How Many Slaves Do You Own? |
How Many Slaves Do I Own? by Leah Gabrielle SilverbergAugust 18th, 2010 The following blog post is a sum up of thoughts and feelings after three-day Engrenage Noir / LEVIER-sponsored event entitled How Many Slaves do You Own? Art and the Economies of Exploitation, Past and Present. The entire How Many Slaves? weekend was a jumble of breakthroughs and new learnings for me. I saw, heard, and experienced so much in those three days in March that sometimes I thought I might explode. There was a tremendous amount of thought, compassion and reflection present in the room at all times and I found that it was so powerful for me to be around. I left the weekend feeling optimistic and hopeful, despite the fact that we had spent three days exploring really difficult issues. I walked out the doors of the MAI on Sunday late afternoon with more questions then I did when I walked in. One of the central questions inside me was, and still is, “How many slaves do I own? How do I fit in to this system of oppression? And furthermore, how do I go on knowingly perpetuating things I do not like or agree with while at the same time wanting to live my life, be happy and fulfilled and make inner and outer change?” These are challenging questions that I have definitely not finished answering completely - nor do I think that I ever will be, however, being apart of this weekend event definitely pushed me in certain directions, as well as helped me to re-affirm certain things. |
Anger and Art by Leah Gabrielle SilverbergAugust 18th, 2010 In the following blog post I discuss how the three-day Engrenage Noir / LEVIER-sponsored event entitled How Many Slaves do You Own? Art and the Economies of Exploitation, Past and Present helped me to deal with feelings of anger. I explore how art and anger can be intertwined and how I have dealt with this in the past. |
Reflections About The Performance
|
History, Education and Identity by Leah Gabrielle SilverbergJune 19th, 2010 In the following blog post I use the roundtable discussion that occurred on Saturday March 13th, 2010 entitled Narratives of Slavery and Colonialism: Telling Stories, Shaping Histories, Affecting Change, as part of the three-day Engrenage Noir / LEVIER-sponsored How Many Slaves do You Own? Art and the Economies of Exploitation, Past and Present event, to discuss the link between dominant discourse and history. I explore how history is passed down and what implications this process has for society; as well, I raise questions about how art can be a force for change and empowerment. |
Reflections And Thoughts After Visiting Nigger Rock by Leah Gabrielle SilverbergJune 19th, 2010 In the following blog post I present and examine my reflections and thoughts about visiting the St. Armand slave cemetery called Nigger Rock for the first time on Saturday March 13th, 2010, as part of the three-day Engrenage Noir / LEVIER-sponsored gathering entitled How Many Slaves do You Own? Art and the Economies of Exploitation, Past and Present. |
Humour, Art and Pain A reflection on the Trading Post performance by Mélissa Mollen-Dupuis et Émilie Monnet by Leah Gabrielle SilverbergJune 19th, 2010 In the following blog post - in which I write about Mélissa Mollen Dupuis and Émilie Monnet’s performance called Trading Post on Sunday, March 14, 2010, as part of the three-day LEVIER-sponsored event entitled How Many Slaves do You Own? Art and the Economies of Exploitation, Past and Present - I focus on the role that humour plays in cultural representations that engage with difficult social issues and the associated individual and collective pain “If you think there’s a long stretch of unoccupied emotion between laughter and sorrow, then think again. Because the two are linked in a messy tango of slippages, mixed messages and quadruple entendres.” - Barbara Kruger In Not Funny//1990 from The Artist’s Joke edited by Jennifer Higgie (p. 108) |
Privilege and Art by Leah Gabrielle SilverbergJune 14th, 2010 In the following blog post I examine my reaction and response to the roundtable discussion on Saturday March 14th, 2010 entitled Women and the Global Economy: Understanding the Matrix of Coercion, a part of the three-day Engrenage Noir / LEVIER-sponsored gathering entitled How Many Slaves do You Own? Art and the Economies of Exploitation, Past and Present. I concentrate on class privilege and the role of the artist. This morning I left my apartment on Boulevard St. Laurent to find that a homeless person was sleeping right outside of my door. I had to squeeze past him to leave and get out the door and onto the street. A feeling crept up inside of me which is not uncommon and which I have been experiencing since childhood, as I grew up in the centre of a major city - Toronto, Ontario. A discomfort in my own skin and a deep sadness for the situation of the many homeless people I would see everyday. When I got older, and especially when university education and language from academia crept into my vocabulary and understandings, I had words and meanings for this discomfort I have just described. This feeling is the difficulty of reconciling with my own privilege. |
Jews And Oppression: A Critical Look Back By Leah Gabrielle SilverbergJune 7th, 2010 “Each genocide has its own etiology, the characteristic environment that fuels it, the kind of society that sanctions it.” Each tragedy has its own configuration and merits study. - Nora Levin. In Jews and the American Slave Trade, by Saul S. Friedman (p. 9) ABSTRACT: In the following blog post I examine my reaction to Devora Neumark’s opening remarks on Friday, March 12, 2010 about Jews and the history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade which kicked off the three-day Engrenage Noir / LEVIER-sponsored gathering entitled: How Many Slaves do You Own? Art and the Economies of Exploitation, Past and Present. The three-day interdisciplinary event entitled: How Many Slaves do You Own? Art and the Economies of Exploitation, Past and Present, examining how we are all implicated to some degree or another in the global exploitation of workers - who, according to anti-slavery activist Kevin Bales: “are controlled by violence and denied all of their personal freedom to make money for someone else” - began with critical self-reflections on the part of Devora Neumark, Johanne Chagnon and Louise Lachapelle. As co-Directors of Engrenage Noir / LEVIER, Devora and Johanne have often initiated projects with a critical articulation of what is at stake for them personally. Louise Lachapelle, who co-facilitated this event with Devora, also addressed this conjuncture between her personal experience and the socio-political issues that were put on the table for discussion throughout the program. This text is a response particularly to what Devora shared. |
INT/EXT, A Logical AftermathMay 15th, 2010 In May 2009 (already two years ago!), LEVIER and the Société Elizabeth Fry du Québec (SEFQ) prepared a training for 8 artists who were asked to participate in the pilot project Agir par l’imAGinaIRe. The project in question would be held in prisons for women, a psychiatric hospital and a halfway house for women and was comprised of multidisciplinary artistic creation workshops. The artists, in collaboration with the women participants, were asked to explore through art the relationship that exists between poverty and incarceration. The objective of this workshop was to familiarize these artists with the milieu in which they would work as well as the possible relationship challenges, but also - and especially - to bring them to reflect on and question the place that prisons occupy in our society. So, the artists visited the detention centres and met many workers including Ruth Gagnon, Director of the SEFQ; Sylvain Savard, psychologist for the Correctional Service of Canada; Suzanne Harvey, accupuncturist; Kim Pate, General Director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies; Liliane Aflalo, Director of Continuité-Familiale auprès des détenues (CFAD) ; as well as many other women who have already experienced incarceration. Wanting to continue this dialogue on prisons, in September 2008 LEVIER invited many of these artists to participate in the event CR10 highlighting the 10th anniversary of the organization Critical Resistance in Oakland, California. |
