Cultural appreciation or appropriation...

Ok, see what you think of what i've been making a start with for some new visuals... then read on. All these images were made before I did all the research below.

The 'with thanks to...' list features the cultures and people who were most exploited or appropriated by Colonialism, or who have most shaped the roots of our modern pop music.

This work in progress is part of an ironic title sequence that places me and other UK audiences in a place of self-awareness when we hanker after exotic faraway lives and cultures. It is supposed to bring about a sense of awareness about where out pop culture pastiche world that we gain such enjoyment and commerce in is made up of many other cultural roots, some of which have been totally abused and undermined for us to have access to them. I mention this in my post about the Artist and Empire show at the Tate Britain.
Oh and this piece is also supposed to kind of take the mick out of a lot of contemporary art in which people blindly use symbolism and imagery from tropical lands and cultures (and pot plants, euggghhh so redundant!). Which, for the reason of unaware cultural appropriation I get annoyed about - the art these young contemporary artists holds (more often than not) no sway with me because it's simply so  self-indulgent and self-referential. It doesn't have to be - if due respect were paid to the origins of this imagery, through some crediting or conceptual message.

Before mindless appropriation with no reference to roots took place (which happens now due to a time lapse - we no longer consider the exotic to be a new discovery, although it is still a sort of novelty) there was rude and patronising direct referencing and appropriation of native people and 'exotic' cultures - see a still from the film title sequence below:

So i've been working more on creating imagery that represents my film's characters and narrative and scenario, BUT i've been showing them (the beginnings of them) to Dom and he pointed out that it may not be all that obvious to the general viewer that I am in fact calling out the cultural appropriation of indigenous cultures and of climate poverty scenarios.
It may not be clear enough that I am condemning such practices, and that I am aiming to raise awareness of how so much of our entertainment, culture and lifestyle here in the UK (and in other first world nations and demographies) comes out of Colonialism. For example, Disney appropriating Tigerlilly in Peter Pan, or D-Squared2's 'DSquaw' fashion collection).
I may not be being clear enough that it is ok to be inspired by other cultures and other lifestyles but you MUST not steal their autonomy by taking their ideas, cultures, property, designs or words, and re-contextualising them of claiming them as your own.

So I need to think about HOW I will put my film (the visuals that represent it - paintings, text pieces, zines etc) across more clearly, so that they act as an access point and a trigger for thought, and a frame in which the viewer is held responsible for ensuring they address the legacy of Colonialism, both in terms of human and indigenous rights, in terms of climate poverty, and in terms of environmental awareness.

***One thing I keep forgetting, is that I want a personal emotional aspect to this project. My plan for this was to represent some ways in which individuals or communities deal with disappointment or pain; coping mechanisms. A few coping mechanisms I came up with, that are familiar to myself, are: humour, ridiculing oneself or others, sarcasm, intelligent undermining of someone who has been lured into a false sense of security. 
Now i'm not saying I do all of these! Don't worry I won't attempt to undermine or expose my friends to make myself feel better. But people do do this to their enemies. Sometimes rightly so?
Anyway - the coping mechanisms listed above all come under the Post-modern categories of irony, pastiche, parody and appropriation.
So i thought: perhaps I could apply those approaches to my film; some of the characters may exhibit such coping mechanisms, or be ironic. Some of the locations or scenarios may be invented as a pastiche or parody of something.
I thought this also fitted well with my decision to use a lot of pop culture references in my film, as pop as a genre is simply an accessible collage (pastiche) of other cultural elements.
And of course pop culture (films, entertainment, music, fashion, art, leisure pursuits) has a history of totally undermining indigenous rights and humans rights for the sake of the pop product.
p.s please read the article that the above link will take you to - it's a coherent explanation of my whole creative conundrum!

So, back to thinking about how to be more clear with my message and intentions for my 'film':
I've been reading articles, watching videos, and trawling through twitter in the past week to try and recognise the feelings that indigenous people and climate poverty victims have towards the rest of the world accessing their cultures and stories. I'm trying to see what the message is, what works and what doesn't, and how the message in certain pop products relates for different audiences:

Firstly: Beyonce's new video 'Formation' which is set in post-Katrina New Orleans and has some relatively shocking imagery of a very recent tragic event, which I'm sure didn't go down well with people who were directly affected by the hurricane. Indeed I was right as I found in the article by Maris Jones: 'Dear Beyonce, Katrina is not your story to tell' where she speaks of the trauma Beyonce's video revisited. You can read more by Maris here in her article: Post-Katrina Stress Disorder: Climate Change and Mental Health. Maris however does say she appreciates the black pride and power that Beyonce is exhibiting and promoting. So it seems Beyonce has her politics and racial pride in order, but not her geopolitical/geocultural approach.

Interestingly, my sister who is a Beyonce fan (this is actually the first Beyonce video i've ever watched!) said, when I asked her what she thought the video represented and meant, was that it was violent and maybe encourages gun culture. She may be right; in regards of a white girl from the West Midlands where we don't see guns or violence! Whatever feelings Beyonce's video provokes, those feelings can't be argued against. But the fact is that the guns in the Formation video are being held be heavily armed police, which Maris Jones says is conveying the increased militarisation of police in areas with a large black contingency. My sister, nor I, would ever have thought of this because that issue is so far outside our scope of experience. So - there is it, proof that I have to be VERY clear with my message so that the due respect is paid to the correct sources of my artwork.
My sister had no thought about the climate and emotional issues tied up with the Katrina scenario in Beyonce's video and the trauma it may have bought to the surface for many viewers. But that's Beyonce's (or her video team's) fault, because it should have been blindingly obvious.

There's also the potential for the floods in New Orleans to be considered as having be made into something darkly glamourous, as discussed in this article The Reductive Seduction of Other Peoples' Problems by Courtney Martin.

Here's the video:

And some stills of the bits I have mentioned in my visuals or research.

The militarised police

Creole Cowboys are a culture I learned about a few months back and found to be an interesting kind of hybrid culture: a pop culture in itself if you will. But I haven't done too much research on them yet besides watching a short documentary on Creole Cowboys culture below. But I decided they are included in the print i'm making (shown at top of post).

Here's that little film about the Creole Cowboy culture: Click the link here

Ghetto (to quote Beyonce) scene

Cultural pride

For further research on the 'Formation' video's cultural message, and how that varies, watch these two videos, one is 10 mins, one is an hour.

Cultural References & Critique of Beyonce's Formation by SmartBrownGirl:

"Beyonce has no responsibility in...directly educating you... that's not her function as a musician and entertainer. But Beyonce used her music and her platform to spark a very important conversation." That conversation as  I interpret it, in this girls' eyes, to be one about the non-monolith status if black cultures, and of exclusion from certain efforts such as #blacklivesmatter based on when or where one is born and raised.

Read the comments on this video on YouTube, more enlightenment.

Professor Griff speaks on Beyonce, Cultural Appropriation, and The Global African Presence:

Another example of pop culture appropriating native cultures with a perhaps careless approach and insensitivity is 'Hymn for the weekend' by Coldplay and Beyonce. This video is discussed here by Sundal Roy:

It's interesting that she says, "you need how to pick your battles, because this isn't one of them."

I think Sundal is concerned that the fight for racial equality is being saturated and slowed by people creating a fuss around cultural instances that may be either may appreciation rather than appropriation, or that may simply be so subtle and minor that most people won't detect anything inappropriate going on, therefore it would be better to concentrate on a more directly offensive or inconsiderate instance.

I agree with Sundal because I do not think this video is deliberately ignoring or misrepresenting a traumatic event or situation. In my eyes it is not subsuming Indian culture. However I have never been to India and am not Indian so I'll have to take Sundal's word for it.

Beyonce does appear to wearing make-up that is trying to make her look more Indian, but personally i'm not sure that's an issue. After all, we all got the idea for eye make up from the Ancient Egyptians; Rimmel and Maybelline cashed in on that way before these globals conversations were happening and nobody seems to have pulled them up on that. Nor on the film The Revenant in which Leo D sleeps inside his dead horse. Which did happen, as I read in Dee Brown's historical account of pre Civil War America from an indigenous perspective: 'Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.'.

Here's the video itself:

___

As for Canadian fashion design duo D-Squared2's line 'DSquaw' - I was wary when I heard this story that the designers may have offended by not paying homage or respect by stealing native American cultural elements to their own gain. Which indeed they did. However I did not realise that the issue was more complex than that until I watched the video in this article, that the word Squaw is derogatory, and that it was also the fact that the designers had not employed native craftspeople do co-design or create or even consulted them.

___

Another concern is how easy it is for me to hold rural, fringe lifestyles and cultures where ancestral traditions and spiritualism are upheld in an idyllic light, because I live in the opposite culture: modern metropolis. So I need to shock myself out of this mindset and remind myself that it's often not a choice to be so marginalised:
By reading articles such as this one by Duane Champagne.

___

Today I listened to a podcast with Ryan McMahon (4th one down in this page) who founded Indian and Cowboy media organisation, which is a podcast network for indigenous people. He says podcasting is great because it is autonomous: you can make them at home for next to nothing and there are no publishing restrictions/censoring.

He mentioned three podcasts that Indian and Cowboy are making which interested me a lot:

One is about the appropriation of indigenous culture in pop songs - literally my exact interest area!!!

Another was about the Powwow tradition, an aim of which was to examine the traditional sexual and physical abuse that goes on at powwows. I think it's important that while people respect each others' cultural practices, we mustn't be afraid to address plain human rights abuse that goes on there.

The third was called Stories from the Land which is community storytelling, inviting listeners to speak.

I'm not sure that the first two have been made yet; I think they are in production.

So to sum up:

If you are inspired (as I am) by others' lifestyles, locations, spirits etc, then be sure to pay obvious respect to them. Do not decontextualise or undermine the autonomy of other cultures or the seriousness of their practices.

Label such appropriation as inappropriate somehow, perhaps by turning the lens back on yourself and placing your own self and artwork/actions in a vulnerable position. Hold yourself accountable.

So some ways I could be clearer in my message:
- Send a message by taking exact words from direct sources and credit the author/s: e.g use twitter etc. to write my film script.
- Create a zine/supporting research tool which could list all the research sources and summarised decisions... such as the writing and material in this blog post.
- Create a trailer, or a pre-warning, or a 'lesson plan' - the inspiration for this is Buffy Sainte Marie. She is a Cree Canadian political musician and singer who, whenever I have seen her live, has issue the audience with a 'reading list' of 5 essential books or articles which are important to understanding indigenous American struggles and rights issues.

I'm also thinking about the musician Grimes and all the popiness in her videos; the characters, costumes, scenarios etc.

I think that the reason Grimes has never been accused of cultural appropriation or racism is because (besides the fact that she isn't racist) her characters and their scenarios are definitely a celebration of something liberal; the best-case scenario that is freedom of creativity and speech in a contemporary global world, and with absolutely no mention of this freedom at the expense of marginalised or abused demographics.
Grimes does not steal from other cultures of which she has no experience, and repurpose those elements to her own ends.
She doesn't de-contextualise other cultures.
Her music and imagery is made up of very modern elements and techniques for a very modern audience. For this reason she seems to be an antidote to painful cultural histories simply by not depicting those histories and by instead depicting only the current.
Yes there is blood and comedy violence in her two most recent videos, but I personally think that this is just some personal emotion/anger stuff. Nothing political. Apart from perhaps that fame and celebrity are messy, based on the fact that she is filmed in some Hollywood Hills/Mullholland Drive/luxury settings.

The bloody scenes could be interpreted as being social commentary though:
She may be drawing attention to the problem of glamourised violence or honour violence, or perhaps the taboo of violence in video games. In the Flesh without Blood/Life in the Vivid Dream video she is seen dressed up as a contemporary Marie Antoinette (symbolic of extreme excess) character who has a dagger in her stomach and is bleeding out while dancing and singing. This, if one thinks about it, may be a ridicule of the glamourisation of violence or suicide; something Lana Del Rey has been accused of - POP CULTURE IS SO EXHAUSTING!! It may also be referencing the (in my opinion slightly slippery slope-esque) Sad Girl theory/phenomenom that was popular with young adults and teenagers last year.
Either way, if this violence were used as a thematic device for social commentary, one could say Grimes has achieved this through ridicule by using over-exaggerated blunt crudeness that places the behaviour clearly in an inappropriate non-sensical light.

Here Grimes is however with her own explanation of those characters' inspirations and roles and her annoyance at a certain historical figure:

So Grimes is modern, with a modern message and her inspiration is modernity.
Something else that has the power of the modern: Here is an article about why indigenous American males often choose to wear braids.  Something that appears to be a simple aesthetic choice is actually a symbol of progression, and of choice itself.

So, back to appropriation vs. appreciation:
It seems that direct consultation and relaying of direct messages from implicated people (in my case those suffering at the hands of climate poverty and indigenous or racial rights abuse) is a key focus.
Consultation is looked at more in this video on Aljazeera American about Bernie Sanders' (American presidential candidate) popularity with natives, but also the problem that he has not appointed a National Native American Tribal Outreach person to increase consultation effectiveness, and indeed the amount of consultation there is.

___

And just for some more background research for you all... What first got me alert and annoyed about indigenous rights abuse was the problems of White Australia and the Aboriginals.

Had some good news today on that front but it's still 230 years or so late!

That's all.
....More studio pics:

Bits and pieces: sketches and catching up on indigenous cultural and environmental news.

I've been making so many sketches, ink paintings, mono-prints, and writing pieces of flash fiction which seem to be serving as character treatments/back stories for the characters in film (of which there are so far 7 and two are non-human: A wolf that can't swim, and the haunted ocean).

Here are a small selection of some of those bits and pieces - but i've taken photos of some of it through some plants to hide bits cos I'm so excited I don't want to give things away until June when I put my show up (although I'm vert aware that this project is a massive one and that I won't have things up to a satisfactory standard (aesthetically and in terms of communicating my message fully) by June so I think i'll need to focus on one or two characters, one or two film locations and one or two dialectics/strands of story to try and represent for then. I'll try to make it into a wholesome show, that people can enjoy and learn from independently from the overall film project.

Dom loves Scarlett

This is a screen print I made in my last year at uni. Cool huh? It's a still from a film I made which shows a man (Dom) drumming in response to a projected video on the wall which I made of (that white shadow you can just make out) of a woman bellydancing. Read about that project here. And watch the video too!

and I loves Grimes and the Singapore Botanic Gardens

This a sketch/idea for a monument in The Swaglands, for my film

Script and screenplay grabs from social media, books, songs - all pieced together to implicate us all into the narrative of post-Colonial climate activism and issues. I think it's important to use pop culture references and genres (such as punk, street, gothic, contemporary fiction and soap operas as these are all products of culture and referencing both implicates that scene and the producers of that culture, as well as engaging niche and youth audiences, and also heightening the relevance and urgency and 'everyday' of the problem of environmental poverty and Colonial legacy.

Outfit/costume studies for my film's new character (currently called Molly) who is a Chinese lady whose family died from respiratory diseases and cancer due to living in a literal toxic wasteland in an isolated Chinese industrial town. She then left home, started walking, and found herself in The Swaglands.

I've also been catching up with indigenous environmental and social politics and indigenous culture news (I got distracted by watching some Simon Reeve BBC documentaries - especially the Greece ones - and also submerging myself in a pool of Americana music) and as well as my trusty old sources i've found some really engaged/engaging new magazine and media channels. I'll put links to all of them here because (as I said in my last post - if you are an artist, or general practitioner in the culture realm then you should know how the institutions that support your career and future are funded, and what that funding means for the environment and indigenous lifestyles, as well as how that funding shapes the meaning of 'creative freedom').

• Briarpatch - A truly grassroots Canadian magazine on culture and politics.
• Mispon Festival website - You can finds heaps of podcasts and film recommendations on here. They are an organisation based in Saskatchewan, Canada and run workshops for indigenous culture engagement, a yearly film festival, and generally publicise and promote indigenous filmmaking.
• Broken Boxes podcasts looks at artists processes, and Art Beat Conversations (another think to look at!!) Episode 20 is about "This Is A Stereotype" which is an artist film about indigenous identity. 
• RezX is a magazine and TV programme is basically (another Canada based) lifestyle critique and news platform. There's a good podcast on the Mispon website which interviews ResX's founder Chris Ross about how it started - he's a chiller and it sounded like a really fun creative party time! It's Episode #11. Listen!!
• This is a great article about indigenous misrepresentation on Canadaland's website.
• Access TV is a grassroots social media TV network based in Connecticut. So local news, cultural, social and political commentary, without corporate sponsorship. I think you cn weatch Episode 1 of ResX TV's show on here.
• This is an online paper, and I can never quite tell who curates it exactly, but my recommendations and blog have been featured on it a few times. It free and monthly, and collects news and culture about indigenous and environmental issues. It's called Indigenous News.
• And my fave new TV show (i've only seen two episodes) is Redfern Now, from 2012-2013, which is an indigenous Australian soap opera/family drama series which is based in the rough suburb of Redfern in Sydney . Here is episode 1. 

I've been considering how to write my screenplay/script and I know I don't want it to come from me entirely. I want to pull information, opinions and situations straight from the mouths of people who ARE implicated into situations that I am not in terms of social exclusion and environmental poverty. Because I can't assume to speak on behalf of anything or anyone that lives outside of my scope of experience and knowledge. The way to do this I think (this is how I am accessing those other opinions and stories...) through continuing to go to all the talks, seminars etc on environment/Colonialism/art and culture/indigenous rights that I go to and pulling from those. To also keep engaging on twitter, facebook etc with people and groups of people who CAN speak about the things I can't.

Something that Chris Ross says that helps to sum up my approach to writing my screenplay is that there are various types of knowledge; Street knowledge, Academic knowledge, Spiritual knowledge...

He thinks of spiritual knowledge as being the hidden section in the library that nobody goes to, but which contains all the teaching of history and creation. Ross explains that what he likes about social media is it can point those of us who don't know where to look or how to access that hidden section, in the right direction - social media tells you where to look: to the sources i've listed above. Very cool!

And I think that altough articles on those media platforms may be as close as many of us get to meeting with spiritual elder knowledge, but having the empathy is important.

*

I also try to keep up with contemporary art in London of course because I like to, and sometimes I find something really important and beautiful.
I bought a ticket to see Ben Rivers in conversation last Wednesday but I had to go to bed cos I had a migraine (I keep missing amazing things due to migraines!!). I also went to the RA Masters Interim show which was ok - but very segregated from real life. But then it's the RA Masters so of course the was probably likely!
I listened to this conversation with Maureen Paley which is fun and interesting and quite helpful for young London artists learning how to position themselves. Shame I don't have instagram Maureen! If ever I find I can spare the money to buy myself a Fairphone (literally does what it say on the tin - a smartphone made of environmentally and socially responsible components) I will get instagram. But I will NOT buy some blood-drenched i-phone thank you very much.

And as I don't have instagram I will share with you the things that inspire me that I would share on instagram if I had it:

• the book Southern Cross The Dog by Bill Cheng, which I just finished. (blues, devils, Mississippi, witchcraft, loss and weather)
• The last 3 songs on the album Elsie by The Horrible Crowes (Black betty and the moon, Blood loss and I believe Jesus brought us together.
• The Grimes covershoot for Nylon Singapore.
• Ian Perkins' guitaring
• Evie Wyld books and interviews
• Redfern Now (as I said above)
• Anything Gothic!!!!
• Oranges
• James Lee Byars - his obituary on The Indpendent is a great intro.
• The show Stowaway about dangerous journeys of immigration.

A small essay on the discomfort between art, colonialism and climate activism.

As an artist and an environmentalist, with an ongoing strong interest in indigenous rights (ever since I ventured to Australia as a naïve British teenager with a wad of cash from stacking shelves at M&S that I wanted to spend on beers at Bondi beach and bungee jumps – I quickly changed my outlook once I got there), I have always wondered how best to mesh these concerns and practices together to live a considerate lifestyle and to send a message using the one thing I feel at peace with and can’t stop doing – making art in my studio.

Initially, the first barrier is to question if I am being selfish in choosing to make art – does the world need more essentially pointless decoration and niche academia? I would initially say no, probably because my work isn’t particularly academic as much as it is emotive and fantastical. I find very niche academia (such as the concept of the object etc etc) interesting but in danger of being a little too removed from real life when there's so much rubbish to clear up!

But I’ve come round to an idea of thinking – yes: make what you like – if you can speak to just one person about something and be inclusive that way, then go for it. BUT there are three things we ought to look out for when placing ourselves in the art world (whether as an artist, curator, critic, educator…)

–      Don’t make people feel left out for not being ‘academic’ or ‘arty’ enough; who is anyone to say that someone is less creative and less interesting than anyone else?

–      Don’t waste physical or financial resources on making something that is really just in your own interest. i.e don’t fuel a segregated art and culture scene where only other learned people can engage. By all means create/engage in a locality surrounding your work, but don’t withhold resources from others in doing so.

–      And this is the MOST important…. Don’t forget how curated culture began. I’m kind of speaking to UK/USA/Australian first-worlders here) – It began as way to exoticise and preserve ‘prizes’ from the colonised world. That is how museums and galleries began. And museums and galleries are still assuming to speak on behalf of indigenous communities. It’s still a show. A colonial performance.

So – now that I have made known my issues with the way some people and institutions operate, I can relate this to the environment and indigenous rights.

We all know that much of public culture is sponsored by oil. For example, BP sponsors the British Museum, Total and Eni sponsor Le Louvre, and Shell, along with three major airlines are corporate partners with the BFI… to name just a few. Every large culture institution you can think of is pretty much sponsored by fossil fuels companies, banks that invest in fossil fuels, or companies linked with poor workers rights or unsustainable palm oil production (resulting in deforestation).

If you did not know that, read more here.

http://www.artnotoil.org.uk/institutions

All artists ought to know this by now (even if they don’t care) otherwise they can consider themselves disconnected with mainstream life, and borderline irrelevant to the future. If you are an artist you need to know how your potential career may be funded, and also the responsibility to which you must be held in your awareness of the dirty, oily, disrespectful ‘pinnacle’ of the art world. Art is a free world (theoretically) but its infrastructure and financial system is shady and imprisoned by climate change and a legacy of human rights abuse.

So I want to look at a few different things

- How creativity and meaning may be altered or undermined once a cultural institution is involved in its production or display.

- The danger of viewing art in the context of a gallery.

- A type of approach to racially inclusive art practices.

So…Firstly: ‘how creativity and meaning may be altered or undermined once a cultural institution is involved in its production or display’

The explorers of Colonialism brought us back many rare and interesting curiosities; ritual objects, traditional dress, foreign art. Imperial artists were commissioned to paint representations of foreign lands and wildlife. Public galleries and museums were opened to show everyone how clever the Empire was, how fast it was expanding. They showed the power of the Empire, and how rich it was becoming due to the expanding trade routes and the exotic products we were gaining access to. Money and power were so glorious! And that’s how it has stayed ever since. Power may have relocated to an academic and ‘knowledge’ based currency, but Imperial money is still what keeps these museums and galleries going. And Imperial money comes from Colonialism. Colonialism met the Industrial age and issued a brutal demand for natural resources such as coal, oil and gas. Colonialism bought about the slave trade, displacement of indigenous people, theft and destruction of their homelands and indeed their health and dignity, elimination of their religions and spirituality, and all for the sake of power and money. And the power and money is something we still possess and can’t surrender. Our empire is still very much alive, but it’s now a Coca-cola Empire, A Shell Empire, A Nestlé Empire…

So the very fact that culture is funded by dirty money changes the meaning and our ‘knowledge’ of both history and culture. It changes the meaning of creativity when viewed with this in mind. The sponsors don’t want certain things to get out about their past, and indeed their present. Culture, if you like, is a way to sneakily fulfil corporate social responsibility. And if you push that to the back of your mind, you’re frankly saying you’re ‘ok’ to the fact that slavery, theft and destruction allowed culture to flourish.

Secondly - the danger of viewing art in the context of a gallery 

Now we know the narrative of art and culture (exploitation = ‘knowledge’ = power and money) we can’t deny it.

If one goes to the Tate Britain and sees the Artist and Empire exhibition which is now on, one will come away sickened. There is no mention of the actual social functions and the nature of the transactions between the world of art and the British Empire. It is simply a collection of Colonial-era objects and art, mainly from Western Imperial artists as well! We all know about slavery and mining, but even this is barely touched upon let alone examined in relation to how and why we are able to stand in that very room looking at art.

The entire exhibition is a de-contextualised from modernity, and completely subverts the idea that culture = knowledge. They are hiding the facts that allow the exhibition to even take place! They are not giving you the knowledge you went there for.

Viewing art in any gallery, let alone one sponsored by oil (and therefore a gallery that watches its mouth in relation to its Colonial legacy) upholds a dangerous narrative just by the very fact that we are viewing the art in isolation. We’re not considering the social constructs and events that happened to allow the money for the art to be produced, or for the paint pigment to be discovered, or for the oil-derivative sculpture material to be made and distributed, or for the carved wood to be cut and shipped. Last night I saw a panel discussion at the British Library chaired by David A Bailey, who posed the question that the ‘white cube’ art space is out of touch. I agree – it cannot allow art to fulfil its potential for truth, empathy and mobilisation of the public.

My last point is about a type of approach to racially inclusive art practices.

Many of us are aware of our nation’s Colonial past, and are careful to admire rather than use the discoveries about foreign cultures. However, having already had my suspicions about, and felt inherent discomfort about indigenous creativity being separated from white creativity, I attended a talk on Colonialism, Art and Climate change. This took place last weekend at Climate Rising in Euston. My suspicions were confirmed by a panel of artists and activists of colour: Black and brown artists are employed and studied as a representation of trauma and exoticism, and not as a creative human force within their own rights. Coloured artists are curated by white gallerists, curators and critics. Coloured artists are commodified – Western guilt is alleviated and forward-thinking is assumed when coloured artists are publicised or included in shows. White supremacy is still rife, even in the avenues in which we think it is not.

This type of approach is symptomatic of how white supremacy gets in the way of true change.
Oh and as additional reading take a look at this review of a show in the Netherlands that is currently on and displays art by artists from various african countries:
http://www.artslant.com/ams/articles/show/45022

My parting statement shall be:

Colonialism needs to be at the forefront of the climate movement ALWAYS, because the former colony lands are the ones that have suffered the most as a result of climate change (hotter, drier, poorer, wetter etc), and if white people in power dive in again without consulting indigenous populations then were are all back where we started. Indigenous communities such as the aborigines are the ones who know how to live on their land, we do not know how to live on their land. We don’t know their social constructs. We cannot assume to know more about how to help their situation than they do. Total control of their future must be given back t o them, because it should never have been taken away.

However. Although I do care about indigenous rights and climate change affecting them worst of all, I can’t escape the fact that I come across as a guilty white Brit. I cannot claim to know something outside the scope of my own experience. I do however think I am a good person, and empathetic. So I can imagine, and gain unsaturated knowledge by looking to the right sources. But I can’t EVER claim to speak for indigenous people. I just have to try and alert people like me for whom life is easier, to the issues at hand for the planet and indigenous people.

But I do NOT want to be eliminated in my helpfulness because I am white.

I have the advantage of being able to speak on this end of the phone – to the more advantaged people. Everyone has the ability to help, just in different ways.

There’s the saying ‘don’t preach to the converted’: Often human rights and climate issues are only reaching the converted. My aim is to reach the people on the cusp of caring, people who can get on board once they see things a bit clearer. My aim is also to push for giving indigenous people back their platform for freedom of speech and autonomy, by appealing to the background I came from.

***

And here are a few details of some paintings I am working on to represent my 'film' in 'stills' - read back a post or two through my blog if you want to know more. It is a film that is 100% about indigenous rights and the environment and personal aspirations - and how those things often clash.

For extra background check out this amazing lady Suzanne Dhaliwal who I have seen speak twice in the last week, and is so succinct and modern and intelligent. 

Also check out Platform a great organisation that covers all the thinks I've just spoken about, as does SHAKE! who are totally my kind of creative caring people.

I know there aren't many pictures on these last few posts, but I'm really excited about the art i'm starting to make now and I want it to be surprise for my exhibition in June.

How does cinema offer a responsibility-orientated inclusive experience for an art viewer? (Part 1)

Cinema is primarily an escapist spectacle.

Cinema inspires choice/alternatives.

So what of a painting/illustration/static depiction of a film?

Cinema lets us imagine an extended narrative outside the freeze-frame of the painting, and so options are considered and ideas erupt of a continuation of physical location past the edge of the canvas: one can suggest HOW a location is as it is, or how it may soon become.

One can do this any any number of way (my choice would be to use screenplay terminology to 'direct' the viewer around the 'script' that inspires the image.)

Cinema is a moving image and is imaginative: it offers multiplicity in terms of the conclusion of the painting’s narrative subject. In that way if offers autonomy and hope in the viewer – It gives them a choice of how to finish the narrative themselves. 

This very action of observing in this way offers a template for personal behavioural responsibility.

There is not certainty about the image's result - only context in which to view it: I could place a painting of an invented film's freeze-frame in an exhibition full of other such paintings from the same film, with certain visual motifs throughout the paintings. I can use (as mentioned above) text as a directing tool. I can create a context (political, environmental, emotional etc) and the viewer can choose to feel how they will about it, and about what comes next.

A painting of a film can also release a narrative from being linear, and offer up the idea that things are never set in stone - we can change outcomes if we re-order our actions, or eliminate some of them.

I am speaking here in relation to the way the we inhabit planet earth and treat the environment, but it could really work anyway... say if one was making paintings about heartbreak, or mental health, or crimes.

And this evening I've been smashing out some messy text scrawls for some screenplay; set direction, scenario setting and narrative development for my 'film'. For my film paintings.

And this is Lone Cowgirl mono-printed in front of the desert star on my shoulder

p.s Listen to Ryan Bingham's new album 'Fear and Saturday Night'