavioural and performance problems in school, and have trouble coping with the social stigma from their peers (Hoffmann, Byrd, & Kightlinger, 2010). In fact, fifteen percent of incarcerated mothers report that their children have been arrested during their incarceration. This figure is confirmed by The Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin, which shows that children of incarcerated parents have a greater likelihood of being convicted of a crime than children whose parents are not incarcerated (Beck & Harrison, 2006; Belknap, 2007).
The American incarceration situation is overwhelming and troubling and while one short-term choreography program cannot begin to tackle the vast needs, when I became more aware of the issues I was called to respond. Although I might not be able to make a difference in this complex system, I hoped to use the skills of my craft to positively benefit those involved.
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COLLABORATIVE VISION
Beginnings
As a socially engaged dance practitioner, my work is guided by three essential elements: community participation, a multi-disciplinary approach, and social relevance. I met Gregory Sale, an assistant professor in Arizona State University’s School of Art in 2010. Although we are from different disciplinary backgrounds, we share a similar participatory and collaborative approach and both of us have values rooted in reciprocity, ethical risk taking, artistic excellence, and building skills for social agency.
Early in our friendship Gregory spoke about an upcoming residency at the ASU Art Museum. While Gregory was preparing for the project and researching potential ideas, he witnessed a chain gang of inmates in black-and-white striped uniforms painting a curb outside of city hall in Phoenix. This image led him to consider what it would be like to have inmates paint the interior of the museum gallery the same black-and-white stripes of their uniforms to create an evocative space for events that could catalyse a dialogue about the criminal justice system. He was planning to open this space to collaborators interested in the topic and our conversation inspired me to think about what I might contribute.
I often work in intergenerational environments, and I have had several opportunities to create dances with mothers and daughters. The process of making these dances has always been deeply rewarding because of the particular bond many mothers and daughters share. As Gregory described his project, I thought of incarcerated mothers estranged from their families, and I wondered how their relationships are affected. What would it be like for these family pairs to dance together? How could it take place given the geographical separation? Would using a virtual connection such as Skype diminish the effect? There were many unknowns, but I felt it would be important that what was created was not a demonstration for an outside public, but an authentic experience of connection for the individuals involved. I began to imagine a way that bodies could help to communicate what might not be said in words alone.
Gregory’s project ultimately became the nationally recognized, It’s not just black and white, a three-month residency exhibit in 2011 that explored the complex cultural, personal, and social issues at stake in the criminal justice system in Arizona. We co- conceived A Mother/Daughter Distance Dance as a 6-week choreography program that would culminate in a virtually connected workshop as one of the “pearls” of It’s not just black and white. “Pearls” were collaborative artistic actions that occurred in the exhibit space and beyond. The setting for this “pearl” was this exhibit space and Estrella Jail, a small jail of about 1000 pre-sentenced, mostly female inmates. It is a flat, one storey brick and concrete building situated in desolate desert land a 10 minute drive from Phoenix, Arizona.
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The Pearl
Early on Gregory spoke of the virtually connected workshop as a “pearl” of Its not just black or white. He gave me a box of small Tahitian pearls and said, “the pearl is the only gem that is an organism’s response to an irritant, as a means to protect itself.” I elaborated on this and pointed to how a pearl builds its beauty and value as it changes over time, through isolation under pressure. The pearl became the metaphor for the inmate moms, and we structured the art-making workshops under themes related to the pearl: change, beauty, and value.
While Gregory was cultivating relationships with key individuals in Maricopa County’s Department of Corrections who could expedite processes for new program applications, I reached out to a friend who had experience working with incarcerated women, Teniqua Broughton. A dance educator and community organizer, she had been a facilitator for a program entitled Journey Home, originally designed by choreographer Pat Graney, and had established relationships with Estrella Jail staff and Journey Home program alumni. She was excited about a new challenge and was instrumental in identifying women who had children in the region and who had behavioural clearance to participate in a program. We worked together over several weeks to contact the guardians of the children and work with jail staff to get the permissions to implement the program. We were about to embark on a journey.
BEAUTY, CHANGE, AND VALUES
Structure and Process
Teniqua and I created a curriculum for both the mothers and the daughters focused on building skills in movement generation, improvisation, and choreographic composition. Over the course of the six-week program we worked with the mothers and daughters separately. The women met in a classroom at the jail, and the daughters danced in the gallery at the ASU Art Museum, and only at the culminating event did the groups dance together virtually, through Skype. We shaped the learning and creative work around three pearl-inspired chapters: beauty, change, and values. Our goal was to provide a structure whereby the women and their daughters could access their individual movement possibilities and cultivate their own artistic voices. This approach proved effective in engaging even the most resistant participants.
Building Trust
To make the emotional and physical space as safe as possible for this kind of artistic work, we began our first sessions by collaboratively creating a set of agreements. Although this is a practice I commonly do with any group, it seemed especially significant for the women and the girls to set the terms of engagement. It occurred to me that both the moms and children (with the exception of the 20-year old daughter)
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have to subscribe to stringent rules and omnipresent authority. Therefore giving them agency to create guidelines and expectations for our time together was empowering. I also offered a standard ground rule for dance experiences I facilitate: “You are in charge of your body.” Because each individual is in charge of her own experience, no one has to share anything that could feel unsafe emotionally. I recalled the initial meeting in my journal:
As expected, it took a while for the women to arrive and we began late. I was nervous, but also excited. Lisa, Nikki, Patricia, and Jesse are our mothers. Lisa is older than the others, her daughter Briana is 20 and they have had a strained relationship. Lisa has been absent for most of her daughter’s life. Nikki is young and has two kids, a boy and a girl. Her 10- year old daughter Amina will be participating. Jesse’s daughter is 16 and has not yet responded to Teniqua’s calls. Officers said that they have not come to visit, and Jesse may be overly optimistic about her daughter’s interest. Patricia has a 9 year old, Katie, who will actually turn 10 during the course of this project.
Building community and fostering a collaborative and supportive environment continued to be important through the duration of the project. We implemented opening and closing rituals to help participants bring themselves to the work and to develop trust within our little community. Each session began with a check-in. I often do a round of “good news” in groups I work with, but in my first session with the mothers I realized that we needed to provide a space for the women to share what was going on for them, good or bad, in a way that prepared us for the movement work. Here is an excerpt from my journal about this activity:
It was time to transition to our session, and I wanted to do “Good News” but they also had a lot of negative things that we needed to get beyond before we could move to moving. I developed “Air and Share.” Someone states the thing they need to air, we all breathe in, and exhale and let it go, with a releasing gesture. We also did “Good News” with a supporting unison clap.
From that point we began each session in the jail with a round of “air and share” and “good news.” This provided an opportunity for all (Teniqua and I also participated) to share what was present in minds and in hearts. In the daughters’ group we did individual check-ins as they arrived rather than as a group activity since the girls were eager to get moving and Briana, the 20-year old daughter, made it clear that she did not want to engage in a group-based, structured check-in.
With the mothers, Teniqua led a closing ritual “You are my sisters.” In this ritual a person begins a sentence with “You are my sisters” and adds a closing statement such as “and I appreciate your bravery today.” The daughters did a different activity, “Take 5.” In this activity we collect 5 short statements of things to take away from the session such as, “I will take away the mirroring dance.” These community- building closings ranged from heartfelt and emotional to light and joyful, and let us
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as facilitators know what was meaningful and memorable about the session from the participants’ perspectives.
Generating Movement
In our generative process we used many tools developed by Liz Lerman, a choreographer and the Founder of Dance Exchange, the metro Washington D.C. company I worked with for over a decade. “Build-a-phrase,” a tool that captures spontaneous gesture generated through dialogue, became a foundation for our movement explorations. The process of transitioning from conversations fluidly to dance was comfortable, and demonstrated how movement we use every day can represent ideas and hold memories. Early during one session devoted to “change” Teniqua asked the women how they had changed since Journey Home. This grew into a deeper conversation about how they had changed as a result of the incarceration. I noticed their body language as they talked and reflected it back in a sequence of movements structured as a movement phrase and set to beautiful, instrumental music.
The following session, after a physical warm up aimed at choreographic skills- building focusing on theme and variation, we led a discussion about the concept of “beauty.” We asked the women to reflect about beauty in themselves and in their daughters. We collected the descriptive body language that they used while talking and sequenced these gestures into a movement phrase. This phrase, with the associated stories connected to the movements, was then taught to the daughters in a session later that week. Using the same “build-a-phrase” tool, we created a dance with the daughters, which we taught to the moms. This not only grew an expanded shared movement vocabulary, it was a way to share meaningful ideas and stories between the distanced pairs.
Our process of movement generation was inspired through conversation, theme- related readings, reflective assignments, and writing. As homework, between sessions we asked the women to find images of beauty in a set of magazines, and encouraged them to think outside conventional ideas of beauty. We also asked them to write about why they chose these images. The women were enthusiastic when they returned with their homework and Patricia even created a nicely designed collage with images of trees, and sunrises and children playing. That day we made our own definition of beauty, and then created movement to the words of this definition. Here is an excerpt from my journal about that day’s experience:
Teniqua led a fun salsa inspired warm up. We even did some social dance formations despite the small classroom. When they pulled out their homework (which everyone did!) the mood turned reflective, but still energized. Patricia made beautiful collages, both for change and beauty. She is on board now for sure. She is so, so smart. Teniqua has an easy way with them, a strong relationship, and I feel myself getting closer too.
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The definitions I found online were boring, and it occurred to me, why don’t we create our own definition from the writings they did? I had them read their writings out loud and we identified a strong word or words from each person. Teniqua captured it on the board and collectively we arranged them into our own definition: Beauty is woman. Phenomenal simplicity, sunset to sunrise, butterfly. [From these words]…we made a strong and not simplistic movement phrase. I added counts and music. I am so proud of them. Teniqua led us through a reading and closure. We see the daughters on Saturday.
Resistance and Loss
The weeks progressed and both groups developed skills in improvisation, movement generation, and composition. We developed meaningful and nuanced choreography together based on beauty, change, and values. One of the mothers who was the most tentative became one of the most invested participants. She said she was practicing her dances while waiting to be called for court and that she taught movement phrases to the other women in her pod (the shared sleeping quarters at the jail). The guardians, who were at first skeptical, showed up in our final sessions to see what was going on.
Despite this enthusiasm Briana, the 20-year old daughter of the oldest mother, remained resistant. Briana and her mother had a challenging relationship, and although Briana wanted to connect with her mother, she was physically and emotionally reserved and very resistant to moving. Because she was in a group with children much younger than her, their exuberance shut Briana down even more. Briana refused to join the circle for check-ins and although she would try to participate during physical warm-ups, by the time we transitioned to improvisation or movement generation she would be in the hallway.
It served us well to have two facilitators; while I kept things moving with the younger girls Teniqua would talk with Briana. Even though Briana continued to refuse to participate through class, she would still show up because it provided her an opportunity to talk and be listened to. I was concerned that to help her participate in an artistic process we needed a social worker. However, with no funding, we were not able to hire a professional social worker.
I valued Briana’s presence and did not want to exclude her just because she did not want to dance. But, I needed to be clear that we were engaging in an artistic process, and not therapy. In socially engaged dance personal experiences often fuel creative work, and although there may be therapeutic benefits, the heart of these projects is in the art. I wanted to work with Briana to find a creative outlet, even if it was not dance, and I asked her to think about options.
During our final class with the daughters, Briana surprised us. In the week since she and I had had our conversation about finding a creative and safe way for her to participate in the event, she had designed a music composition. She found pieces of music that reminded her of her mother and used a computer program to design a
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“mash up” of these songs. She also wrote a heartfelt letter that she wanted to read to her mother. Here is an excerpt from that letter:
We may not have the best relationship, as we should however, I want to put all that behind us and start new. For the first time in my life, I truly believe we are ready to live at peace with each other. I need you to know I am not, nor ever giving up on you, God has too many plans for us. You will never be alone, as I will always be by your side mom, through it all. Cheers, mother to beginning the rest of our lives.
Unfortunately, not every mother daughter pair shared a hopeful rekindling of a relationship as described in Briana’s letter. Numerous attempts to contact Jesse’s 16 year-old daughter proved ineffective. Furthermore, Jesse had numerous behavioural issues outside of our sessions, and one week before our culminating event she was pulled from the project. The mothers had become close and we were sad to lose her, but the women were not surprised. In the transient space of a jail for the un-sentenced, they are accustomed to frequent changes. We headed into our final virtually connected workshop with three women and three daughters.
VIRTUALLY CONNECT WORKSHOP
On April 2, 2011 the Mother/Daughter Distance Dance project culminated in a virtually connected workshop. The girls met in the It’s not just black and white gallery space at the ASU Art Museum, and the women danced in a “courtyard” at the jail, the only space where we could get cellular reception. The two groups were connected through Skype via an iPhone modem. This connection was tenuous but it was the only option as no Internet is allowed in the jail.
After six weeks of intensive choreography classes, mothers and daughters had developed movement skills and had worked to collaboratively create meaningful choreography based on beauty, change and values. The section about values was the most fresh and thoughtful, as the women both wrote and danced about what they valued in their daughters (love, playfulness, optimism) and what values they wanted to pass on to their girls (trust, respect, and honesty). Both groups were eager to share with each other the dances they had made separately.
The structure of the workshop also provided the opportunity for mothers and daughters to dance together as a duet, using an improvisational shape and movement game that both groups had practiced. Additionally, Briana shared her movement composition and read the powerful letter she wrote to her mother. The mothers made jewellery for their daughters out of the pearls that Gregory had donated to the project, and the daughters opened these gifts while their mothers watched their delighted faces. The workshop concluded will all participants (including Briana!) dancing together to an upbeat popular song. After several minutes of set choreography, the girls and moms were free to dance together through the screen however they wished.
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The mood was celebratory and joyful and yet bittersweet, because after a very special ninety minutes, it was time to say goodbye.
The intent of this experience was to facilitate a space for communication and connection through movement, which is what transpired. We carefully called the experience a “workshop” vs. a “performance.” In a performance the audience is separated and has a passive observing role. Naming the experience a workshop allowed space for learning, talking, and simply being together.
Three days before the event everyone agreed it would be fine to invite a few people. We were clear, with both the attendees and the participants, that guests in the room were witnesses and not audience. Acknowledging their presence in this way kept the experience a workshop, not a performance, focused on the interaction between mother and daughter. Nevertheless, the witnesses had a profound experience. Here is an excerpt from a blog post written by a witness, Deborah Sussman, who was the publicist at the ASU Art Museum at the time:
I take being in the same space with my daughter for granted, the same way I took my mother’s presence for granted. But these are not givens. Last Saturday, I witnessed the mother-daughter bond strung out over a distance that was both physical and emotional. This idea – of mothers and daughters dancing together but apart – seems to strike a chord with everyone who hears about it. Somehow even the idea of the dance suggests the core issue that Gregory is exploring in his project: The real and too-little discussed impact of our incarceration system on all of us, as individuals and as a community.
Connection Lost
The fragility of the virtual connection, which was lost at a key juncture in the virtual workshop, demonstrated accurately the struggle to maintain relationships within the extreme pressure of the lived familial situation. An anonymous witness later e-mailed Gregory about how the workshop, and in particular how a brief technology failure, affected him:
We all were deeply impressed and moved by what we were invited to experience and share. It was profound and also very emotional … Your choreographer did a wonderful job and the right thing – to just focus on the girls and their mothers. We also thought that it was the most brilliant thing that could happen (to us, the audience, not to the girls and the mothers!) that the technology did not work: Connection lost. It said so – white on black – for a few, long seconds. Connection lost, indeed and here we are, witnessing how we deal with lost connections and trying to reconnect, in the real world and with technology. This workshop offered me an opportunity to open my heart to something that I usually only intellectually connect with.
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CONCLUSION
Through the process of art making, we can renew and make transformation visible. Although there was no formal evaluation, jail staff and guardians who supported the A Mother/Daughter Distance Dance project saw a change in the individuals involved. They reported fewer behavioural issues and noted that the moms and daughters seemed to be happier and have more self-confidence. A week after the event, participants reflected with the facilitators and said that movement had become a non-verbal medium to communicate thoughts and emotions. A post-project written questionnaire completed by the incarcerated women demonstrated that they felt that the project developed self- awareness, communication and collaboration skills, and fostered a positive method of stress reduction.
During the program, there were tears, much discovery, and deep and meaningful discourse that would not have been possible without the art making. In our debriefing conversations, the women agreed that the dancing opened them up to being vulnerable and that learning about choreography gave them tools to express what they hold inside. I know the dialogue served the art as much as the art served the dialogue. And the art was powerful – rich, original, nuanced, and performed with commitment and physicality. It was clear that the women and girls were in control of their bodies and had agency over their choices. As a result, they were able to invest fully in the dances and in the transformative process as a whole.
As I embarked on A Mother/Daughter Dance I worried about the ending. I wondered if it was ethical to design such a short program, knowing that after 6 weeks the program would be done. I had no plans or intentions of sustaining the engagement beyond this project, and I did not want to “parachute” into their lives and “use” these people in my creative endeavour. Although I still struggle with the ethics of this kind of engagement, I believe the project had very positive outcomes and I am honoured to have been a part of it. Witness Simon Dove, Director of the School of Dance at Arizona State University, said this program was, “a testimony to the unique quality of dance to express the inexpressible – and build community in such a tangible and potent way.” In conclusion, I share thoughts that I wrote the day the project came to a close:
I began on a journey to work with inmate moms and their daughters, but it became a dance for Amina, Katie, Briana, Lisa, Nikki and Patricia. It was not an idea, it was people. Lisa has been sentenced to 6 years, Nikki is still undetermined, Patricia is going to court next week. I know I will never see Jesse again, and this is a “connection lost” that I carry. The little girls have changed so much even in these few weeks. Time is so, so precious, and this has been a challenging, tiring, rewarding, and precious time I have shared with them. I am grateful. There is more work to be done.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A Mother/Daughter Distance Dance was a complex collaborative effort and would not have been possible without the steadfast support of Officers Acuna, Brazil and Cook at Estrella jail and Deputy Chief Mary Ellen Sheppard; Heather Lineberry and John Spiak at the ASU Art Museum; ASU students Becky Ferell, Mathew Mosher and Robert Maderia. I am especially grateful to my co-facilitator Teniqua Broughton, my friend and co-conceiver, Gregory Sale, and of course, the moms and the daughters.
REFERENCES
Beck, A., & Harrison, P. (2006). Prisoners in 2005. Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin. Retrieved from http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/p05.pdf
Belknap, J. (2007). The invisible woman. Stamford, CT: Wadsworth Pub Co. Block, K. J., & Potthast, M. J. (2008). Girl Scouts beyond bars: Facilitating parent-child contact in
correctional. Child Welfare, LXXVII(5), 561–578. Dodge, M. L. (2006). Whores and thieves of the worst kind. Dekalb, IL: Northern Illinois University
Press. Hart, B. (2011). Incarceration: Continuing to raise the bars. Morrison Institute for Public Policy,
Arizona State University. Retrieved from http://morrisoninstitute.asu.edu/publicationsreports/ 2011-incarceration continuing-to-raise-the-bars-1/view
Hoffmann, H. C., Byrd, A. L., & Kightlinger, A. M. (2010). Prison programs and services for incarcerated parents and their underage children: Results from a national survey of correctional facilities. The Prison Journal, 90(4), 397–416. doi:10.1177/0032885510382087
Project, The Sentencing. (2012b). Parents in prison. Sentencingproject.org. Washington, DC. Soltes, F. (2012). GS beyond bars – A better future for all. Department of Justice-Office of Juvenile
Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Sharp, S., Marcus-Mendoza, T., Benley, R G., Simpson, D. B., & Love, S. R. (1999). Gender differences
in the impact of incarceration on the families of drug offenders. In Interrogating social justice. Toronto, ON: Canadian Scholars Press.
Sussman, D. (2011). Dream like you mean it. Retrieved June 13, 2011, from http://asuartmuseum.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/dream-like-you-mean-it-the-mother-daughter-
distance-dance-its-not-just-black-and-white/ Trusts, The Pew Charitable. (2010). Collateral costs. Washington, DC. Retrieved from
http://www.pewstates.org/…/PCS…/2010/Collateral_Costs(1).pdf
Elizabeth Johnson Columbia College Chicago, Hubbard Street Dance and Dance Exchange Chicago, IL
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CONCLUSION
The Strands and The Braid
In is an honor to be invited to write the concluding chapter for this powerful collection of stories. These stories of hope and inspiration underscore the power of the arts to transform both individuals and communities. As I read through the chapters, the metaphor of the strands and the braid came to me. Each chapter or strand is compelling in its own right. Braided together, the chapters in the book make a stronger statement of how the arts can make a difference, particularly in marginalized communities. There are many ways to view the strands and the braid. The book includes multiple “strands” of marginalization including: homelessness, poverty, those living with HIV/AIDS, the terminally ill, domestic violence, the incarcerated, low income housing residents, and those with physical, intellectual, and mental health challenges.
Another way to view the strands is through the multiple cultures represented in the book including: Zimbabwe, Belize, Kenya, Canada, Germany, South Africa, the United States, indigenous Canadian cultures, and Filipina Canadians. There are also various strands of the arts such as: painting, zines, weaving, photography, film, poetry, puppetry, sculpture, mask making, artifacts, murals, fashion shows, storytelling, popular theatre, and dance. Braided together these strands show that there truly is unity in diversity. The power of the arts to create change is evident across culture, context, and even artistic genre.
While the stories in the chapters represent a variety of contexts, I focused on the inter-subjectivity or commonalities between the stories. Some of the artist/activists intentionally started out with particular objectives. For example, Bowers (Chapter 7) wanted to create dialogues across difference. Hoffman (Chapter 6) set out to explore transformative learning with persons with “diverse abilities.” MacDonald (Chapter 12) wanted to educate the public about mental illness and promote dialogue. For others, the outcomes were unexpected and often surprising such as the deep friendships and collaboration that occurred among the artists, researchers, and participants. Facilitators found themselves learning in unexpected ways. Five overarching but interconnecting themes emerged including: self-awareness, embodiment, collaborative relationships, collective action, and transformation. While all of the themes overlap they seem to coalesce into the phenomenon of transformative learning.
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SELF-AWARENESS
Increased self-awareness was a factor in nearly all of the stories. This occurred not only for the local residents engaging in the artwork but also for the facilitators and often for those who would later view the artwork. I use the word participant to refer to all three groups; as researcher, research subjects, and audience are all participants in arts-based research. Awareness was raised regarding the magnitude of oppressions such as exploitation, domestication, racism, sexism, and ableism. As Villagante pointed out in Chapter 8, art became a vehicle to see and confront “uncomfortable truths.” This awareness that others have different realities resulted in an increased sense of empathy.
Reduction of Stigma
Many of the participants, particularly those with disabilities, lived with stigma on a daily basis. Through participation in art making, stigmas was reduced; local, social, and political struggles were examined and participants began to realize their capabilities. They began to see themselves more clearly through their creations. They began to understand that while they did have some limitations, many of those limitations were self-imposed; they also deepened their understanding of the structural character of limitations. Art gave them confidence to see themselves as more capable individuals and also allowed audiences to see people as more capable.
Claiming One’s Own Identity
It was interesting to see that some of the marginalized groups reclaimed their identity by presenting stereotypical images in a new way. For example in Butterwick and Carillo’s chapter, fashion shows were used to make a feminist statement. The chapter by Selman and Battye drew on indigenous knowledge by using traditional Kenyan stories and myths. Similar to queer theory (Butler, 1990), participants took control of naming themselves, thus reconstructing their own identities.
Increased Agency and Empowerment
Increased self-awareness led to an increased sense of agency and empowerment. Working with others created a sense of solidarity. As Cameron’s chapter pointed out, telling one’s own story allowed participants to reclaim authorship of their own lives. Telling stories through spoken word poetry as illustrated in Villagante’s chapter helped people to grapple with multiple identities and regain a sense of control. Many of the chapters described increased risk taking and willingness to try new things.
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Envisioning New Realities
As self-awareness and self-confidence increased, participants began to envision new realties. For example, the women in Clover’s chapter began to imagine themselves moving beyond their circumstances. Roy pointed out how viewing and reflecting on documentary films helped people to move beyond hopelessness and see different ways of being. Johnson showed us how relationships can exist even among the incarcerated. As participants in the various stories began to envision new realities they began to see a more hopeful future.
Facilitator Self-Awareness
While it may be expected that marginalized group members may achieve a new sense of awareness through creating art, the awareness that facilitators experienced was a surprise to many of them. They confronted their own privilege, biases, and what it meant to be a full participant in the research process.
EMBODIMENT
Any form of art is by nature an embodied activity. In addition to the movement normally associated with dance or theatre, the arts bring the whole body as well as the intellect and emotions into the project.
Spontaneity and Play
Many of the stories illustrated how engaging in the arts helped participants to rediscover a sense of spontaneity and playfulness they may not have experienced since childhood. Participants felt a sense of freedom to experiment and just have fun. Learning through play gave them permission to try new things and sometimes new roles. In Mitchell’s project (Chapter 9) “Being Stalin” allowed people to literally embody a character thus putting themselves into another’s shoes. Hansen and Balkwill showed us how creating and working with puppets brought back a sense of freedom and innocence from childhood.
Recalling Trauma and Providing a Means of Communication
While embodiment through the arts can be fun and free, it can also be a way to surface hidden emotions and provide an entry point into communication. As Butterwick and Carrillo pointed out, wearing traditional dresses and performing in fashion shows provided a way to recognize how history and trauma are embodied. Embodiment can also be a way to communicate what cannot be said in words as Johnson showed us in Chapter 14. Communication and connection were forged through dance.
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Fictionalizing Reality
In some cases, embodiment allowed participants to confront individual and community problems through creating stories. This way of fictionalizing reality as exemplified in Selman and Battye’s chapter, created a safe space for exploring alternative realities and exposing and challenging oppression while honoring and preserving native culture.
COLLABORATION/RELATIONSHIPS
An important and often unexpected outcome in many of the projects described was the deep friendships and relationships that occurred among the participants and between the participants and researcher/facilitators. These relationships served to foster collaboration and commitment. In arts-based and participatory research, the participants are co-researchers with shared responsibly for the direction and outcome of the research. Collaboration is crucial.
Fostering a Collaborative Spirit
Collective art-making often fostered a collaborative spirit as spontaneous conversation occurred and stories were shared. Participants discovered that they were not only learning about art but they were also learning from one another. Hanson and Balkwill found that commitment to the project increased as relationships developed. People did not want to let each other down. Collaborative relationships developed between the research participants, between the facilitators and group members, between the members and the larger community, and between the creator and the creation.
Art as Equalizer
As relationships developed through the various art activities, professionals found themselves meeting as equals with the members of marginalized populations. Roles were transcended and hierarchies dismissed, as trust was built and true friendships fostered.
Giving up Control
Many of the facilitators such as Gibson, Hansen and Balkwill, and Villagante learned that in order for the project to be successful they had to give up the need to control the process or adhere to a firm agenda. They learned to go with the flow and allow the process to unfold organically. As relationships developed and trust increased, this seemed a natural way to go. Some of the facilitators, such as Mitchell and Selman and Battye, realized they had much to learn from other cultures Bowers knew that
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an Indigenous art collection and historical artefacts had much to teach settlers and a Mohawk community about different ways of knowing.
Art as Language for Creating Relationships
It has been said that art is a universal language. It can literally be a way for people to communicate with one another when they do not share a common language as Nichols found in the hospitals of Zimbabwe. Even when people do speak the same language, communication is sometimes difficult. As community building occurs through art making, a space for dialogue opens up. People feel listened to and valued. Often a collective identity is fostered as people realize that they are not alone.
COLLECTIVE ACTION
Creating and sharing art led to collective action in almost all of the chapters. Action occurred not only between and among participants but also within the larger community as art was shared through exhibits and public performances. Action took the form of changing attitudes, conflict resolution, restorative justice, and productive dialogue.
Promote Difficult Conversations
As one of Clover’s participants reported in her chapter “Art gave us a way to communicate with each other” (p. 11). Topics like HIV, domestic violence, or mental illness are often difficult to talk about. Art gave people an entry point into these difficult conversations. As participants sometimes shared observations about each other’s artwork, important conversations ensued. Seeing and hearing about these difficult topics in public spheres often created safe spaces for audience members to talk about similar issues, as they realized they were not alone.
Promote Dialogues across Difference
Many of the stories talked about how the artworks became a vehicle for those with different perspectives to begin a dialogue. Documentary film and theatre as illustrated in Chapters 5, 12, and 13 were particularly instrumental in creating these dialogues. Bowers’ example of exhibiting native artifacts created space for an intercultural exchange. MacDonald showed us how a performance could change the culture of a community to where it was okay to talk about mental illness.
Public Pedagogy
Once the art created by the participants was brought into the public, the sphere of influenced increased. Perceptions, myths, and negative stereotypes about
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homelessness, mental illness, race, and so on, were challenged as the artistic renderings focused on strengths rather than limitations of marginalized people. Empathy was created as the audience got a window into the perspective of “other.” The zines created by Cameron’s participants illustrate this as well as Hoffman’s photovoice project, Bowers’ exhibit of indigenous art, and the many performances and exhibits described. Performance as a research methodology is often meant to shock and provoke (Denzin, 2003). Butterwick and Carrillo for example raised consciousness of how the “government is complicit in creating racist/sexist polices that exploit women of color” (p. 119).
TRANSFORMATION
All of the stories described some form of transformation, whether intentional or unintentional, individual or community-wide or both. Transformative learning is impacted by relationships and often leads to self-awareness and collective action, and if art is involved, it is necessarily an embodied process. These elements were discussed in the previous themes.
Disorienting Dilemma or Catalyst
Mezirow (1991, p. xvi) used the term “disorienting dilemma” to describe an event that might provoke transformative learning. Hansen and Balkwill described such a dilemma when the prison inmates engaged in creating a performance without knowing the outcome as contrasted with regimentation of daily life in prison. Lawrence and Cranton (2015) preferred the word “catalyst” as impetus for transformative learning. Often the catalyst had to do with relationships; such positive or negative role models could facilitate or hinder transformation. The catalysts in the stories were at times the artist, the collaborative relationships, the artistic creations, or the interaction between the artist and the art.
Critical Self-Reflection
Creating or viewing art makes space for critical self-reflection, which is an important component of transformative learning. In Bowers’ example, the exhibit of indigenous art and artifacts encouraged critical reflection and helped to broaden the worldviews of the audience. This was the case with the photo and zine exhibits as well as the various performances. Art created a space where one could reflect from a distance.
Identity Shifts
Transformative learning often leads to shifts in identity or at least questioning and even trying out new identities (Mezirow, 1991). Identities began to shift for the marginalized participants as they saw themselves as capable persons who were no
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longer invisible. There was an increased sense of self-esteem and cultural pride. Participants began to identify themselves as artists. Life took on new meaning and purpose.
THE BRAID
Braided together, the stories in this book add to the growing body of literature on arts-based research and activism. What is perhaps most unique is the personal stories told by the authors. The reader gets to know the participants on an up-close- and-personal level. The empathy, provocation, and inspiration experienced by the audiences of the performances and exhibits are expanded outward to the readers and future researchers. Arts-based research expands our access to knowledge by bringing the research to a wider audience. It creates empathy, affect, and transformation and is inherently a political process (Lawrence, 2015). Finley (2008) sees arts-based research as a form of rebellion against a racist and classist society. The stories in this book emphasize the power and possibility for artistic expression to challenge negative perceptions, shift marginalization toward the centre, and to build and sustain strong inclusive communities. As Clover stated in Chapter 1, the arts are for everyone not just those with privilege. It is my hope that those reading this book will be inspired to bring the arts into communities and create new spaces for raising consciousness, promoting dialogue, and creating positive change.
REFERENCES
Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York, NY: Routledge. Denzin, N. (2003). Performance ethnography: Critical pedagogy and the politics of culture. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage. Finley, S. (2008). Arts-based research. In J. G. Knowles & A. L. Cole (Eds.), Handbook of the arts in
qualitative research (pp. 71–82). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Lawrence, R. L. (2015). Dancing with the data: Arts-based qualitative research. In V. C. Wang (Ed.).
Handbook of research on scholarly publishing and research methods (pp. 141–154). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
Lawrence, R. L. & Cranton, P. (2015). A novel idea: Researching transformative learning in fiction. Rotterdam/Boston: Sense Publishers.
Mezirow, J. (1991). Transformative dimensions of adult learning. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
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CONTRIBUTORS
Peter Balkwill is a co-Artistic Director of the Old Trout Puppet Workshop in Calgary, Alberta. He also serves as the Director of the Canadian Academy of Mask and Puppetry and curator for the International Festival of Animated Objects. His greatest love is Nanwalkerjunoandturtle.
John Battye is a PhD Candidate of the University of Alberta’s Drama Department. His forthcoming dissertation focuses on the body and how it performs in contemporary digital landscapes. John’s passion for storytelling has allowed him to perform the act in town halls and theatre festivals throughout rural Ontario.
Bryan Bowers has a Bachelor of Liberal Studies (Oklahoma University), a Master of Adult Education (St. Francis Xavier University), a Restorative Justice diploma (Queen’s University) and an Indigenous Community Health Approaches diploma (First Nations Technical Institute). Bryan’s policing experiences span four decades at both Ontario’s provincial and municipal levels.
Shauna Butterwick is a Professor in the Department of Educational Studies at the University of British Columbia. Her teaching and research is informed by feminist approaches to the field of adult education and lifelong learning, with a strong focus on women’s learning in diverse settings. Arts-based and creative approaches are often used in her teaching, research, and community engagement.
Paula Cameron, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Adult Education at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. She has facilitated several zine workshops for people living with mental illness, youth leaders, health practitioners, and university students.
Marilou Carrillo’s community based advocacy work with Filipino women under the Live-In Caregiver Program led to doctoral studies on Filipino women activists’ contribution to transnational feminism. She worked with immigrant and refugee families as a speech-language pathologist in multicultural public schools. Studies and work in theology, conflict resolution, and human rights supported her pursuits.
Darlene E. Clover is Professor in the Faculty of Education, University of Victoria. Her areas of interest include: women and leadership; feminist and arts-based adult education; critical education in arts and cultural institutions. She is co-editor of a volume entitled Adult education and museums: Animating social and cultural change (in press).
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Murray Gibson is a tapestry artist. He first studied at the Alberta College of Art, in Calgary, Alberta and later took his MA, Textiles at Goldsmith’s College in London, UK. His tapestries hang in private, public, and corporate collections across North America, and in Australia and Austria.
Ingrid Hansen is Co-Artistic Director of SNAFU Dance Theatre, creating and touring theatre, dance theatre, and puppet theatre across Canada. In 2007 Ingrid began collaborating with the WHoS prison theatre company at William Head Institution. She has taken on various roles: director, choreographer, designer, and performer for the WHoS productions of Animal Farm, Chalk, Gormenghast, Time Waits for No One, Here, and The Prison Puppet Project.
Beverly A. Hoffman is a Sister of Charity of Nazareth working in Belize and a physical therapist (physiotherapist in Canada). She received a Master of Adult Education from St. Francis Xavier University. She enjoys combining Community Development, Adult Education, and Physical Therapy to advocate for persons with diverse abilities in a cross cultural context.
Elizabeth Johnson is a socially engaged choreographer and dancer to promote civic dialogue and participatory artistic experiences. She holds a BA in Dance (Connecticut College), an MFA (Arizona State University), and was Associate Artistic Director of the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange. She works in Chicago with Columbia College Chicago, Hubbard Street Dance, and Dance Exchange as well as with Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Arizona Commission on the Arts, and Mesa Arts Center.
Randee Lipson Lawrence, Ed.D. is Professor Emeritus at National Louis University in Chicago where she taught for 24 years. She is currently an adjunct faculty member at Yorkville University in New Brunswick and Ghost Ranch Education and Retreat Center in Abiquiu New Mexico. Research and publications center around arts-based inquiry and extrarational ways of knowing.
Verna MacDonald has a varied background in nursing, musical theatre, public relations, and community development that contributed to a creative, collaborative project in mental health education. She works with the Nova Scotia Health Authority where her focus is consistently empowering individuals from a strengths-based approach.
Gordon Mitchell is a Professor of Religious Studies, Education, and Peace Education at the University of Hamburg, Hamburg Germany. In his work, he explores the overlaps between aesthetic and social learning and has facilitated numerous participatory storytelling projects involving photography with diverse groups examining how religion overlaps with psychological, social, and political processes.
CONTRIBUTORS
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Brian Nichols, PhD, is a psychotherapist in private practice. He finds that art expression, in both his private and professional lives, serves him well. Spending periods of time in rural Zimbabwe and Newfoundland making art allows Brian to return to Southern Ontario to work with client trauma.
Carole Roy, PhD, an Associate Professor, Department of Adult Education, St. Francis Xavier University, published The Raging Grannies (2004, Black Rose Books) and Documentary Film Festivals (2016, Sense Publishers). She initiated/ coordinated the Peterborough Film Festival in Ontario (2005–2007) and the Antigonish International Film Festival in Nova Scotia (2007– ).
Jan Selman is Professor of Drama, University of Alberta. Based in facilitating many community-based theatre projects, she co-wrote, Popular Theatre in Political Culture (Intellect) and Theatre, Teens, Sex: Are We There Yet (UAPress) which focuses on a 15-year theatre program, interactive theatre forms, assessment, and adaptation for cultural conditions.
Kim Villagante also known as Kimmortal is a queer filipina born on Coast Salish territories (Vancouver). As an interdisciplinary artist, Kim uses her passion for hip hop, the art of word, and drawing as both a form of expression as well as a form of resistance and activism. Follow her art & music at: kimmortal.com
- TABLE OF CONTENTS
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- INTRODUCTION
- OUR ORIENTATION AND INTENTIONS
- ADDING TO THE CONVERSATION
- AND NOW…
- IN CONCLUSION
- REFERENCES
- SECTION 1: TELLING OUR STORY THROUGH VISUAL ARTS
- 1. FEMINIST ARTS-BASED ADULT EDUCATION WITH HOMELESS AND STREET-INVOLVED WOMEN
- LOCATING MYSELF; CONTEXTUALISING THE PROJECT
- THE STRUCTURE AND ARTS OF THE PROJECT
- PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT AND ACTIVIST ART
- SUCCESSES, CHALLENGES AND LESSONS LEARNED
- FINAL THOUGHTS
- REFERENCES
- 2. “I STILL HAVE MY HANDS”: Rural Women, Depression, and Zines
- INTRODUCTION
- BACKGROUND
- Creating Counter-Narratives through Zines
- The Firebird and Other Stories
- Mongrel Mag
- My Shade of Blue
- SEAMFULNESS: UNRAVELLING REFLECTIONS
- Naming One’s “Social Bath”
- Aesthetic Openness as a Formal Strength
- Zinemaking as Agency
- ADULT LEARNING AT THE SEAMS
- REFERENCES
- 3. WEAVING COMMUNITY TOGETHER: Learning at the Loom
- INTRODUCTION
- SERVICE LEARNING
- L’ARCHE IN ANTIGONISH
- THE THREE COMMUNITY ART PROJECTS
- Noah’s Ark: 2008–09
- The Peaceable Kingdom: 2009–10
- Chapel Cross: 2011–12
- REFLECTIONS
- NOTES
- 4. A PSYCHOTHERAPIST BRINGS ART-MAKING TO PATIENTS IN ZIMBABWE: The Gift of Presence
- INTRODUCTION
- ABOUT ME
- ZIMBABWE AND HOSPITAL SETTINGS
- THE ART OF PRESENCE
- The Arts
- Photography
- Films
- Schools
- Massage and Listening
- REFLECTIONS
- SECTION 2: CREATIVE EXPRESSION: INCREASING UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN COMMUNITIES
- 5. AMPLIFYING VOICES: Film Festivals, New Perspectives, Critical Reflection, and Inspiration
- INTRODUCTION
- AUTHOR
- DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVALS
- NEW PERSPECTIVES
- Dispelling Myths of Homelessness
- PROVOKING CRITICAL REFLECTION
- New Ideas about Health Education and about Cuba
- Challenging Perspective on Education and One’s Career
- INSPIRING HOPE, ENGAGEMENT, AND COLLECTIVE DREAMS
- Engaging Music: Social Development, Healing, and Activism
- CLOSING REFLECTIONS
- REFERENCES
- 6. THROUGH THE LENS OF TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING: A Photovoice Pilot Project with Persons with Diverse Abilities in Belize
- INTRODUCTION
- PHOTOVOICE
- CAPTURING THE AHA! MOMENTS
- Accessibility
- Exclusion
- Identity
- Voice
- Services
- THE PHOTOVOICE EXHIBITION LAUNCH
- TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING
- REFLECTIONS
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- REFERENCES
- 7. MEETING ON THE RIVER OF LIFE: Fostering Loyalist and Mohawk Exchanges through the Arts
- INTRODUCTION
- BACKGROUND
- Dying for Change – Telling a Story
- The Six-Mile Divide – Telling Truths
- Another Conflict, a New Approach: Organizing for Change
- My Part: Marrying Various Art Forms in Ways That Support Marginalized Individuals and Groups
- MEETING ON THE RIVER OF LIFE EXHIBITION
- Historical Treaty Artefacts: Two Row Wampum Treaty Belt and Silver Covenant Chain
- The OPP: Providing Engaging Ways for Necessary Exchanges
- Planning and Holding the Exhibition
- Artworks in the Exhibition
- CONCLUSION
- Unintended Outcomes
- Personal Reflections
- REFERENCES
- 8. VOICE, IDENTITY, AND COMMUNITY: The Possibilities and Challenges of Facilitating Arts-Based Engagement
- FAMILY AND SCHOOL MATTERS
- GROWING POLITICIZATION
- ARTS CREATES AN OASIS
- ABANTE BABAE – GO FORWARD WOMEN
- ARTQUAKE: SPOKEN WORD
- RAP WORKSHOP AT A YOUTH DETENTION CENTER
- THE ART AND POLITICS OF FACILITATION: REFLECTIONS
- 9. THE ART PEACE PROJECT
- BACKGROUND AND MY ROLE
- PLAYING ON FAULT LINES
- ACADEMIC SPACE
- SELF-EMPOWERMENT
- NOTE
- REFERENCES
- SECTION 3: ENACTING & EMBODYING
- 10. SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER: The Political Fashion Shows of Filipino Activists
- INTRODUCTION
- IN THE BEGINNING…
- THE ARTS-BASED ACTIVISM OF THE PWCBC
- THE POLITICAL FASHION SHOWS
- SPANISH COLONIZATION
- EXPLOITATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES
- SO FAR AWAY
- THE FAMILY SEPARATION DRESS
- REFLECTIONS ON POLITICAL FASHION SHOWS AS FEMINIST POPULAR EDUCATION
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- NOTES
- REFERENCES
- 11. FRACTURED FABLES: A Prison Puppet Project
- INTRODUCTION
- THE PROJECT
- THE CHALLENGE
- THE EARLY PROCESS
- THE BODY OF WORK
- THE SEAL BOY
- PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
- THE FINAL STRETCH
- SOME NOTES ON PUPPETRY
- CLOSING REFLECTIONS
- NOTES
- REFERENCE
- 12. THE PARK BENCH PLAYERS: Telling Stories of Living with Mental Illness with Sincerity, Humour, and Respect
- INTRODUCTION
- About the Author
- THE PROJECT
- The Development of the Play
- The Premiere
- THE IMPACT
- Expansion: School Performances and the Teacher Resource Tool
- Keeping the Show on the Road—A Journey of Hope and Recovery
- CONCLUSION
- 13. TELLING OLD STORIES IN NEW WAYS: Popular Theatre in Western Kenya
- INTRODUCTION
- FOUNDATIONS
- TURNING STORY INSIDE OUT
- THE FIRST WORKSHOP: ASKING QUESTIONS THROUGH THEATRE
- THEORY INFORMING PRACTICE
- MOVING FORWARD
- NOTES
- REFERENCES
- 14. A MOTHER/DAUGHTER DISTANCE DANCE: Virtually Connecting Incarcerated Mothers and Their Daughters through Choreography
- INTRODUCTION
- CONTEXT AND NEED
- Incarceration of Women in the United States
- Incarcerated Mothers and the Effects on Families
- COLLABORATIVE VISION
- Beginnings
- The Pearl
- BEAUTY, CHANGE, AND VALUES
- Structure and Process
- Building Trust
- Generating Movement
- Resistance and Loss
- VIRTUALLY CONNECT WORKSHOP
- Connection Lost
- CONCLUSION
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- REFERENCES
- CONCLUSION: The Strands and The Braid
- SELF-AWARENESS
- Reduction of Stigma
- Claiming One’s Own Identity
- Increased Agency and Empowerment
- Envisioning New Realities
- Facilitator Self-Awareness
- EMBODIMENT
- Spontaneity and Play
- Recalling Trauma and Providing a Means of Communication
- Fictionalizing Reality
- COLLABORATION/RELATIONSHIPS
- Fostering a Collaborative Spirit
- Art as Equalizer
- Giving up Control
- Art as Language for Creating Relationships
- COLLECTIVE ACTION
- Promote Difficult Conversations
- Promote Dialogues across Difference
- Public Pedagogy
- TRANSFORMATION
- Disorienting Dilemma or Catalyst
- Critical Self-Reflection
- Identity Shifts
- THE BRAID
- REFERENCES
- CONTRIBUTORS