Dry Spell

I recently attended the opening of Sau Wai Tai's show at the Women's Art Resource Centre. Such a show, which demonstrates a feminist ethic applied to interlinking environmental and social justice issues, takes art not for its aesthetic but its potential to demonstrate, to involve the masses by taking them past speculating on a visual culture made only for their living room walls. Sau Wai Tai's exhibition "Dry Spell" deals specifically with the water crisis and allows the viewer to make the connections between the commodification/desecration of water resources to the trafficking of women caught in development paradigms.

The press release below:

"Sau Wai Tai

May 24 - June 21, 2008


Dry Spell presents Toronto artist, Sau Wai Tai¹s mixed media investigation into climate change. While floods and hurricanes command the media¹s attention as effects of global warming, severe and intensifying droughts have been largely un-reported even as the percentage of land affected has substantially increased over the last decade. Privatization of water by bottling industries, and the prioritizing of industrial needs, aggregate the problem for communities with little political/economic power. Dry Spell highlights environmental injustices against the global South with special attention to the ordeal of women. Many have suffered and perished as they tried to bring home water and feed their families. In the gallery, the artist constructs a drying, cracking Œpaddy field¹ with gradually dying seedlings. Also in the gallery lie four locked 80 litre water boxes. At the Third World Water Forum, it was said that 80 litres of water per person, per day are necessary to maintain a reasonable standard of life. Text etched onto the boxes references uses such as pop and bottled water, toilets and urban etiquette, industry and agricultural processes etc. On the floor lie scattered bottles of water containing submerged pictures of women of colour consumed/to be consumed and discarded away. A dim image with native women from Mother Earth Water Walk walking around the Great Lakes to reclaim sacred water is projected onto a gallery wall.

Bio:
Sau Wai is a cultural hybrid living and working in Toronto: She was made in Hong Kong, did her tertiary education in Australia and then worked with various non-government organizations after she returned from her studies, including relief and development works in Asian countries. Realizing the importance of how the environment plays upon the well being of people living in the margins, especially women, she came to Toronto to earn a Masters degree in environmental studies. It is thus natural for her work to cross borders and to interweave dialogue about the environment, gender, class and race to highlight connections in a perceived fragmented world. She also embraces a critical understanding of humanities role in manufacturing the environmental crises and interprets the word "environment" to include the implications of the interplay between political, social, cultural and
economical global elements."

From the Inbox: Last Minute Plea to Harper About the Environment!

An email received from a friend of mine, who is a law student and quite concerned with the environment:

"The Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act legally requires the government to produce a plan that meets Canada's greenhouse gas emissions targets. Prime Minister Harper hasn’t even tried. The federal courts can force the government to comply with the law, but crucial and legally admissible public consultation process ends TOMORROW, September 20th, and almost no comments have been received!

Avaaz members are stepping in at the last hour to create a massive public outcry, by faxing open letters to Environment Canada who will have to submit them in court. If there are no comments, the government will claim in court that the public supports its illegal position. We have just 24 hours to make our voice heard - Please sign the letter at the link, below:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/canadian_climate_crime/tf.php"

Go! Quickly now!

Popcan Review

So we hit up "The Pop Can Poll" reception over at the Lennox, and I must say with the help of a few glasses of wine as the night progressed, we had a pretty good time.

The artist, Les Paterson, spent the last two months collecting as many pop cans as possible, flattening them down, and making them into postcards to be sent the House of Commons. Already, Canada Post has been giving him some trouble.

I have to admit, I wasn't crazy about the mixed media popcan paintings up for sale. However, the activist element of this show is what really perked me up to this artist.

The crux of his project is to allow people to voice their complaints (or compliments...though it seems like mostly complaints)about the government and to address the pop can postcards to a wide variety of politicians within the House of Commons. While people brought up many issues amongst the cans displayed on the wall, such as Aboriginal rights, women's rights, family care, health care, institutionalized racism and other equally important concerns amongst Canadian citizens, there was an overwhelming theme about environmental responsibility.

And really, the use of discarded aluminum makes a great impact for that concern in particular. Stephen Harper's government has been notoriously lax on environmental issues, even in the face of David Suzuki's tireless activism as well as world summits that have called Canada to task. In true Harper style, our prime minister has not said much in response. I can imagine all sorts of reactions from the House of Commons on receiving can after can after can of political discontent. Hopefully, none of the reactions will include a complete shunning of the cans. Hopefully.

All unmoderated by the artist, the cans thus allow anyone with different views from Paterson to be allowed to speak. There were a few cans addressed to Jack Layton to be found amongst the Harper critics. I think that its important that the cans be allowed this kind of freedom of speech; it can only be truly democratic if everyone feels like they can freely have a say. Different opinions are important to respect, especially in a political climate, and be made available for open dialogue. I think these pop cans, by being openly displayed in a large space, do a good job of addressing this diversity of concern and opinion.

This show is going on for quite some time. I recommend everyone have a look and take the opportunity to have such a creative say. A box is set up so you can drop your can and contribute to the mass mailing of our culture's environmental waste. Maybe if the politicians take notice of the inherent eco-message, all those other concerns addressed may get a chance as well.

While you're there, be sure to check out the neighbouring bookwork show up on the second floor. Some pretty inventive and thoughtful stuff is on display.

"The Pop Can Poll" is on until August 19th.

No Glaciers For Chile.

Protesters say 'Harper go home' on PM's last day in Chile

Last Updated: Wednesday, July 18, 2007 | 3:35 PM ET CBC News

Prime Minister Stephen Harper was greeted with "Harper go home" and "Canada: What's HARPERing here?" signs on Wednesday morning as he spent his last day in Chile visiting a controversial Canadian mining company.

Dozens of protesters waited outside Barrick Gold's Santiago headquarters for Harper's visit, which one Chilean environmental activist called "inappropriate."

The protesters claim the company's gold and silver Pascua Lama Project in the Andes Mountains is displacing indigenous people, polluting rivers and damaging three glaciers — charges the company denies.

Harper said Tuesday that as far as he knows Barrick "follows Canadian standards of corporate social responsibility." He said that it was up to Chile and Argentina to determine whether the company was meeting environmental protection standards.

Way to buck responsibility, Harper. Could you recite those standards for me, please? And why they absolve you from accountability for a company that is in another country but is Canadian-owned?

Karyn Keenan, program officer for the Halifax Initiative, an environmental coalition, said that the organization was worried Harper had not been properly informed of the issues surrounding the project.

Ya think?

"We're also concerned that Prime Minister Harper's visit to the Barrick offices might be viewed as a gesture of support for the project, just when the Chilean congress is considering forming a special investigatory commission to evaluate alleged irregularities with the approval process for the mine," Keenan said.

Lucio Cuenca, national co-ordinator of the Latin American Observatory on Environmental Conflicts, agreed with Keenan, claiming the visit gives the project the "tacit approval" of the prime minister.

The local defence council is considering suing Barrick for the alleged destruction of the glaciers, Cuenca said. A human rights complaint has been lodged with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, he added.

A committee of lawmakers from Chile's chamber of deputies is studying the accusations.

One 2002 environmental report by the General Water Directorship estimates the three glaciers have shrunk by 50 to 70 per cent, allegedly as a result of work done during Barrick's exploratory phase, such as road building.

Runoff from the glaciers fuels watersheds in the area, supplying water to many communities.

"There's a shortage of water in the summertime, and it's only sustained because of the glaciers," one protester told CBC News. "Because of the destruction of the glaciers, there won't be water in the short term, there won't be water for the communities."

Barrick says the glaciers are melting due to global warming.

The company's local director of corporate affairs, Rodrigo Jimenez, said the protesters represent "a small minority."

"A lot of them, as a result of professional activism … unfortunately oppose any type of development — whether it's mining, gas or any type of project around the world," he said.

Harper was scheduled to leave Chile Wednesday for Bridgetown, Barbados.

With files from the Canadian Press

Yet again, Stephen Harper is doing wonders for Canada's reputation in environmental issues. Not to mention the contribution he's making to Canada's history of displacing indigenous people--though his is with a twist! This Canadian company is displacing people in another country! Gotta love his casual, capitalist concern for the people of Chile as he visits this controversial mine. Well, why should he care? He's the prime minister of Canada, not president of Chile.

Wasn't one of the criticisms about Harper during the election the little experience he had in foreign affairs and such? Hmmmm....

Also, don't you love Barrick's local director's reference to "professional activism" (how do I start a career in this)? Opposing things like mining and gas? Like, why would anyone ever have a problem with development like that that has been destroying the environment for years upon years? Oh mah gawd.

Ahem. Anyone happen to see the Massive Change exhibition at the AGO a couple years back? Or the Live Earth concert a couple weeks ago? Anyone? Bueller?

I'll be the first to admit that my environmental science knowledge is low. But digging giant craters into the Earth and mining away for resources can't be having a great effect on the environment, whether it can be linked to climate change and global warming or not. It's still bad for the Earth, and obviously, it is bad for the people of Chile. I think the Prime Minister should deign to be a lot more thoughtful on the situation than to just say, more or less, 'It's not my problem.'

I know that this is one article and that there could be about a million sides of this story that I'm totally ignorant of. I realize this and I'm willing to cop to it. But the casual tone in which Harper offers no real explaination, and gives us no arguement to think about (which is pretty typical of the way he behaves in the media) is so suspect. And is kind of scary. I want to know what is going on and why, Mr. Harper, especially as your job is lead this country, and you also represent us when you visit others. And especially since your election campaign talked about bringing back dignity to the government. I'm still waiting.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/07/18/chile-protests.html?ref=rss