(official denial) trade value in progress
I worked on this project today in my women’s studies class. Winnipeg based artist Leah Decter uses the Hudson’s Bay Blankets to show her distrust with Stephen Harper’s politically violent views. After recently apologizing for residential schools, Harper said that Canada didn’t have a history of colonialism. I know, right?
"
Understand that the police and laws are part of a system that is anti-poor, anti-women, anti-people of colour, anti-queer, and anti-people with disabilities. Understand that to truly be free, to truly do what you are trying to do, which is resisting the laws that allow some to be rich and powerful and for the rest to live at their mercy, you must resist racism, sexism, classism, homophobia and disableism. You must resist the very structure every one of these laws is based on — you must resist colonialism.
Understand that to truly be free, to truly include the entire 99 per cent, you have to say today, and say every day: We will leave no one behind. We will leave no one in jail. We will leave no one in the clutches of immigration enforcement. We will leave no one when they are strong. We will leave no one when they are weak. We will support the decisions people make, to do whatever they feel necessary to survive and to resist. We will support those that fight in the courts, and we will support those that fight in the streets.
"—
- Syed Hussan in #OccupyTogether in the age of conspiracy | rabble.ca
now this is a rallying cry i can get behind.
I’ve been waiting to find some (indigenous) critique on the strategy/rhetoric of occupation- jessica yee always kills it!
Really good article on how anti-capitalist movements can totally miss the point by reaffirming colonial occupation and the dispossession of Indigenous peoples.
written by Jessica Yee
“Let me be clear. I’m not against ending capitalism and I’m not against people organizing to hold big corporations accountable for the extreme damage they are causing. Yes, we need to end globalization. What I am saying is that I have all kinds of problems when to get to “ending capitalism” we step on other people’s rights – and in this case erode Indigenous rights – to make the point. I’m not saying people did it intentionally but that doesn’t even matter – good intentions are not enough and good intentions obviously can have adverse affects. This is such a played out old record too, walking on other people’s backs to get to a mystical land of equity. Is it really just and equitable when specific people continue to be oppressed to get there? And it doesn’t have to be done! We don’t need more occupation – we need decolonization and it’s everyone’s responsibility to participate in that because COLONIALISM AFFECTS EVERYONE. EVERYONE! Colonialism also leads to capitalism, globalization, and industrialization. How can we truly end capitalism without ending colonialism? How does doing things in the name of “America” which was created by the imposition of hierarchies of class, race, ability, gender, and sexuality help that?”
(Also, I’ve just been reading Feminism for Real: Deconstructing the Academic Industrial Complex of Feminism, which is edited by Yee and has lots to say about colonialism and racism within broader feminist movements and exciting articles that go beyond that/came before).
gdhdfjhf
Empire Line (2005) series by British photographer Gavin Fernandes.
Fernandes describes the series in British Asian Style: Fashion & Textiles / Past and Present:
By subverting representations of British “memsahibs” and their indigenous Indian servants, and through the interaction of period British costume and native Indian dress, Empire Line explores the politics of clothing and its relationship with class and caste in 19th-century colonial India.
Though so rooted in colonial imagery, I love how Fernandes’s work also speaks to the complex and often problematic cultural exchanges of the contemporary fashion industry.
NEED TO PROCESS THIS MORE. MIND = BLOWN.
(via nehrujackets)
‘I Like America and America Likes Me 1974, Joseph Beuys
Beuys’s most famous Action took place in May 1974, when he spent three days in a room with a coyote. After flying into New York, he was swathed in felt and loaded into an ambulance, then driven to the gallery where the Action took place, without having once touched American soil. As Beuys later explained: ‘I wanted to isolate myself, insulate myself, see nothing of America other than the coyote.’ The title of the work is filled with irony. Beuys opposed American military actions in Vietnam, and his work as an artist was a challenge to the hegemony of American art.
Beuys’s felt blankets, walking stick and gloves became sculptural props throughout the Action. In addition, fifty new copies of the Wall Street Journal were introduced each day, which the coyote acknowledged by urinating on them. Beuys regularly performed the same series of actions with his eyes continuously fixed on the coyote. At other times he would rest or gather the felt around him to suggest the figure of a shepherd with his crook. The coyote’s behaviour shifted throughout the three days, becoming cautious, detached, aggressive and sometimes companionable. At the end of the Action, Beuys was again wrapped in felt and returned to the airport.
For Native Americans, the coyote had been a powerful god, with the power to move between the physical and the spiritual world. After the coming of European settlers, it was seen merely as a pest, to be exterminated. Beuys saw the debasement of the coyote as a symbol of the damage done by white men to the American continent and its native cultures. His action was an attempt to heal some of those wounds. ‘You could say that a reckoning has to be made with the coyote, and only then can this trauma be lifted’, he said.’
HOW HAVE I NEVER HEARD OF THIS PIECE. it is relevant to so many of my interests.
(via lionza)
amazing sounding academic conference
Dope ass conference check the schedule lists of panelist and paper presentations!
holy cow. that looks amazing. anyone in that neck of the woods, check it out.
Inuit have long alleged that police killed a total of about 20,000 sled dogs from 1950 to 1980 in Nunavut, the Nunavik region of northern Quebec, and the Nunatsiavut region of Labrador. The Inuit hold the husky, or qimmiit in the local language, in high regard, which has helped maintain a pure breeding line. The Inuit husky is the hardiest of dog breeds, needing no shelter even in the most extreme Arctic weather and eating only raw caribou, seal or walrus meat.
As a result of losing their dogs, Inuit say their livelihoods were dramatically affected. Many have accused governments of forcing families to move from their traditional settlements into western-style communities. “People were sincere in how they told about their stories and the impacts on them today, after so many years of having gone through this transition period, moving from beloved homes and families to the larger settlements,” Igloliorte said. “It was a tough experience.”
In its own report in 2006, the RCMP concluded no organized dog slaughter took place. Some dogs were lawfully destroyed because they were disease-ridden or dangerous, according to the police force.
i still find it astounding how few people know about this.
