Arcola Theatre takes its carbon-neutral goal to the next level

Kaitlin Fowlie

Rooftop garden? Check. Organic beer? Check. LED lights? Check.
At first glance, the Arcola theatre demonstrates all the usual suspects of a sustainable enterprise. Upon deeper investigation, the theatre reveals itself as more than simply a trend-following arts organization pulling PR stunts.

Opened on credit cards in a reformed factory building in east London, the Arcola Theatre is an inspiration for students wishing to change the world via the arts. It was the virtue of commitment which drove this unique business and its founders all the way from their first production lit by candles, to generating their own sustainable energy in house. The Arcola theatre thrives today because it stuck to its core values – integrating several strands of specialization to lead the way toward change in arts organizations.

What is so special about the Arcola theatre is that it marries art, engineering, community development and environmental sustainability. Ben Todd, the executive director of the theatre, spent 10 years as an engineer before he decided to commit to the arts sector five years ago. When he joined the Arcola Theatre, he joined a mission to shift the culture in London toward a more sustainable one.

Todd maintains that handling climate change requires not only convincing individuals of the facts, but he says it is about driving a cultural shift. He says that with the changes he is making at his theatre he and his team are not striving for a revolution, but rather seeking gradual change. The problem is not awareness, he says. People are all too aware of the impending threats upon us, and no amount of understanding seems to contribute to a solution.

Todd said he believes that, on a personal level, we need to be walked through the five steps of grief in order for environmental threats to register. This includes denial, anger, bargaining, accepting, and finally we do something about it. Todd says that people need  both a place to stand, and a lever in order to leverage change. In his own case, he said he stands firmly rooted on the stage, and his lever is art.

If art is the means by which cultural change can be brought about, then it must encompass more than simply its performance aspect. In conversation Todd pointed out that some artists are like one trick ponies, but he said that artists have the potential, unlike any other specialist, to work with an idea and make it a reality in a matter of months. However, in order to maximize the power of invention, artists also need to extract from their other faculties. Da Vinci for example, a Renaissance man in his many abilities as an architect, poet, engineer, anatomist and musician, influenced the world in an unparalleled fashion. He remains impressive to this day because he was able to harmonize his artistic abilities with other passions.
If artists don’t see the need to restrain themselves and their consumption habits, they fail to see a priceless creative challenge. Greening the arts sector and their particular organization is an accomplishment that also looks great on a CV, makes an organization more interesting, more marketable, and more prolonged. Of course, it is also increasingly necessary.

While the carbon footprint of a theatre is negligible compared to that of a hotel: theatres represent two per cent of London’s total carbon emissions - they have to get involved with the cultural players if they wish to shift the culture. The Arcola’s emphasis on community work makes it a vital facet in the district of Dalston.

The area in east London is becoming progressively more and more gentrified, adding more affluent inhabitants to its arts oriented environment. The theatre acts as a mediator between the newcomers, who like to come to the theatre and drink organic beer, and the remaining original population who share the edge that the theatre had maintained since before property prices swelled. Taking pride in its status as a welcoming place, the theatre boasts a variety of groups for different crowds, including 50-plus groups, Turkish & Kurdish groups, youth and writers groups.

Green Sundays is the name for one of the many local projects the theatre has organized. At this monthly open house the staff welcome supporters of the theatre to share their ideas on environmental issues. They have film screenings, poetry readings, discussions and a “swap shop” where people can trade and reuse books and clothing. In the past they’ve hosted drum circles and workshops where people can learn how to make home-made eco-friendly toiletries. Green Sundays have shown the theatre’s audience that environmental issues don’t have to be uninteresting and instead they get people involved in their community, while invoking the big-picture questions that will lead to a more hopeful future.

The theatre has also received considerable acclaim for its goal to become the world’s first carbon neutral theatre. Arcola Energy is the name for their environmentally-friendly agenda, which includes everything from using paperless invoicing to international green theatre collaborations and hydrogen fuel cell powering their LED lighting. Going carbon neutral means the theatre is reducing their consumption of heat and electrical energy and they are producing their own renewable energy onsite.

Lighting for the theatre is produced using a mixture of LED and low power tungsten technologies, which means they’re able to reduce their power consumption by up to 90 per cent.  The lights also allow a nearly infinite colour range, and they don’t contain mercury or filament, making each light more durable. Performances lit on 5 kilowatts (about 5 spotlights) arranged in the “right way” can do wonders, and shows that it’s possible to have effective lighting and still reduce consumption. LED lights are gaining in prominence across the globe. Approximately 8,000 Starbucks across the U.S. have switched over, and Radiohead’s current tour is lit by these energy saving specimens.

As the Arcola theatre makes plans to expand its humble empire, Arup – an independent firm of designers, planners, engineers and consultants - will be assisting them in architectural and engineering plans. Arup’s work in Toronto includes engineering for the expansion of the ROM, and current work on Waterfront redevelopment.

Todd’s online manifesto states that art should be made in such a way that it can be enjoyed by everyone - forever. He says that it’s simple. His modus operandi may sound lighthearted and optimistic to some. How can something complex as the endangered environment be considered simple? We have to consider its simplicity in the interest of finding a solution, otherwise we will remain too intimidated to do anything. The Arcola theatre gains mastery over the complex environmental issue by means of what it knows best. That’s something everyone can do. According to Todd, “If you can’t do it, you are rubbish.”

Jess Dobkin reveals her everything in her new show

Otiena Ellwand

Dobkin is what all artists try extremely hard to be—Busy, creating something that is making money. Dobkin is off to the Harbourfront Centre, where her newest show, Everything I’ve Got, will debut on January 31st. It’s a piece that has been in the works for the past two years and will make its rounds at festivals in Toronto and Montreal. Inspired by a friend’s struggle and then death from cancer, Dobkin started to think about mortality from an artist’s perspective. What happens to an artist’s unrealized ideas and their creative work once they’re gone? Dobkin says that Everything I’ve Got is like a show and tell of her ideas, just in case the inevitable comes early. Dobkin is doing the unthinkable— she’s putting all of her ideas out there and that means that they could get stolen.

But Dobkin is no stranger to taking risks. In her piece, The Two Boobs (2003) she used her breasts as puppets. In Fee for Service (2006) she invited audience members to sharpen a pencil in her vagina. Then in the Lactation Station (2006) she asked lactating mothers to donate their breast milk for audience members to taste-test. She’s definitely teased the boundaries, to say the least, and has been rewarded for doing so. In 2006 she was named Best Performance Artist in Toronto by NOW Magazine for her “consistently clever and wacky [performances]” that stimulate an “intelligent discourse on women’s bodies and public space.”

“My work is a way of processing experience,” says Dobkin. “I want the audience to broach challenging subject matter with me.” She says she uses humour to break the ice and she shows her own vulnerability to make people feel safe enough to engage. “I don’t always feel free and comfortable in my skin,” says Dobkin.

“I’m fascinated by the body as a tool, as a medium, it’s this unbelievable, multi-dimensional canvas … The things that it does, it’s so quirky and unpredictable— the weird shit that comes out if it, how it has all of these senses, its fluids…”

Perhaps it is this vulnerability mixed with openness about her body that makes her work so surprising. In a YouTube video shot by Bark News at Nuit Blanche in 2006, reporter Ryan Ringer gets an interview while his pencil is being sharpened by Dobkin’s vagina dentata (Latin for ‘toothed vagina’) in her piece, Fee for Service. The whole interaction is awkward and embarrassing for Ringer, but also surprisingly gentle. When Dobkin asked Ringer if he thinks her vagina is beautiful, he answered, “Hmm, sure it’s beautiful but you know I’m probably saying that because I think I have to and I don’t know why.” His honesty shows the vagina’s two sides, as a body part that is so coveted and yet, at the same time, so stigmatized. Even though this man, woman and vagina are set in an intimate environment, there is discomfort in the fact that this is not the usual context where those three things typically meet. There are no societal guidelines, no rules on how to react or behave and it’s this tension of not knowing how to be that is fundamental to Dobkin’s art.

At a coffee shop with Dobkin on Danforth Ave., for once it’s not she who is getting the weird looks. An older woman standing beside our table is wailing to herself about a beach in Yugoslavia. “For the love of Timothy’s!” says Dobkin.

Momentarily distracted, she gets back on track. “Some of the things I do don’t seem so strange to me … Maybe it’s because the people I run with, with a lot of misfits, and perverts, and weirdos … Things don’t seem all that strange.” Then she remarks, “With my work it’s about pleasing myself first.”

Despite this individualistic bent, the social aspect of her work is one of her favourite parts. Dobkin is eager to get the conversation going between her and her audience. Just like in any relationship, there’s a certain amount of risk-taking required “I do feel some anxiety before I put work out there because I don’t know how it will be received and I do want people to be able to access it and I don’t want to alienate … I’m not interested in the shock value of performance art, I’m really interested in engagement.”

Dobkin’s work may be ‘out there’ but she is not an alien. She’s a working woman, a mother, and an artist who loves to socialize. “I was just thinking this morning that if I were to have a next career, I would like to be a party planner.”

And for some reason, this all makes perfect sense, for if her work is any indication of how fun, interesting and exotic her parties would be, then, it’s time to crack open the champagne and get the party started.

Starving student artists are hungry for art on campus

Introducing the Continuist ‘zine collective

Drew Penner

It is artistic hunger which forces creative minds of all stripes to the ends of the earth. They are in search of a glimmer of inspiration to fuel the fire of creation. Artistic hunger can also be more literally encapsulated in the colloquial term “starving artist.”

The ravenous desire to not only release experimental content into the world at large, but also provide a useful forum for other students to have a voice is what drives a Ryerson-based art collective to publish an annual ‘zine called the Continuist.

The Hunger is the theme members chose for this year’s issue. “All artists are kind of hungry,” says co-editor Gint Sileika. “A lot of what we do is about our desires and wants. So it’s kind of a general theme – (we have a) hunger to do art.”

Having received a few thousand dollars in funding each year from the Faculty of Arts and Ryerson’s Project Funding Allocation Committee for Students, the ‘zine is also an illustration of Ryerson’s commitment to promote up-and-coming artistic talent on campus.

The university has helped fund initiatives like Function Magazine, the Ryerson Gallery and Maximum Exposure, the year-end show for Ryerson’s School of Image Arts.

“‘Zines are small scale publications produced on an independent not-for-profit basis,” explained social critic Hal Niedzviecki, founder and publisher of ‘zine and independent culture magazine Broken Pencil. “Their significance is that they allow anyone who wants to publish their thoughts, stories and comics, to go ahead and do just that,” said Niedzviecki.

This year, as the Continuist collective devours new bits of tasty content, they are experimenting with a new method of showcasing their work to the world by releasing submissions online as they come in throughout the year.

This will allow for a more fluid and involved artistic process, and vastly increase the reach of the publication which has a print run of a few hundred copies.

Running a Wordpress blog is free and gives editors a wide swath of material to choose from when compiling the hard-copy edition at the end of the school year.

“These days most ‘zines that are in print have an online component because of the need to attract an audience and let people know you exist,” Niedzviecki said. “It’s an interesting idea to put all your submissions online, including ones you wouldn’t necessarily put in the print version of the ‘zine,” he said.
Sileika, now in his final year of Arts and Contemporary Studies, hopes adding a web presence will encourage students from other programs to be creative.

“It’s like having a magazine without any limits or boundaries,” he said. “We’re hoping to branch out in bigger and better ways.”

Arts and Contemporary Studies program director Klaas Kraay remembers helping the students get up and running more than three years ago, coaching them to apply for funding.

“I think it’s a terrific venue for creative expression,” said Kraay. He also said is excited to see the publication move into the online world, “because it showcases contributions on an ongoing basis … throughout the year.”

For three years the collective has been active on campus, hosting pub nights and launch parties. This year they’ve decided to host DIY art workshops for students.

At Halloween they held a punk-rock pumpkin carving seminar for about 20 students, blasting tunes, eating candy and learning seasonal skills. In January they held a collage and button making workshop.

“We just want to get as many people as possible involved in something that’s creative outside the

classroom,” said co-editor Steph Perrin.
“It’s a really nice environment to do that type of work,” she said. “It’s nice to have a club on campus that’s not political.”

“It’s always hard to get students to take the time to submit content,” she said, stressing unconventional formats are the norm at the Continuist. “Articles, interviews, lists – we want it all!”

Perrin’s advice for anyone considering risking artistic creation: discover the Hunger.

“Whatever that makes you want to take time out of your day to express yourself – that’s the theme,” she said. “It’s the passion that drives you to take that time.”

The ‘zine launch party will happen at the end of the semester.

Students interested in contributing can send selections to thecontinuist@gmail.com or at  www.thecontinuist.wordpress.com

The Ryerson Free Press believes that the creation and publication of  art is very political regardless of the political intent of the art itself.

Music Review

Stephen Carlick

There’s beauty behind the facade of this ugly record

Spoon – Transference
Rating: A

I’ve heard music critics call Transference “dirty,” “gritty,” “grainy,” “raw,” and even “ugly,” but only on a very shallow level. You see, this is the first time the Austin, TX quartet have ever produced their record entirely independently. So when people point to the album’s ugliness or rawness, they’re speaking mostly to the fact that the production is more lo-fi than any other Spoon album since 1998’s A Series of Sneaks. The album is also more spacious than any of their albums since 2002’s Kill the Moonlight. However, under Transference’s sparse grainy shell is a set of songs more emotive than your typical Spoon LP. This album is less concerned with style than with substance, less with cool detachedness than with emotion, less with pretense than with power. And all of this makes for a hard-hitting album. The power of Transference is in its beauty hiding behind the raw, aggressive production that, though it may take a while to surface, lingers long after the first few listens. Transference begs the listener return for more, and rewards them each time by letting them a little closer to the album’s hidden heart. Those looking for a repeat of the immediacy of Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga will be disappointed this time around, but anyone with an ear for depth and music whose quality lingers long after repeated listening is in for a treat.

Sophomore effort from the most beloved/hated band in the world today, is likeable
Vampire Weekend – Contra

Rating: B

Here’s why Vampire Weekend is so divisive: those who like it tend not just to like it, but to deem it the end-all-be-all of modern music. And, those who hate it love to hate hype, but refuse to admit that it’s the band’s fans, not their music, that they abhor so much. The fact remains that Vampire Weekend’s music is hardly loveable and hardly hateable; it’s likeable at best and tolerable at worst. So let’s just all stop being so adamant about our taste and our pretense and just accept that Contra isn’t going to blow any minds, change any opinions, or save the music industry. What’s it going to do, then? Well, It’s going to go to number one on the album sales charts (it already has) and it’s going to serve as a reminder to the band’s hardcore fans not only that Vampire Weekend aren’t their fringe, outside-of-the-box musical secret anymore, but that their music is simple and inoffensive enough that Contra appealed to enough people to surpass Susan Boyle on the charts. So everybody, let’s meet each other halfway and agree that Vampire Weekend are just a bunch of college-aged guys making smart, catchy pop music that loses its edge in the last quarter of Contra. If you’re wondering what it sounds like, listen close; the person next to you has it blaring from their headphones.

OK Go learns pop doesn’t need to be sticky to be sweet

OK Go – Of the Blue Colour of the Sky
Rating: B+

I’ll be flabbergasted if anybody’s written a song slinkier, sexier and more sinuous in 5/4 timing than OK Go’s “WTF?,” the first track from their first album in four years. And I’ll be damned if any pop/rock, guitar-based band straddling the line between cult band and major-label act has made a more consistently catchy and fun album than Of the Blue Colour of the Sky. Flaming Lips producer Dave Fridmann has rounded out OK Go’s sound this time around, making the band less reliant on jerky, joked up disco pop to get their point across. The band sounds positively sophisticated here, favouring a more mature and full-bodied sound that sacrifices none of the band’s clever, pointed lyrics or saccharine melodies. To those who fear this might be the end of the band’s trademark choreographer videos, fear not. The second single “This Too Shall Pass” comes fully equipped with a video that could bring a smile to the face of even the band’s most staunch critic. Of the Blue Colour of the Sky sounds like the work of dreamers who, instead of growing up to lose their air of whimsy, find themselves instead endowed with the maturity and the tools necessary to achieve the sound they set out for. For OK Go, this means an LP that just might finally get critics on their side, and they deserve it: they’ve spent nearly a decade getting here.

CBC launches Kids in the Hall TV show, again

Iqra Azhar

On Monday, January eleventh, I went to the CBC building to see the premiere of Death Comes to Town, an episode in the newly revived Kids in the Hall series that was going to air the following night, Tuesday, January 12 at 9 p.m.  As a part of the younger generation who wasn’t around  when the original Kids in the Hall aired, I was very interested in seeing what the hype was all about.

CBC Radio host Jian Ghomeshi climbed up the steps to the podium promptly at noon and announced the program. He explained that there would be a bit of a Q & A period with the cast and then the 30-minute premiere episode of the show would follow. I swiftly took out my notepad and pen, but was so swept away by the comedians that I never got a chance to turn on my recorder. It turned out I didn’t need to and with the super enthusiastic fans cheering on either side of me, I wouldn’t have been able to hear a single thing if I had recorded it.

I arrived at CBC early, not knowing what kind of following the old television show still had. I didn’t want to take the risk of having to stand in the back. At first, I was one of eight students in the front rows and we just stared at the empty stage as the CBC staff set everything up. By noon I was glad I arrived early, because there was a crowd gathering around the 200 seats, all of which had been taken. I was pleasantly surprised.

I was impressed when I realized the comedians from Kids in the Hall had also appeared in movies and TV shows that I was familiar with: Gilmore Girls (Bruce McCulloch), A Bug’s Life (Dave Foley), Friends and Seinfeld (Kevin McDonald). Mark McKinney and Scott Thompson rounded out the show’s talented line up of actors. The original Kids in the Hall show first aired on CBC in 1988 until 1995. Since then, the actors have all been working on individual projects. They came together to revive the TV show after some of them toured together for the Just for Laughs Comedy tour around North America in 2008. They realized they still wanted to work together. At the Q&A all five of the actors had everyone laughing so much with their answers that there were very few questions asked. Instead they presented several live mini-sketches.
Although I got a sense of the Kids and their style of comedy from the Q&A, nothing could prepare me for their first episode. Filmed in North Bay, the action takes place in a fictional town called Shuckton. Weird characters, all of which are played by the famous five, fired-off jokes and plenty of material that is not for the easily offended. The eight-part series is the Kids’ twist on a murder mystery and in the very first episode someone dies.

To follow along with this edgy ‘whodunnit’ narrative, Canadian talent at its best and some good ol’ quirky fun…I’ll be making sure to watch the show on CBC on Tuesday nights. I’ll be turning on the television to see who gets killed next.

The Oscars as a stage for social commentary

A review of past themes and a prediction for 2010

Michael Allen

As we near February, so too comes that sacred time of year for Image Arts students and entertainment junkies alike: The Oscars.  The air is electric after the buzz from the Golden Globes, and folks all over prepare for Hollywood’s Super Bowl weekend. However, as entertaining as it is to make our predictions for best supporting actress, best visual effects and the holy grail of them all, best picture, let us pause to reflect on what lies ahead in 2010.

Now it is no secret that in the past the Oscars have been transformed into a venue for discussing social issues.  In 1973, Marlon Brando refused his Oscar for The Godfather, citing the misrepresentation of Native Americans in film.  Likewise, Michael Moore’s acceptance speech in 2002 for Bowling for Columbine evoked shouts and boos when he criticized the war in Iraq. Although these individual outbursts and protests are rare, the Oscars is the time for Hollywood to speak up about social issues. This can be seen even so simply in the films they choose to recognize.

Traditionally, the best actor/actress and best picture recipients have been tied to performances and films that address hot-button issues of the day in American society.  George Clooney mused in his 2006 Best Supporting Actor acceptance speech for Syriana that Hollywood is unafraid of engaging subjects outside of mainstream discourse. “We’re the ones who talk[ed] about AIDS when it was just being whispered,” he said. Indeed 1993’s Philadelphia, starring Tom Hanks as a homosexual man stricken with HIV, was seen by critics as a bold step and earned Hanks an Oscar.  Some argued however, that Hanks recognition had much to do with soothing the tempers of gay rights activists over negative stereotypes in the previous year’s Best Picture winner, The Silence of the Lambs.

It seems that, especially in recent years, each Oscar telecast has a social justice theme.  This was perhaps most exemplified in 2007 when former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth took not only the Best Documentary Feature Award, but also claimed Best Original Song, a first for a documentary. In addition to being invited on stage by the director, Gore’s presence was ambient throughout the entire award show as he continually appeared onstage to support his stance on global climate change.  Actor Leonardo DiCaprio proudly announced early in the telecast that this was the first “green” Oscar show and echoed Gore’s sentiment that climate change is “not a political issue; it’s a moral issue.” Of course, this remark came after a gushing DiCaprio begged Gore to run for president in 2008.  Not a political issue indeed.

What theme will be most prevalent at the Oscars in 2010? For that we usually can take a cue from the Oscar’s junior predecessor, the Golden Globes.  If we are to put any stock in the decisions made by this smaller gala, it’s looking to become an even better year for Ontario-born Avatar director, James Cameron.  With both he and his record smashing two and a half-hour, 3D spectacle claiming the top prizes at the Globes, it should not be a big surprise if we see a repeat of Titanic’s near clean sweep in 1997.  It’s difficult to extrapolate what particular theme Avatar will fulfill, as it is a film jammed-packed with as many ideas as eye-popping effects.

Will this year harken back to 2004’s Hotel Rwanda, with the themes of relocation and genocide as envisioned in James Cameron’s blue-skinned natives, or will anti-war sentiments over the occupation of a sovereign territory (or planet) for a natural resource win out?  It’s my hope that Avatar, a film that populated ideas so big it doesn’t know how to effectively address them, does not overshadow other, more focused and socially conscious, films from this year.  I’m always cheering for the underdog so I will have my fingers crossed for Precious, about an innocent 16 year-old girl growing up in Harlem who struggles to over-come some of the most brutal and squirm-inducing emotional abuse ever committed to film.

Regrettably I seem to have raised more questions than I had sought to answer; a common hazard when one tries to read too much into entertainment.  It is probably a good thing that we try to keep it in perspective. The Oscars are an annual celebration of the newest films.  So as we pitch-in on our Oscar pools and tune in next month, if nothing else we know we will be entertained.  Hopefully as the awards are handed out and the long-running speeches are cut off by the orchestra, Hollywood will remember that’s why we keep going to the movies in the first place.

REVIEW: Footnotes in Gaza

Katia Dmitrieva

Footnotes in Gaza. Metropolitan. Written and illustrated by Joe Sacco. Hardcover. December ’09.

Joe Sacco’s newly-released Footnotes in Gaza is no less ironic and blunt than his other graphic novels. His voice can be heard in the opening chapter, “A Glimmer of Hope.” Journalists at a party in Israel swap information on the latest violence as if they were discussing stock prices. Sacco intones that “they’ve photographed every wailing mother, quoted every lying spokesperson, detailed every humiliation-and for what?”

The people in the region live in emotion-numbing reality. And Sacco doesn’t let us forget it for a minute.
Later, in the chapter titled “Claustrophobia”, the stress incurred by Palestinians when crossing Abu Houli checkpoint is recounted in his ink drawings and suspenseful blurbs over six agonizing pages. The driver concentrates on the slightest sign from the Israeli soldiers manning the checkpoint. After all, Sacco injects, these gatekeepers have the power to close the road for hours, days, or indefinitely.

Sacco’s destination was Khan Younis, site of the Israeli massacre of Palestinian civilians over fifty years ago.

But along the way, he interviewed survivors, witnesses, and a memorable fedayee (guerilla fighter) who insisted that Rafah city hid another key event.

During his research, Sacco noticed that the massacres in Khan Younis and Rafah were barely documented. In fact, the 1956 Israeli military roundup and execution of Gazan civilians was summarized by a UN report in just a few sentences, a veritable footnote in time.

Sacco highlights these crucial moments in the Palestinian narrative while reflecting on current hostilities between Hamas-controlled Gaza and the Israeli state which chokes it.

A veteran conflict-zone journalist and cartoonist, he delves into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict once more by relying on history as a guide and Gaza as his story-telling focus. Sacco has an uncanny ability to integrate himself into his surroundings, offering the reader an observant perspective on the conflict through his subjects’ eyes.

As one of his interview subjects revealed, the massacre of men in Khan Younis left “a wound in [the] heart that can never heal.” Sacco illustrates with unflinching clarity how those wounds can fester with his detailed, frame-by-frame unraveling of Gaza’s tragic past and sombre present.

Mayworks celebrates 25 years of arts for the people

Tashika Gomes

If you close your eyes tight enough, you can see the colours, you can hear the drums and you can feel the passion. Each artist performing at Mayworks acts as a beacon; voicing the struggles of the working class and artists alike. Equity-seeking groups such as First Nations people, queer-identified individuals, women and those people who are politically and socially engaged are given a platform for artistic expression which they might not otherwise obtain. Beyond the significance of the festival and its social justice mandate, this year Mayworks will be even more special.

As Canada’s largest and oldest labour arts festival, Mayworks will turn 25 years old this May. Back in 1985 the Labour Arts Media Committee founded the festival to create a forum that would recognize workers as artists, and artists as workers. The group envisioned a festival that would provide a stage and an audience for various disadvantaged groups in the city.

Since its founding, Mayworks has hosted celebrations in cities across Canada, in Edmonton, Ottawa, Winnipeg and Toronto. The organizers are conscious to host the festivities in locations across the city, thus making it more accessible to more of the public. They also ensure that event locations are wheelchair accessible. From art galleries to clubs, the festival offers nine days of spoken word, performance art, photography, workshops and family-friendly events. They pride themselves on having a large and diverse audience. “Last year we had many events where there was standing room only. (Our audiences are) from different communities… Quite an accomplishment,” said Mayworks publicist, Matthew Adams.

Although it has been difficult to get coverage from the mainstream media about the festival’s growing success, in the last ten years the festival has definitely become more popular outside of the labour movement. Many people who are not unionized or part of a labour council are presenting art and attending events. For many artists, the festival acts as a stepping stone to greater things. Some of Mayworks’ artist alumni had existed almost completely in obscurity before eventually gracing the covers of magazines. One such grassroots group who appeared on the cover of NOW Magazine was Pretty Porky and Pissed Off.

They’re fat-activists who use theatre to challenge body image stereotypes.

When it comes to the kinds of artists that Mayworks is prepared to spotlight in their events, the festival committee is dedicated to giving as many new artists as possible the type of exposure they deserve. As a testament to this policy, every year Mayworks’ line-up is unique.

One of Mayworks’ most renowned artists at last year’s festival, Favianna Rodriguez said performing at Mayworks is, “a way to reach audiences that you may not reach otherwise.” She also said, “It’s great to collaborate with artists who have the same political inclinations.” “It was very powerful,” said Rodriguez, who is based in California.

“It was a great experience for me to go to Toronto and interact with the community there…To see how Canadians…really saw the interception between art and labour,” she said.

Despite the economic downturn, the festival has not floundered. The organizers say they are accustomed to running on a slim budget and they have been able to skim by during hard times. The festival committee has even decided to branch out beyond the month of May. They will be bringing arts to the labour movement all year round by providing cultural services to conventions and training schools.

Adams is positive about in which direction the labour movement and the arts are growing together. He said, “More unions are embracing the use of the arts. They are beginning to see that the arts are not some add on or simply entertainment but are a way that they can explore their issues, get their messages across and celebrate their victories.”

Although a full schedule is not set to be released until mid-March, the Ryerson Free Press was able to get a sneak peek at the line-up. The highly anticipated queer performance troupe Swell will be on stage on April 27. In addition, audiences should anticipate sold out shows for feminist powerhouse poet Ami Mattison, who is coming in from the U.S.

The festival runs from April 24 to May 2, 2010. Visit www.mayworks.ca for more information.

To volunteer for the for the Mayworks festival email admin@mayworks.ca. Submissions for the Bookends exhibition are open until February 12, 2010.

‘Zinesters are zany for Canzine

Jennifer Tse

Ask Richard Rosenbaum about ‘zine culture in Toronto and he’ll put it simply: “There’s a lot of it.”

Rosenbaum would know. The 30-year-old Ryerson student, currently working on his Communication and Culture master’s degree, is also the associate fiction editor and online fiction editor of Broken Pencil magazine, Canada’s authority on ‘zine culture.

Broken Pencil hosted Canzine, the largest festival of alternative arts in the country, on Nov. 1, 2009 at the historic Gladstone Hotel. And the 2009 iteration of Canzine was its most successful yet.

“We had about 170 creators set up at the fair. We had to turn people away because of space,” said Rosenbaum.

Located in the heart of the Queen West art scene, the Gladstone became Toronto’s alternative culture Mecca for the afternoon. Many even found it difficult to move around, so jam-packed was the space with small press creators, or ‘zinesters,’ and visitors browsing their wares. Evident from the tables piled high with screen-printed t-shirts, CDs, and buttons, the colourful array of homegrown creation extended far beyond just mini magazines.

“‘Zines are low-tech, self-published, creator-created publications that go through genres,” said Rosenbaum. “Lately they’ve also been a supplement to other creative endeavors like comics and music, but ‘zines tie this do-it-yourself culture all together.”

Among those tabling at Canzine were editors from McClung’s Magazine, Ryerson’s feminist magazine; and Ian Daffern, a 2001 Ryerson Radio and Television Arts alumnus.

Dressed in a suit and tie, Daffern was a stark contrast with the sea of skinny jeans and vintage sunglasses tabling around him. Daffern was promoting Freelance Blues, a comic book series he created with friends Mike Leone and Vicki Tierney. The series highlights one man’s struggle with the perils of work and is a self-described “adventure in underemployment.”

“This suit reflects the hero of the story,” said Daffern, who first heard about Canzine from at a Book TV internship he started while at Ryerson. “It’s my first self-published book.”

Neither Daffern nor Rosenbaum would have been a part of the ‘zine scene if it weren’t for Hal Niedzviecki, Broken Pencil’s fiction editor. In true grassroots fashion, it was Niedzviecki who had reached out and encouraged both writers to become involved.

“I met him while taking a short story class at George Brown,” said Rosenbaum. “He told me that a story I’d written was Broken Pencil’s type of work, so we got it published, and kept in touch.”

Now an established member of the Broken Pencil team, Rosenbaum organized Canzine’s Can’tLit, a collection of readings featuring some of Broken Pencil’s most celebrated contributors. A play on CanLit or Canadian Literature, a quarterly devoted to the criticism and review of Canadian writing, Can’tLit’s goal was to be everything CanLit wasn’t.

“A lot of people perceive CanLit as something that has a preconception and standard for writers,” said Rosenbaum. “CanLit is also a catch-all term for Canadian literature. Boring, rural, historical. Can’tLit is modern, urban, and young. It’s all over the map, with varied and broad interests.”

The anthology featured Joey Comeau, Greg Kearney, Jessica Faulds, and Zoe Whittall. All guests were handpicked by Rosenbaum, who tried to find local, Toronto-based authors in an attempt to nurture ‘zine culture close to home.

“I think the Toronto ‘zine scene is helping a lot of people communicate very directly and very personally, which is something that’s not as easy to do in a more mediated form, like traditional publishing and music,” said Rosenbaum.

To Rosenbaum, ‘zine culture is special because of its grassroots nature and lack of intermediate stages between the ‘zinester and the audience.

“The personal touch—that’s important, because that’s really what art is about,” said Rosenbaum. “Communicating and connecting.”

The body: A world of its own

Gunther von Hagens’ plastination exhibit demonstrates the beauty of the human body

Angela Walcott

Science and art, art and science—either way you look at it, they are two different worlds and when you put them together they create something magical. Back in 1995, Dr. Gunther von Hagens first presented Body Worlds to the general public and the response was immense. Seen by a record 29 million people around the world, the exhibit has managed to unite people from different backgrounds on common ground—their appreciation for anatomical art.

BODY WORLDS & The Story of the Heart is the second presentation of the world-reknowned exhibit by Dr. Gunther von Hagens in Toronto. The figures in the exhibit perform complex poses—exposing tendons, blood vessels and lean muscle and displaying the strength, athleticism and beauty of the human body.

BODY WORLDS & The Story of the Heart is different than the previous exhibit—“It is a more personal/intimate approach to our bodies. It offers visitors the means to explore and reconcile their considerations about the mind, the heart, the body, and the human condition,” said Dr. Angelina Whalley, the curator and conceptual designer for the exhibition.

Many visitors have commented that the special feature of The Story of the Heart has given them a reason to think more specifically about how they can improve their heart health, how serious heart problems can be and how amazing the pump in our bodies is.

Some skeptics argue that a human body should be respected after death and not put on display for our viewing pleasure. But this could not be further from the truth. The pieces aren’t disrespectful since Hagens successfully melded science with art. Given the fact that these bodies were donated to science for teaching purposes, the ethical question of whether science should be displayed as art continues.

The Javelin Thrower is statuesque and graceful, yet painstakingly positioned, to fully display how the muscles work in unison to execute a single fluid movement. All of the plastinates that make up the exhibit are made from people who have donated their bodies to science. In turn, science celebrates the human body.

Dr. von Hagens’ exhibit, presents what we take for granted. We do not see the physiological aspects, the inner workings of the human form beneath the skin, aside from computer graphic representations, but Hagens gives us that rare opportunity.

The exaggerated articulation of muscles at the exhibit is incredible to see. While these cadavers are only display for the public to see, a distance and respect is maintained. Carefully placed signs ask that patrons abstain from touching the plastinate figures at all times.

The exhibit is part of The Human Saga—a series that shows the workings of the brain, the heart and other findings about the human body. The discoveries stem from the latest advances in the fields of neuroscience, cardiology, biology, genetics, gerontology, psychiatry and physiology.

Interlaced throughout the exhibit are a series of snapshots showcasing healthy vs. unhealthy organs and cross-sections that illustrate abnormalities in the body. The ill-effects of smoking (blackened lungs enrobed in nicotine versus the healthy lungs of a non-smoker), as well as enlarged and diseased hearts. Cross sections show abnormalities of the brain while another shows the effects of obesity. A red web of capillaries and veins is featured in another figure displaying the intricate detail of the heart.

The Ontario Science Centre was the first Canadian venue that invited Dr. Gunther von Hagens to bring the first BODY WORLDS exhibition to Canada.

It all started in July of 1977, with an idea of Dr. Gunther von Hagens got, while he was working as a scientist at the University of Heidelberg’s Institute of Pathology and Anatomy. He said, “I was looking at a collection of specimens embedded in plastic. It was the most advanced preservation technique then, where the specimens rested deep inside a transparent plastic block. I wondered why the plastic was poured and then cured around the specimens, rather than pushed into the cells, which would stabilize the specimens from within and literally allow you to grasp it.”

The notion was an epiphany for Dr. von Hagens, and the genesis of Plastination—his groundbreaking invention where all bodily fluids from anatomical specimens are extracted to stop decomposition, and replaced through vacuum-forced impregnation with silicon rubber and epoxy. The specimens are then hardened with gas, light, or heat curing, which gives the specimens their rigidity and permanence. The Institute for Plastination was founded in 1993 to meet demands for plastination once the science world saw the value of plastinates as a teaching tool.

Before BODY WORLDS only people studying anatomy could enjoy this, and now it is available for everyone to appreciate. Visitors include people from all walks of life who are interested in learning more about the human body.

“More plastinates are set to come in December, including a polar bear,” said the communications manager at the The Ontario Science Centre, Mavis Harris.

The exhibit is on display at the Ontario Science Centre until February 2010.

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