ONE MORE YEAR

I would like to acknowledge our presence on unceded Syilx/Okanagan territory. Not some banal fact, but this is life.. There was a 10-30,000 year history of people & culture before any of us happened to arrive here let's close our eyes and imagine this land 300 years ago.. The hills devoid of subdivisions and concrete paved communities, grasses blowing in the winds, creeks flowing into the large wondrous lake, waves lapping on the shores, and then now, this device, these attachments, appendages of sorts..

I got 2,520,000 hits when I searched "unceded Okanagan territory." Must be a popular subject - but yet how far have we come in 'conciling' our relationships in determining where we stand in relationship to the people that were here before us, and in our relationship to this land, the land that is our grounding, and that provides for us...

Of endings and beginnings this is the beginning of sorts for many of you, an unknown but exciting path, it may be useful to reflect on the end, where this journey may take you, what wonderful and amazing places  - literally and metaphorically - that may be, and the importance of the process of getting there, and the value of the inbetween state, the interstitial being/an ephemeral place to make concrete..

An old sensei once asked me, 'What is the tale you are going to leave behind?'

Even after we are gone, there is going to be evidence of our presence, it is up to each one and every one of us to determine what that tale will be. So, it's a little strange speaking to you at this 'beginning' of yours, or point of departure, from up here. There's so much I could tell you, if only I knew you, and could guess what may be useful. 

The last time I spoke to a large group of about 300 students was in Kabul, Afghanistan. One very early morning in the Marfat school's courtyard, under crystalline blue spring skies - 5:30am the morning shift was gathering for their 6am daily assembly. I was there to film the students and the faculty, and to do drawing workshops with them later in the morning. The students of all ages, grade 1 - high school, mostly girls in beautifully sparking light blue robes, and white head scarfs, all lined up, some still in the process of waking up. The principal asked Khadim (my Afghan collaborator) and myself, as we have come from so far away, and have had so much experience in our fields if we would possibly give a little speech, impromptu. And a bit surprised, we felt obliged.

First Khadim spoke in a Farsi dialect - which I didn't understand - to these beaming faces, aglow with the thirst for knowledge, having been just a few years earlier forbidden to attend school.

Then I was asked to speak, in this calm sanctuary of discourse and learning. In the intensity of this moment, I spoke. All I remember telling them toward the end of my speech - was that,

"You can make a difference in your lives and in the community, in the lives of those around you. Every one of your lives is important, valuable. Do not ever deny that you can make a difference. Our hearts go out to you and we stand with you in this." 

To that I add today, "They and you will make a difference, it is up to you what type of difference you make. One that builds/adds/helps or one that continues the trajectory we are on to self destruction."

Afterwards, the girls sang their school song, with one girl up on the balcony stairs, singing the verses, and the girls below repeating the verse and singing the refrain. Point - counterpoint. The song spoke of the giving of ourselves to humanity to better the common good. It was from one line that was repeated in the song that became the title for our project, "The heart that has no pain, love or generosity is not a heart."

So, it is in this spirit that I speak with you today with empathy and affinity. And in appreciating the human resources around you, there is an excellence of practices, many empathetic exemplary examples surrounding you here – and that's just from the few I know of - Jeanette Armstrong, Stephen Foster, Gary Pearson, the folks down at the En'owkin Centre, your new director Ashok Mathur, and Ayumi Goto -

In a book she co-edited, "Reconcile This!", artist/writer David Garneau succinctly articulates something many of us have felt since the short lived and weakly mandated "Truth and Reconciliation" process began, that we are in fact in a process of 'conciliation' not reconciliation as there never was an equitable relationship since the beginning of colonization, this is where we have to start, now, with empathy and affinity.

As young artists, as soul-searching and rewarding that an isolated studio practice is, working collectively or collaboratively is one of the most radically political acts of making art - or social consciousness - that you can do, working collectively or collaboratively - and across disciplines. Why not be the most adventurous you can be and find kindred spirits to be so with, to push the limits of viewers and institutions, to challenge cultural perceptions, and with that affect some actual change.

After my first year of art school in 1978, I quit, and headed to Banff School of Fine Arts to do a year long residency program. The instructor Hu Hohn, got me hooked on Sufi stories such as, "The Exploits and Subtleties of the incomparable Mulla Nasrudin." Mulla Nasrudine is a Sufi wise-fool, trickster like coyote/raven figure. These books were chock full of funny little contemplative mediation stories, sort of like Zen koans with humour. I would read these riding the bus at night and such, to get me through the difficult days, whether depressed or just bagged… 

Fast forward 40 years later, I'm in the central highlands of Afghanistan, in Bamiyan, where the colossal Buddha statutes were destroyed by the Taliban. A stark, arid, severe, beautiful landscape, people scrapping by, subsistence, farming (much like my grandparents did). I'm filming scruffy little country boys in a new school built by Western troops (in Hazaragi <Farsi dialect) via the translator but never have the time to translate responses. At the end of each session, we ask them to tell joke, song, etc. Lo & behold I came across some the very same Sufi stories being told by these scruffy little country boys..

(Cleaned up the swear words  - PG crowd here)

Mullah Nasseruddin had a chicken, one day as he was sitting down washing that chicken, a person passed by on his way to the marked, and said, "Mullah! Why are you washing the chicken? Nasseruddin yelled at him and said, "Go away, mind your own business." So the man went off to the market. On his way back he passed by again and saw the Mullah sitting there, crying, - the chicken had died. He said to Nasseruddin, “Didn't I tell you not to wash the chicken, that it would die?” Nasseruddin replied, “It didn't die due to washing of it; it died due to the wringing out."

There is an interconnectedness to all things, people encountered, places experienced.. and the process of representing it all.

In all our endeavours we must fight the promulgation of ignorance thrust upon us by our governments, especially our federal and provincial government, and their systematic suppression of ‘knowledge(s)’, the effective 'gagging' of experts and critics in the sciences, medicine, education, data collection (the axing of the long-form census), and even our democracy with the so called ‘Fair Elections Act”. Our governments absolve themselves of responsibility in so many ways:

-The oceans, full of plastics, as if dilution will cure everything.

-The atmosphere filling of carbon and acid, affecting all growth.

-Our bodies fully consuming petroleum products and toxic technologies.

-Aboriginal struggles for health, water, education, and all of our missing women.

-Enbridge, Kinder Morgan, Tar Sands, Fukushima and all nuclear energy.

We cannot get rid of our problems by ignoring them. As artists and citizens, one thing we can do is to bring things to the surface that are being ignored. So, to those who work in vulnerability, and whose works are making change, we stand with you. With so many avenues being closed to us art/art-making may be the one of the last discursive arenas, one of the last places you can critical and freely express yourselves. This area of expression (art production and discourse) needs to be protected and fought for. So if you choose to continue your artistic path, or use your creative talents in other fields - because your skills are adaptable to anywhere - I hope that the any difficulties/pain in what you traverse is passable - this is truly part of life - and your journey is one of peace, generosity and love.