COMMUNITY ARTS FOR COMMUNITIES IN CRISIS

Supporting communities in crisis was a notion raised time and again at CAO’s Forum 2006: Community Arts Matters in Hamilton last June. At the time news headlines were full of stories about the Six Nations land reclamation, the arrest of 17 Muslim youth for alleged “terrorist” activities and, later that summer, another Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

While no one would argue against using the word “crisis” to apply to communities in the above examples we are all aware that headlines are not the sole indicator of crises. In fact, I know many Elders who would characterize all two-leggeds as “in crisis” by virtue of the state of Mother Earth, on whom we all depend for sustenance.

So questions in the wake of the Forum persist: What do we mean by “crisis”? What is CAO’s role in supporting communities in crisis? How can community arts possibly respond to the needs of communities in crisis?

The content of this issue won’t provide comprehensive answers to these questions. Hopefully, what it can do is provide us with some heart-led examples of how artists/activists/communities and just plain folks have created, re-created and expressed themselves artistically in an effort to address their crises.

In the category of works aimed at provoking thought and feeling we have two visual art pieces:

• Wendy Sturgeon’s “Getting Through November” is a visual representation of feelings she experienced while working with street youth in St. Catharines.

• Marcel S. Blanchette’s simple but poignant “Destination” depicts a dead fish, one of many victims constantly washing up onto the shores of Lake Ontario.

Articles by Jorge Vallejos and Hazem Jamjoum provide insights on how artistic products and the lives of artists who produce them impact communities.

• With Biggie in My Life Then and Now, Vallejos lends us insight into the appeal of hip hop to racialized youth as he speaks to his conflicted loyalties around the work of urban music artist Biggie Smalls, whose verses once spoke to his generation’s frustration and anger. Now with the perspective of a few more years on him, Vallejos critiques the homophobic and sexist messages in the music while maintaining his basic respect for Biggie’s skills, talent and candor.

• Through storytelling, Jamjoum introduces us to the life of an Egyptian artist who created in a country known to repress and torture its Truthsayers. Hazem’s article Jawqet El-Sheikh Imam: Reviving a Hidden History through Stories and Song speaks to the significance of Shaikh Imam’s courage, humour and talent to a new generation of Arab youth striving to uphold his legacy by challenging injustice through reviving his music and poetry while forging their community identities in the diaspora.

Community arts as a process and a tool of community development is discussed in two articles that look at creative activities in very different contexts:

• In Community Arts and Necessary Pause, Anne Cunningham sees the practice of community arts in “modern Western society” as providing us with an opportunity to reflect and reconnect in the context of a culture obsessed with individualism and consumerism. She posits that the space provided by artistic and “leisure” activities can be opportunities to rethink our social values.

• In Aedoon and Project HOPE - Community Arts Under Siege Kole Kilibarda looks at two examples of community arts as practiced in a country under occupation and hints at the price artists pay in that context for creative and political expression. Community arts in Palestine is not a “leisure” activity. Rather it is integrated into the community’s survival strategies.

Agree or disagree with the writers and authors as you wish, so long as you give some thought to the role of community arts in addressing crisis.

In sum, I’d like to offer some thoughts from the First Nations perspective. Every experience we are given, whether we like it or not, is first of all temporary and secondly and opportunity for growth. Every situation has its lessons and gifts. If those lessons are not obvious it’s up to us to look for them.

It may seem trite and insensitive to communities living under occupation or in war zones to hear that they must look for the gift within their situation. However, every time I feel myself slipping into bitterness and rage at the thought of the genocide through which our people still struggle, I remember that living our culture, reclaiming our indigenous values and creating art are inherently counter-genocidal activities. More than that they offer us a set of values and a worldview that helps us transcend life’s obstacles and develop to new spiritual heights.

As the bombs fell in Lebanon this summer, I remembered an anonymous quote I will share here. “The opposite of war isn’t peace; its creation.”