4:30 Church Centre for the United Nations.
The Swedish Model: Fighting Trafficking by Targeting All Johns.
The Swedish Association of Women's Shelters and Young Women's Empowerment Centres (SKR)
Guest Speaker- Maria Ohnvon- The minster of gender equality of Sweden
Sweden the first country in the world who has made it illegal to buy but not sell sex. It has been an excellent first step, but can still have progress.
Maria Ohnvon- The minster of gender equality of Sweden
Trafficking always merits urgent attention. The Swedish law is not just a legislation, it is a social stance. The prostitution industry is harmful to both parties, but there is power in the favour of the John, when we penalize the John and not the worker, we lessen that power imbalance a little. This is a struggle that is international, and is fundamental in implementing gender equality around the world.
Overview- SKR is a foundation that works for gender equality in Sweden. The Sex Purchase Act, the Swedish model- it is gender neutral, although in Sweden almost %100 of Johns are male. This model includes protection for all genders and transgendered sex trade workers, but punishes the buyer not the seller. Prostitution is often linked to other female inequality issues such as violence, drugs and poor quality of life, especially for women and transgenders. In many spaces there are few options for women and trangenders to support themselves, it is important to realize that the sex trade workers in these areas are disadvantaged and need protection. There also needs to be free education programs for these people.
Speaker 2, The Swedish Women's lobby-
The Swedish model has had much success in having less Johns purchasing sex. But now, over %80 of sex buying happens outside the boarders. There needs to be something to change this statistic. Looking to Norway for the gender equality examples. If we are serious about the human right that it is not legal to buy another person, there should be no distinction inside and outside of Sweden.
There is a link between sex industry and corporate culture. 1/3 of all sex purchasing happens while on business travel. Sweden is asking for other countries where prostitution is legal, to write into their travel policies that it is still illegal for Swedish citizens to purchase sex while in their country.
The argument for other countries to participate- The argument of "anti-corruption". Prostitution very linked to the corrupt. The push for better working conditions. Corporate sexual responsibility.
Showed video-
Showed video-
Speaker 3-
The European parliament has come to a resolution that links prostitution and gender equality. Some of the findings- Sex trade is a violation of human dignity. It has an impact on equality and the way men and women view relationships, and has a link towards violence against women from perpetrators who buy sex. Makes the link between prostitution and trafficking. Procuring is linked to organized crime. The most vulnerable persons are being used. Condemns any form of prostitution as a means for migrant women to support themselves. Highlights the Norwegian models. And there is a need for us to educate all young people on the fact that prostitution is not an acceptable, and that the sex trade and porn are giving a model for continued inequality between genders. It states that decriminalizing prostitution actually increases the violence against women, and that the only model is for it not to be acceptable.
Speaker 4 France-
The French national assembly has been discussing a bill to punish pimps and procurers, but protections for the workers. Repealing the criminalization of prostitutions and victims, developing alternatives for those in prostitution. Improve the access to documents, prevents the purchase of buying sexual intercourse, and penalties for the procurers. Calls to recognize prostitution itself as a violence against women. The system of prostitution is part of a patriarchal system, making women's bodies available for the use of men. No one can impose sex with violence and no one can impose it with money. Discussions of consent. The argument that these women "consent" to prostitution, so it should be allowed. Consent does not mean freedom, and consent does make something legal. Just because someone "consents" to work for less than minimum wage, doesn't make it legal for the employer to pay less. Why would this apply to sex trade workers? If we do not agree that prostitution is violence, there will be no furthering of women's rights.
Speaker 2, The Swedish Women's lobby-
Myths and common misconceptions-
Those who buy sex are a minority, but a vocal one. We need to push men who do not buy to be vocal against it.
Myths about the sex trade-
-"It's a choice, it's a sexual freedom". Freedom is about not having constraints, that includes economic. Most of the women who are in this industry are there because they do not have the financial income from elsewhere. We need to push for the financial futhering of women.
-"Those poor, lonely men who need love and can only buy it. " It is shocking to create a sexual category of acceptability for those with disability, when the rest of the population has to go through the process of finding a partner. Again, no one talks about the poor, lonely women who need love.
-"We're trying to make a utopia" it is ridiculous to think that there is no power held by those that give money to those that need money. Legalizing will not change this balance.
Do we really believe that through furthering a harmful consumer culture, we can ever achieve gender equality? Human rights does not mean that an individual can do what ever they want. It means that we as a collective have the responsibility to protect those who are disadvantaged.
Questions-
What is the aim of the government. To reduce prostitution? What are the next steps at a European level? What are the main reasons for the success?
Speaker 2, The Swedish Women's lobby-
The report from Europe is morally guiding, but it is not legally binding. But it is a good thing to use for principles and guidance all across the world. It has been adopted by 2/3 of the seats of parliament. Long term, the report could lead to a legal push towards the end to prostitution as a means of violence against women.
Speaker 4 France-
These findings are bringing together a strange group of every different backgrounds, who all feel the same about prostitution. Each country really needs to individually push for reform in this area. The key is for every individual and parliament to admit that prostitution is violence against women.
What about the linkage to Africa?
How can anything change if nothing changes in Africa?
Speaker 2, The Swedish Women's lobby-
There will be a forum to look at the most vulnerable groups of women and girls, and African women are a huge part of that. The Brussels resolution is talking about prostitution in Europe, but %80 of all prostitutes in Europe come from outside of Europe.
Speaker 4 France-
The first responsibly is to kill this market in our own country. This will in turn help change this market so it will not be bringing women up from Africa.
Will this legislation be beneficial for family relationships?
Speaker 2, The Swedish Women's lobby-
If we help build gender equality this of course furthers relationships. There is a large focus on education, and on making sure families are not furthering and supporting prostitution. Stats show that males who buy sex have an increased rate of violence with their female partners. Reducing the objectification of women in this was may reduce that.
Speaker 4 France-
The resolution of removing prostitution of course will help families. If you think of the female workers who are sometimes separated from their families for years, or for the families of the men who are involved in buying, both family spaces will benefit from not having prostitution.
What about cybersex, and things like child pornography?
Speaker 2, The Swedish Women's lobby-
There is a support in the swedish model. Last week a report was delivered in the UK, which called for a criminalization of the purchase of sex. "It does not address the gendered violence." With porn, we still have a model of objectifying women and having bad examples for younger women and men. Maybe one day, if we keep pushing, these legislations will address that.
Speaker 4 France-
There is a clear link between porn and prostitution. The production still can be exploitive, violent and is not what we see to be sexual freedom because of the role of economics.
More info on website- http://www.kvinnojouren.se/english
How Does The New (Sustainable) Economy Advance Women's Opportunities?
International Federation of Business and Professional Women
How do you mind the balance of implementation and bringing forward a whole new approach?
Dan Seymor- The reason we're talking about he new economic idea is because we're losing. We're losing in environmental and in social. We always use the language of combat, "the fight." It's hard work but there are some positive things going on. The idea of needing to set up an economy differently, is not new to women and girls. The simple question is "what do you want?" Economists cannot tell us that. They are focused on growth, and there is a political agenda to further certain things that aren't actually furthering economy and sustainability.
Now we're dealing with coping strategies and austerity measures, which has not been great for women in developing countries. The positive examples are grassroots women mobilizing and creating their own policy in local areas. Women understand the need for change, and the only coping strategy is to challenge power and to stick together.
We are loosing, but looking at the women's movements heralds hope.
Speaker 2- U.S. Economy Solidarity Network
Economy was not always about growth. It used to be that the people believed that the economy would erraticate poverty in time, and now we don't even believe that.
Now we are under Neoliberalism, which is focused on growth, but crisis will create change. We are in that crisis and now we have the opportunity to create something that is more sustainable.
There is not one monolithic social economy solution, but solidarity economy is an alternative model that is grounded in values. Focused on participatory democracy, equity in all dimensions, sustainability, pluralism (not a one size fits all model). This focuses on all sectors- Production, distribution and exchange, consumption, government. Productions- New Co-op models which are beneficial to women. A care economy- all lot of work that is beneficial to an economy is unwaged, that needs to be cared for in policy. Care economy and trade economy. Community supported agriculture. Community land trusts, collective ownership. Credit unions instead of private banks, crowd sourcing. Participatory budgeting. Community grounded planning.
How do we pull this together to articulate a system? We all have to pull together to make these things happen.
Terry-
Example worker co-operative economy Mondragon in Northern Spain. The people who work in it have their own stake in it. Owned by workers and run by workers. Certain benefits for the layman. These areas have the lowest unemployment rates, and pay their workers better. The workers vote on how much their time is worth. Their job satisfaction statistics are through the roof, especially in terms of women. Women and men have equal pay, and there are actually more women working in these spaces. Decisions are made one person, one vote to elect a board of directors. These directors can be voted in and out according to how happy people are with their policy. Average income of these spaces is %140 of the rest of Spain.
The corporations who study this make excuses not to implement things like this because of "cultural issues". But this is a model that works and solves a huge amount of economic issues we're facing. We should be focusing on making solutions like this work for us.
Are co-ops only able to work in homogenous cultural zones?
Is it because people don't trust something new?
What are the examples of things like this growing and successful?
Terry-
The birthrate of coops is far below that of capitalist models. Entrepreneurs are less attracted to this type of model. The process of replication of coops is slow, and is generally birthed by one community seeking the success in a community next to them. The solution is having managers who are hard-core businessmen, but are just mediated in a democratic way.
Speaker 2-
The evergreen cooperative in Cleveland- working with Mondragon as a platform, but putting together anchor institutions and community groups. They instal grids and hydroponic greenhouses on the roofs of the institutions and employ hard to employ workers, such as former incarcerated people.
The major thing is the network scale. What's important about Mondragon, is that the network is so large. They're not just tiny north american style coops. Corporate coops work at a whole different level.
Does it matter if these things come into policy? Or is it important that we have a whole bunch of different ways to support these types of economies? Are you seeing more interest in this area?
Speaker 4- We can do more to be supportive. We need more than consumer support, we need a policy environment. We need government support. In France there's a social economy law. Morocco it's a national initiative. This is a growing reality, but is not yet on a large sale discussion in most parliaments. The intergovernmental committee on means of sustainable development. -we need to bring some of these smaller examples up to the big scale. We do have a lot of models that are successful. It's gaining interest, and we need to make sure that the language around this isn't used to further the standard corporations, but to make a real difference.
How do we get over the obstacles of making this policy?
Dan Seymor- Collectives is something that is being done in developing worlds, and especially with women. But there are barriers to entry- access to capital and access to education. The cooperative model is something that sometimes allows women to get around this. To get over this we come here and share ideas, and it's a necessary, but insufficient step. We know that the private sector is important in eliciting change. We do need to engage that part to really influence. You can't just engage the layman, it has to be all across the board.
Okay, here we go, more notes on the UN Commission on the Status of Women Conference.
12:30 Armenian Center
Empowering Women as Change Agents Through Global Networking
Open A Door Foundation
Moderator- Ruthie Taylor Ackerman
Introduction- Talking about her work as a journalist and world traveler. Seeing how, even though global communities were very separate, the issues were the same, and women around the world should be connected.
Panelists-
Barbara Bylenga
Dr. Denise Dunning
Kate Buggeln
Simin Wahdat
Barbara Bylenga, Co-Founder and ED, Open A Door Foundation-
Open A Door, which identifies young potential female leaders in poor communities. Giving them scholarships to study, mentors, connections and experiences that will enable the next generation of female leader.
Dr. Denise Dunning, Founder and ED, Let GIrls Lead-
Let Girls Lead, a foundation which empowers girls and their allies to lead to social change. Working in African and Latin America, advocating for laws and policy which will lead to social change. Have benefited 3 million girls.
Kate Buggeln, Consultant, Co-Chair of Board B-peace-
Bpeace- working in regions of conflict and post conflict, working towards the uplifting of women in small businesses. Focusing on how many jobs they can help women create, profitably, over a three year period they partner in funding and volunteer time with them. Education for new tools, techniques and labour saving.
Simin Wahdat, Legislative Fellow at Congresswoman Betty McCollum's office, MA in peace and conflict transformation-
Working with the women in all of these organizations as a local voice for these communities in Afghanistan.
Question 1) Focusing on The power of technology to build bridges between women. Barb, how do you see technology impacting your work?
Barbara Bylenga- Cuts out the middle man, the funding can now go directly to the people that need it. Makes it possible to match mentors over distance. Communication can now happen over distance that was not possible before. The connections can be in the girl's day to day life, through Skype, WhatsApp, email, etc.
Kate Buggeln- Gives a platform to communicate and engage in connecting entrepreneurs with consultants, as well as making technology platforms for marketing and production. Things like Sype, Linked in, and even Facebook allow for a daily and physical way to be in touch, communicate and trouble shoot in more of a face to face way. This fundamentally allows for the conversations that happen to be useful and personal. She states that while so many people feel technology distances us, she asserts that, if used as a proper tool, it bring us closer together.
Technology allows for a broader network. Posting volunteer needs on something like Linked In, and finding people who are more qualified and more interested in working than their normal network.
Do you think technology alone changes philanthropy, and do you think there's still room for long term, on the ground investment?
Dr. Denise Dunning- Yes and yes. Both things are needed to allow for continued sustainability. The gap of funding available for women is very large coming from huge corporations. We need smaller investors to fill that gap. Funding and investment needs to come from a variety of sources to make something work.
Barbara Bylenga- Technology is allowing for more people to be impacted. As this new model of philanthropy starts to grow, we can connect with other individuals in a more influential way.
What are the way to build bridges and engage all your donors? Who do you focus on, what are your tactics?
Dr. Denise Dunning- A large focus on story-telling. Film, social media can connect those outside the sphere are encourage a personal connection. It is so important to be able to tell those stories.
How has technology made you more in demand?
Kate Buggeln- Can demonstrate our results as soon as they occur. The volunteers can directly see the difference and continue to engage. This causes those involved to be more passionate.
What are the challenges?
Kate Buggeln- Noise. So much noise. Everyone is bombarding you all the time. How do you get the most powerful story telling? Who has the "sexiest" story?
Barbara Bylenga- The challenge is how to use it have a more in touch program. Google platform.
Simin Wahdat- Not always having access to good technology, or any technology. Waiting for the ability to connect to become even easier.
How has technology helped create a pipeline for donors and volunteers?
Barbara Bylenga- High profit donors now is a matter of tapping into their motives. A lot of what makes people "successful" now, is the status of being a part of a social change.
Kate Buggeln- The most passionate fundraisers are the ones who believe in a cause, not the people who are the "best" and most experienced in marketing. Never underestimate a younger base and where your money can come from. Younger people do care about titles, give them recognition for their help.
Do you think effective networks can advance women's rights?
Dr. Denise Dunning- Of course. People linking to other people is what changes policy and eventually society. Advocates and leaders play a critical role, but no one does it alone.
Simin Wahdat- Networks link people onto bigger and greater things. Taking someone's passion for a single cause and linking them to others with similar and expanded passions, making a force for change. Social media is actually a really important part of this. Women in Afghanistan don't have a place to gather and share their concerns. Suddenly with social networking they can be connected, talk about issues like domestic violence and equality, and can feel connected, get support and contributions.
What are some exciting example of collaboration through technology?
Dr. Denise Dunning- Working with indigenous rights in Guatemala, on the positive changes. Instead of just showing a documentary film, they wanted something different, so they made the global video change platform, allowing girls around the world to send in their own short story. It allows for people to recognize that girls and women are leaders and powerful. By sharing these stories, it not only empowers those who share, but also those who see it. If you're using technology to listen to what people actually need, then it can challenge the assumptions of what women and girls need.
Questions from the public-
1) As a new grassroots organization, what are the suggestions for long term, sustainable growth and networks?
Kate Buggeln- Physical events, gathering, making things fun with some education makes it connect. Tasking individuals and specific objectives. Without this people will just float and talk a lot. What are your goals? Give them a reason to be there and stick around. As soon as you put people in charge of something, and having an expectation of leadership is really important.
Barbara Bylenga- You have to give people a task, a job, a title. Then there's reward for them in the community. Seek out people personally.
Dr. Denise Dunning- Recognizing what you already have and celebrating it. Then looking around and seeing other organizations who are doing similar things and partnering with them. Engaging anyone and everyone.
Ruthie Taylor Ackerman- It doesn't matter how young people are. Resources are resources. Never discount anything, encourage it. Offline first and then online
2) What about the young girls who don't have access to technology? How do you address that?
Barbara Bylenga- It is a challenge. Solutions like girls having to go to coffee shops, having one computer between several. But if you give them an opportunity, they will often figure it out.
Kate Buggeln- Early on we were trying to reach out to everyone, but over time we realized that there is still such as huge population of disadvantaged people that had access to technology that we could focus on them.
Dr. Denise Dunning- One tactic we use is to seek out the older women in the community who either have access or who we can still contact. Then it's their responsibility to communicate with those girls and be ensuring that things that need to happen do.
3) When you've developed in the local area, and you have your technology set up, how do you spread your network into new spaces and countries?
Barbara Bylenga- Once you find one person, you find them all. One person who is passionate in helping you, can link you in to everything.
Kate Buggeln- You need to go to these spaces. If you want those cheerleaders, it still comes down to physical presence.
Ruthie Taylor Ackerman- Using things like the search function on twitter to find out those who are talking about the issues you are addressing in other areas.
Me and my mom. :)
Started a new project the last few weeks. Since I've been working with glass for a while I've been super interested in light. As well as light I've been interested the idea of getting some of my glass works to move, which has made me interested in shadow and projection.
So, NEW PROJECT TIME!
I'm very much in the experimentation stages, but here are the sketches and experiments I've got so far-
First step- cutting gears out of plexiglass on the laser cutter!
So cool.
Although figuring out the teeth size and all that of the gears was fairly complex (although thank you inkscape) the laser cutting was so simple. And now I have a ton of gear pieces to mess around with!
So, NEW PROJECT TIME!
I'm very much in the experimentation stages, but here are the sketches and experiments I've got so far-
How am I planning on making things move? Gears! I've always been interested in learning the mechanics of basic machinery, and I also had the thought that if I made the gears out of something clear I could put images on the gears that would rotate and intersect.
I've been interested for a long time in making my performance imagery animated, so I'm curious to see what would happen if I built a machine that would make it move and shift.
Here's experimental running test number 1!
Weeeeee! Fun times!
With all that was going on I forgot to mention that I was in another show last week!
The piece that was exhibited was Love Me Harder-
Title: Love Me Harder
Medium: Wood, glass, biological matter
Dimensions: 41" x 36"
Year: 2013
Love Me Harder is a piece that questions how we define and remember the ambiguous concept of love. "Love" is a historical and social concept that is made up of a variety of definitions and social constructs. It is defined in poetry and literature as impassioned feelings, defined by science as chemical reactions in the brain, talked about by spiritualists as touching the divine, and defined by mainstream culture as a sexual act. Love is one of the most common topics of our current culture, and yet no definition or way of communicating it can ever really translate the experience of individuals.
Love Me Harder is made up of the continuing framed cataloguing of the remainders and memory of the artist's sexual activity with a lover over a period of months. By pairing it down to the barest minimum; the remnants of the sexual act, this piece asks us if we can ever truly define, communicate or capture exactly what love really is, or if the attempt to define it takes away from our ability to experience it fully.
Photos by Hearyung Kim
As well this weekend I had The Patron Saint of Adulterers in taBURNak! 5, which went off with a complete and total smashing success!
All I got was terrible phone photos, hopefully someone else got some that were better.
I ended up dismantling the Dome, sewed the tapestries together and added it into the shrine.
All in all, what a CRAZY week! Between the conference in New York (which I still have to finish blogging), Inventory of Memory and artist co-ordinating and event organizing for taBURNak! 5, I can't believe I'm still standing! In general though, I just feel pretty pumped by these incredible experiences. So amazing!
It's coming up people, it's almost here! This Saturday, starting at 9pm at Espace Reunion, we are going to throw the craziest event of the year! Art, fire, music, dancing, ALL THE CRAZY!
All online ticket sales are finished, but we'll still have some at the door. Be sure and come see some of the fabulous art, music and performance!
Here's the second sneak peek at some of the artists who will be there on Saturday. The first sneak peek was HERE.
Once there was a starfish. Then that starfish found a similar sized friend and had two children. Now there are 4.
All online ticket sales are finished, but we'll still have some at the door. Be sure and come see some of the fabulous art, music and performance!
Here's the second sneak peek at some of the artists who will be there on Saturday. The first sneak peek was HERE.
Daniel Nerenberg
Installation Artist
Playa Dome
The playa dome represents the feeling of one of the most common structures seen on the playa. The projections will focus on bringing the feelings and visions of the playa.
Just some of the amazing performers who will be there!
Donald Fowler
Bio Artist
Preserved Embryos
One of two shadow boxes with four vials, each with one chicken embryo embedded in epoxy.
I want to make people look at embryos in a way they haven't seen before if ever.
Erica Glover
Sculptor
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Another of the fabulous performers!
Jessica Sallay-Carrington
Ceramist
The qualities unique to each species is what inspires me to create animal forms. How beautifully they were designed by nature to flourish in their habitat and adapt to changes in their environment. These creatures depend on nothing more than themselves and the earth under their feet to live happily.
In my work I try to enhance the connection between animals and people, or to help create one if there isn't any. It is very important that people keep a relationship with these creatures which inhabit the earth with us, we cannot live without them.
Iris Moore
Animator and Illustrator
Beyond the Mirror's Gaze
What if we could choose our gender from day to day?
Mind Tease
Once again dealing with gender and sexuality
Dissolving Face
Black and White, Felt
Blue Horned Figure with Beads on Red Background
Felt
Jodi Sharp
Performance and Installation Artist
Jodi Sharp Patron Saint of Adulters
According to a study released 2012, in 41% of marriages one or both spouses admit to infidelity, either physical or emotional, and 54% of women say the've committed adultery in any relationship they've had. (Associated Press Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 2012)
Although there are many saints available for those who have been victims of adultery, there are almost none that are available to pray to for those who have ever gone outside of a primary relationship to meet a need.
This project provides the artist herself as a saint who has gone through it all, and still believes in her own ability to be holy. Giving hope to others that there's still someone to pray to when confused about love and non-normative relationships, and providing grace and acceptance for those who have ever made the mistake of hurting someone they loved. Even if the person you have to pray to is yourself.
Laura Acosta
Performance Artist
Cat Wearing Rosa Bear Costume Street Opera Series
Through soft interventions of pace, RosaBear presents a repertoire of absurd operas composed of nomadic textile sculptures, sound collage, dramatic re-enactments of the lifeworld, and immediate, improvised reactions to the context in which it presents itself. A combination between the mundane and the spectacular presenting the viewer with the familiar and the unfamiliar, yet to do it un such a way that their attention is not focused directly upon the uncertainty of what they are being presenting with so that they may not be led into the matter of clearing it up immediately. Pure indulgence in experience; providing a collage of information without wanting to generate knowledge. RosaBear is not responsible for the ripple effect of visual, psychological and emotional effects on its audience. Participation from the audience is highly encouraged.
Gearhead Liz
Installation Artist
Staring Contest
Totenkitten Research & Development Centers have conducted human experimentation to determine what keeps populaces docile and obedient. Our data indicates that 'entertainment' is an effective method of distracting citizens from the ongoing consolidation of control. Our supercomputers have developed an Entertainment Node titled Staring Contest. It is a game. You will experience 'entertainment.' Because we are true to the nature of existence, there is no way to win.
Murray Pearson
Art Workshop 12am-6am
RIPPED ART
Get ripped, make art!
Starting with a canvas made with found vintage wallpaper, we encourage everyone to pARTicipate by grabbing a paintbrush and expressing themselves over the subtle organic wallpaper pattern. There are no limits, no boundaries; only colourful self-expression! Takes place after the tie-dyeing is completed, but you can see its party-painted twin on display all night.
Ryan Matthews
Painter
El Gato Más Gordo
El Gato Más Gordo is a giant cat sculpture on Rambla Raval in Barcelona’s old city. Obviously, the best bar in town is when you gather a few friends and help each other to climb up to the top of El Gato Más Gordo, and have a few cerveza-beers.
Amélie
On a visit from Québec, Amélie saw this stencil of her smiling face on an art-covered door in Raval, just as a small group was admiring the equally-decorated doors nearby. It was the Barcelona street art tour. Now they tell the story of the Québécois in Spain who stenciled his far-off girlfriend’s face around town.
WhiteFeather Hunter
Bio Artist
The Ossificatorium
I’m currently producing works that function as biomimetic new media objects. These objects simulate the process of designed bone formation through a process of “mock ossification”. Hog gut is utilized as a substitute substrate, instead of collagen, in the construction of textile-based scaffolding that tissue cultures could potentially populate. Several experiments with relevant minerals, to grow crystal formations on the gut scaffolding have resulted in the beginnings of fake bone formation.
Again, if you want to see the first round sneak peek of artists, it's HERE.
And website is HERE.
The 58th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW58) – the annual gathering of States to address critical issues related to gender equality and women’s rights — is focusing on “Challenges and achievements in the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals for women and girls”.
Taking place at United Nations Headquarters in New York, from 10-21 March 2014, Member States, UN entities and accredited NGOs from around the world will take stock of progress and remaining challenges towards meeting the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The MDGs have sought to: eradicate extreme poverty and hunger (Goal 1); achieve universal primary education (Goal 2); promote gender equality and empower women (Goal 3); reduce child mortality (Goal 4); improve maternal health (Goal 5); combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases (Goal 6); ensure environmental sustainability (Goal 7); and develop a global partnership for development (Goal 8). They include 21 targets with 60 indicators.
Report #2. Notes!
By far one of my favourite talks of the day. These women were so inspiring! The thing I just heard over and over- bottom up approach! It is the organization of communities that will end up changing legislature. It is the communities that make the real change!
10:30am Church Centre for the United Nations
Securing Grassroots Women, Securing Sustainable Development: Gains, Gaps and Lessons from the MDGs.
Huairou Commission, International Fund for Agricultural Development.
Introduction) Session moderator- Violet- Kenya, and member of Groots Kenya.
This was a session to talk about the different strategies of how grassroots women are influential in creating locally led development areas, and what are the difficulties. What can replicated by other communities and used on a larger scale.
Speaker 1) Heidi- member of Las Brumas Nicaragua
20 grassroots farmer cooperatives and 3 collectives, representing 1400 women, and 33 elected officials. Speaking from her participation as a farmer and as a woman, that her group did not participate in the decision of the MDGs, but she is interested in #3.
As a part of their participation, in the last 4 years, 310 grassroots women have been trained in literacy. 345 grassroots women and local authorities trained about the MDGs.These goals are helping improve the lives of people in their communities. There is a lack of land and lack of food security in their regions, but 100s of women are renting and producing food in this region. The MDGs are important in helping these communities push towards goals of food security and financial security.
Committees to address the needs of grassroots communities and women. It all revolves around food production and land. The women in these communities do not own the land and so cannot get credit. So, in order to economically develop they are focusing on strengthening female leadership. The recommendation is to acknowledge and give resources to grassroots women in this area to strengthen their economic state. These women have proved they can produce, now they just need funding.
Speaker 2) Joyce Mangovi- Uganda, Slum Women's initiative for development , 300 women in 2 urban divisions and 4 in rural subcountries.
She works in the industrial heart of Uganda. There was a closure of industry leaving people unemployed. Grassroots women began speaking out about the lack of safe and healthy housing, the evictions from the municipal counsel, and lack of basic facilities. In 2008, there was funding received, this started the construction of houses that now house 100 women, and 35 more women have submitted and now posses titles. The goal is to have women living dignified lives, with access to clean water and electricity, and road access to these areas. By organizing and partnering, there is now support from global networks.
Recommendations- the push for funding, the ability for women to get business loans.
Speaker 3) Maria Hatla- International Fund for Development
What we have achieved in the MDGs, and how we can go ahead in the next round of goals. What is amazing is how many women are organizing themselves. This agency gives loans to government to help put money into rural areas. The new gender policy of funding women has helped a lot in changing the focus onto women's issues.
A focus on women's economic development, helping women produce food, craft and employment. Women cannot have more economic development without infrastructure and labour reduction services. Third area- the women's voice, making sure women are in government, have access to disseminating information.
With access to these things, much more women's groups are able to get organized. The two major forums- the farmer's forum, allows women farmers to speak and exchange information. This is important since a large amount of women farmers don't have a space to speak, and these spaces are often dominated by men. Training was implemented for women in certain areas for leadership skills.
And the indigenous forum, focused on long term, rural people.
This year is the international year of family farming as well as the year of food security. The emphasis is on small farms. Why are small farms so important? There is no industrial advancement taking place, so there needs to be a space for the younger generation to work and have food security. This is small family farms. Small farms can only continue with a diversification of income and the whole family being involved. Organizing is a key enabling factor to enabling women and progressing economic stability.
Speaker 4) Lemota- International Women's Communication Center Nigeria
Using the HIV/AIDs disaster to help organize women. Care Alliance represents 30,00 caregivers across Africa. When the epidemic started, the women diagnosed were homeless, resourceless, without access to medical care. This organization came together to help forming alliances to help these women in need. This alliance was so useful that it quickly grew.
Collaboration, team work, with little resources and little support. Grassroots women work with grassroots women. If the grassroots women are not there, who is going to do it? Without the community women, there will be no one to stand up for women's rights in these areas. They are not asking for money, they are asking for implementation of laws, infrastructure and access to resources. Every woman gives one dollar at every meeting. This allows for the organization to fund medication for women all across Nigeria.
The way forward is to make sure that we strengthen grassroots organization. Without grassroots women, there is no change. To strengthen women's rights, women have to be empowered first. A bottom up model. Strengthening communities, making their own initiatives first, them pushing them forward.
Speaker 5) H. E. Carlos Enrique Garcia Gonzolez- The Permanent Representative of El Salvador to the UN.
There were a lot of stakeholders to help communities achieve these goals, however there was a lack of achievement. The principle tactic to achieve MDGs needs to change. The focus is to include the principle of universality. Every country in the planet has realized that there's no ceiling in development. Development in an ongoing process that has no end. The only thing that is common to all countries is human beings in all cycles of their lives. The perspective of each individual matters. There now needs to be the notion of sustainable development- environmental protection as well as development, this cannot be done without grassroots communities.
We used to believe that what we need is money. The focus should shift to human relations. Sustainable cities come through community, not funding. Sustainable cities can be urban and rural, it can look so many different ways, the importance is that it works for the community and we are in touch with the needs of our planet. Women and grassroots really need to press for changes. If we can connect and coordinate instead of compete, that is when changes will happen. Who is going to do it if not us? Demanding accountability, fighting against corruption, and this can only happen with organization. The focus needs to be the human being.
Speaker 6) Relina- Peru, The National Confederation of Women
The National Confederation of Women represents 150,000 grassroots organized against 65 provinces in Peru. Talking about a kitchen that works to create food for the community as a really low cost. Feeds about %6 of the population who cannot afford a meal, as well as a training centre for women. As grassroots women, they didn't participate in the development of the MDGs, but they have always been focused on overcoming problems like poverty and women's rights, so they started working on the initiative. The priority was on women, because so many women in Peru don't even know they have rights. They didn't know about public colleges and programs, so education program implemented.
They established three regions to focus on these issues. Implementing a local government office for women. INcreased awareness of violence against women in ERs and in government. This was translated to reduced violence against women. There was funding for 80 to receive training in technology. Got budget to train 300 women to know their rights and to what authorities they could go to demand their rights.
Recommendations- Poverty doesn't only mean the lack of food or resources. Food security only comes with the places to produce it, and the places to trade and eat it. It is also important to recognize the actual needs of the community. The goes in hand with economic and political empowerment. It is important to allow women into the processes of policy and law. One of the main causes of poverty is the corruption in the national budget. Allowing grassroots access, and having grassroots women push for these goals is what will allow for this to change.
Speaker 7) Josephene- Phillipines, DAMPA a grassroots women led initiative federation of 217 slumdwellers.
Again, not involved in creating the goals, but still involved in pushing them forward. These women are highly affected by natural disasters. Because of this, these women want to be involved in the 2015 goals for sustainability. These women are doing things such as creating locally funded pharmacies, delivering clean water and local funding for business and education loans. Wanting to formalize their partnerships with the government and the UN. This can only have through bottom up approach. These women have the knowledge and the ability to change things for the better
Speaker 8) Jan Peterson- United States- Access to housing in NY, and support for grassroots organizations around the world.
Most of the grassroots organizations on the ground have more power and influence than a lot of international organizations. They are stakeholders, and the agenda of the grassroots doesn't always match policy. The real women in these communities need to be the ones pushing for policy. So many changes have been made in the last 50 years, but we need to make sure that the development agenda matches what is actually needed. As soon as the money leaves an area, the "organizers" leave. The grassroots are there to stay, and without that partnership not lasting change will be made.
Implementation is important not theories. Real action is key and can't be done without locals. Share ideas, build our neighbourhoods, push for local change. The inequality divide is there because of the type of policy that is in place. Bottom up! Focus on changing real poverty in every area.
Closing words) Session moderator- Violet- Kenya, and member of Groots Kenya.
Commitment to change poverty. Calling for a holistic approach, with touching on funding for infrastructure, as well as true community building. Want to be included in monitoring and implementing these goals, instead of having things decided for them. The partnership between organizations and grassroots is needed with policy and real locals. Be sure that communities are represented and vital in making change. "Nothing for us without us!"
At the UN Commission on the Status of Women Conference in New York this week, and just had a day of INCREDIBLE talks, and inspiring stories and action planning to increase gender equality around the world! Such a privilege to be here!
8:30 am Church Centre for the United Nations.
Monitoring Implementation of Domestic Violence Laws
The Advocates for Human Rights
COPIES FOR THIER REPORTS ON WEBSITE
Speakers-
Cheryl Thomas- executive Director in Minasota
Robyn Phllips
Genoveva Tisheva- Bulgaria Gender Research Foundation
Helen Rubenstine- Deputy Director
Cindy Dyer- Director of the Federal office
Introduction by Cheryl Thomas- executive Director in Minnesota.
Background of the group- working since 1993 on legal reform on domestic violence. Focuses on improving laws and their implementation. Partnering around the world. In Minnesota there has been ling term history for amending their domestic violence laws to hold offenders accountable. Looking at what worked, what didn't. Looking at drafting the language of laws for countries, training legal professionals, and at the invitation of local partners who know the situation in their own countries.
They work in Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Morocco. It is the matter of who reaches out to the organization.
So far they have put out 24 reports from around the world on violence against women and the implementation of laws. These reports help allow countries and regions to change laws.
Originally when the reports came out, most places they were researching were using general criminal laws. In the last 40 years, many of their partner countries have specific domestic violence laws that have gone in to deal with certain situations. So instead of applying a general assault law, there are now laws to deal with domestic violence specifically.
Third goal of the UN Millennium Development Goals: Promote gender equality and empower women- Limiting and stoppage violence against women is a fundamental part this.
The law reflects that domestic violence is not a private matter. It is a legal issue and focuses on the offender instead of the belief that women deserve this fate. By changing the way the state handles violence it can also change the way society address and views it.
Drafting of these laws is a long and tedious process and requires activism, activity and ownership. Changing laws takes decades. In 1979 one of the first domestic violence laws was passed in Minnesota, and every single year it has been amended. It takes constant vigilance to get these laws to work. This involves looking at a number of factors- where do the women end up in the initial calls, how are people acting on it on the ground, is there a need for training.
Without monitoring and constant vigilance, laws can actually do more harm than good. Government intervention in domestic violence is tricky. You need someone on the front lines to get the offender to stop. This is the role of the police. This brings in a whole lot of other issues- police need to be trained in things like a new order for protection (how long they give these laws, how much follow up), or identifying situational wounds (whose the aggressor, what wounds are from self defence.) etc.
First Speaker- Genoveva Tisheva Bulgaria Gender Research Foundation
Started the domestic violence laws implementation in Bulgaria 20 years ago. The reform was driven by lawyers and with the help of The Advocates for Human Rights. It is up to lawyers to work with people and push these laws forward. The EU has the largest body of research on this issue.
In the EU every 3rd woman experiences violence. %33 of women have experienced sexual and physical violence. %43 of all women have experienced psychological violence. %22 from partners, %5 of women, %42 victims of violence was during pregnancy. %55 of women have suffered harassment, %18 of women have suffered stalking. These create long-term problems such as panic attacks, inability to connect with new partners, etc.
Very few women know where to go or know that there are laws that can help them. Passing the law is not enough. There is a deficit of services such as where to go, or rehabilitating programs for offenders. Violence is also dependant on other equality factors such as education, work and self-sustainability.
There really needs to be awareness in conjunction with these laws or they are ineffective. There also needs to be monitoring of how these laws work and continually reform them. The police also need to be ready to work with these laws. The actual implementation of these laws is the most difficult part, not the passing of the law.
Because of these reports, the government now provides finical support to implement these laws on the ground. The judges and lawyers now understand these laws better. In bulgaria there is still a social tendency to side with the offender, and these reports have begun to change that in the judicial system. It has helped with training to identify wounds and trauma, and to force offenders to be prosecuted.
What they're pushing for in the coming years- The prosecution should be public and the offenders should be punished more severally.
Helen Rubenstine- Monitering Domestic Violence in Mongolia
The newest report from The Advocates for Human Rights coming from Mongolia .
Why mongolia? There was a long term partner there who had invited them.
Civil law of domestic protection that was in place but had not been implemented. Having a report allowed parliament to have the deliberations on amending this law in terms of what was working and what wasn't.
First, preparation- familiarizing with the local criminal, family, administrative laws. How these laws worked together to address the issue. Lots of background research, to formulate questions.
Then made up questions for each of the sectors- police, prosecutors, advocate, victims.
In January 2013, went to do ground research with these questions, came back, reformulated these questions, then more ground research. Interviewing 137 people across most of Mongolia.
From these they identified themes, and made recommendations.
Januray 2014 they released the report and went back to Mongolia to do awareness campaigning.
In 2004 Mongolia had put in a law for a restraining order provision, and putting restrictions on the perpetrators actions. This is the type of law that has the most success. However, the implementation of this law was poor, which almost makes it more dangerous for victims who think they will be protected, but then aren't. The police, and law courts weren't identifying with these laws or using them.
They also had no criminal law that addresses domestic violence. Assault laws have a focus on severe violence, but domestic violence needs laws that deals with smaller, repeated violence. There needs to be laws that address strangulation, stalking, emotional violence, etc. Penalties within domestic violence should actually be higher than for general assault.
Another problem, there was no one enforcing the restraining orders granted to these women, so the risk actually goes up. There was also a "reconciliation period" period that women legally had to go through to get divorce, where women had to try and make up with their spouse, as well, women who were pregnant and had a child under 1 year were not eligible for divorce. This needed to be changed.
From this report came a consolation meeting at the Mongolian Parliament. At the beginning of the meetings, when asked, "what do you think is the cause of domestic violence?", and the answer was "alcohol". But at the end of these talks there was a shift in thinking, that it is not alcohol, but attitudes towards women that need to change. They are looking to amend the law, put in more support for ground forces like police and shelters.
Cindy Dyer- Vice President for Human Rights Vital Voices Global Partnership
Working with women leaders around the world- direct service providers, justice system actors, government officials, business leaders.
There needs to be 4 things to change to a functional system- Services, Awareness, Legislation, Implementation.
Legislation- forcing police to prosecute offenders
Dyer worked as a criminal prosector before and after these laws and has seen how it has changed. Forcing judges and police to keep the laws promise.
How do we improve legislation? Tie money to successful implementation, training, coordinated community response.
Tie money to successful implementation- Money can be used as an incentive- giving money for training, and partnering with good organizations.
Training- In order to do good training there are some qualities. Needs to be multi-dicipilanary, NGOs, government, judges, police. If you're going to train someone, use people who have real experience with these issues. "street cred"
Invest in local faculty to do the training. In training, you can just teach prosecutors and police HOW to do something, you have to make them believe WHY they should. Training as to why its important.
Each community needs a task force- Not only multidisciplinary, but one that is locally led, not large scale. Needs and timing need to be decided on a local level. The task force should have locals who state the real stats of that area. If this task force meets on a regular basis, it will help with the implementation. Everything needs to be victim focused, not just convictions, or trails but other things such as, how many victims were severed at a shelter, how many women were told in person about these laws, how many women were walked to the police station to file.
Questions-
1) How do we, in reporting, deal with the issues of rural contexts where the community structure enforces the violence? And how do you deal with multiple offenders such as husband, mother-in-law, brother-in-law, etc?
Cindy Dyer- in Dallas, in rural areas there will not be special lawyers to deal with this. The focus is on the multidisciplinary task force. Connecting the rural victim to the task force who can connect them to locals who will lobby on behalf of the woman, or offer real shelter for these women.
Genoveva Tisheva, Bulgaria Gender Research Foundation- again, having a local community base that reaches out to the victims.
Cheryl Thomas- on the problem of having many perpetrators- having evidence based trials instead of cases that are based on victim testimony which is normally the case. The victim shouldn't be the one convincing the judge to side with her, it should be based on evidence and then it's not a case of some people's words against the victim.
2) In 1998, there was a domestic violence law passed in Tiwan, but the judges are not listening to local partners. Sometimes there is an importance to have an outside "expert" to partner with the locals to help train. And training will not work without trainers who have personal experience. Judges training judges, cops training cops, etc. You need the stats, but also the ground research of what happens after those stats are released.
3) Cops are sometimes the largest partners and are direly needed to be on board to implement these laws. They are the front line and the direct enforcers and educators of these laws.
4) What are the programs that are available to re-educate batterers? Batterers intervention programs- there are some in Minnesota (info on the AfHR website), but it is difficult to measure the success. Post conviction perps can be ordered to attend these programs. Hold offenders accountable, but still making sure to be focused on the victims first and foremost. The approach of being perpetrator focused doesn't actually work, it can only work in conjunction with being victim focused. Until mindsets change, until victims are willing to remove themselves, there will be no change.
5) What are your programs of intervention for breaking the cycle with children who have grown up in violent homes?
Some examples- Futures without violence, Coaching Boys into Men, Men Engaged, Virtual Knowledge Centre on Violence Against Women, endvawnow,org, Man Up Campaign.
Just read a lovely article this morning entitled 18 Things Highly Creative People Do Differently. I found it more than slightly comforting.
So much of the time I think that the habits I have are strange and unacceptable, when really, they are just a product of having a creative brain. It's always good to remember that some of my strangeness is actually beneficial to the production of art.
18 Things Highly Creative People Do Differently
Creativity works in mysterious and often paradoxical ways. Creative thinking is a stable, defining characteristic in some personalities, but it may also change based on situation and context. Inspiration and ideas often arise seemingly out of nowhere and then fail to show up when we most need them, and creative thinking requires complex cognition yet is completely distinct from the thinking process.
Neuroscience paints a complicated picture of creativity. As scientists now understand it, creativity is far more complex than the right-left brain distinction would have us think (the theory being that left brain = rational and analytical, right brain = creative and emotional). In fact, creativity is thought to involve a number of cognitive processes, neural pathways and emotions, and we still don't have the full picture of how the imaginative mind works.
And psychologically speaking, creative personality types are difficult to pin down, largely because they're complex, paradoxical and tend to avoid habit or routine. And it's not just a stereotype of the "tortured artist" -- artists really may be more complicated people. Research has suggested that creativity involves the coming together of a multitude of traits, behaviors and social influences in a single person.
"It's actually hard for creative people to know themselves because the creative self is more complex than the non-creative self," Scott Barry Kaufman, a psychologist at New York University who has spent years researching creativity, told The Huffington Post. "The things that stand out the most are the paradoxes of the creative self ... Imaginative people have messier minds."
While there's no "typical" creative type, there are some tell-tale characteristics and behaviors of highly creative people. Here are 18 things they do differently.
Creative types know, despite what their third-grade teachers may have said, that daydreaming is anything but a waste of time.
According to Kaufman and psychologist Rebecca L. McMillan, who co-authored a paper titled "Ode To Positive Constructive Daydreaming," mind-wandering can aid in the process of "creative incubation." And of course, many of us know from experience that our best ideas come seemingly out of the blue when our minds are elsewhere.
Although daydreaming may seem mindless, a 2012 study suggested it could actually involve a highly engaged brain state -- daydreaming can lead to sudden connections and insights because it's related to our ability to recall information in the face of distractions. Neuroscientists have also found that daydreaming involves the same brain processes associated with imagination and creativity.
The world is a creative person's oyster -- they see possibilities everywhere and are constantly taking in information that becomes fodder for creative expression. As Henry James is widely quoted, a writer is someone on whom "nothing is lost."
The writer Joan Didion kept a notebook with her at all times, and said that she wrote down observations about people and events as, ultimately, a way to better understand the complexities and contradictions of her own mind:
"However dutifully we record what we see around us, the common denominator of all we see is always, transparently, shamelessly, the implacable 'I,'" Didion wrote in her essay On Keeping A Notebook. "We are talking about something private, about bits of the mind’s string too short to use, an indiscriminate and erratic assemblage with meaning only for its marker."
They work the hours that work for them.
Many great artists have said that they do their best work either very early in the morning or late at night. Vladimir Nabokov started writing immediately after he woke up at 6 or 7 a.m., and Frank Lloyd Wright made a practice of waking up at 3 or 4 a.m. and working for several hours before heading back to bed. No matter when it is, individuals with high creative output will often figure out what time it is that their minds start firing up, and structure their days accordingly.
"In order to be open to creativity, one must have the capacity for constructive use of solitude. One must overcome the fear of being alone," wrote the American existential psychologist Rollo May.
Artists and creatives are often stereotyped as being loners, and while this may not actually be the case, solitude can be the key to producing their best work. For Kaufman, this links back to daydreaming -- we need to give ourselves the time alone to simply allow our minds to wander.
"You need to get in touch with that inner monologue to be able to express it," he says. "It's hard to find that inner creative voice if you're ... not getting in touch with yourself and reflecting on yourself."
They turn life's obstacles around.
Many of the most iconic stories and songs of all time have been inspired by gut-wrenching pain and heartbreak -- and the silver lining of these challenges is that they may have been the catalyst to create great art. An emerging field of psychology called post-traumatic growth is suggesting that many people are able to use their hardships and early-life trauma for substantial creative growth. Specifically, researchers have found that trauma can help people to grow in the areas of interpersonal relationships, spirituality, appreciation of life, personal strength, and -- most importantly for creativity -- seeing new possibilities in life.
"A lot of people are able to use that as the fuel they need to come up with a different perspective on reality," says Kaufman. "What's happened is that their view of the world as a safe place, or as a certain type of place, has been shattered at some point in their life, causing them to go on the periphery and see things in a new, fresh light, and that's very conducive to creativity."
They seek out new experiences.
Creative people love to expose themselves to new experiences, sensations and states of mind -- and this openness is a significant predictor of creative output.
"Openness to experience is consistently the strongest predictor of creative achievement," says Kaufman. "This consists of lots of different facets, but they're all related to each other: Intellectual curiosity, thrill seeking, openness to your emotions, openness to fantasy. The thing that brings them all together is a drive for cognitive and behavioral exploration of the world, your inner world and your outer world."
Resilience is practically a prerequisite for creative success, says Kaufman. Doing creative work is often described as a process of failing repeatedly until you find something that sticks, and creatives -- at least the successful ones -- learn not to take failure so personally.
"Creatives fail and the really good ones fail often," Forbes contributor Steven Kotler wrote in a piece on Einstein's creative genius.
They ask the big questions.
Creative people are insatiably curious -- they generally opt to live the examined life, and even as they get older, maintain a sense of curiosity about life. Whether through intense conversation or solitary mind-wandering, creatives look at the world around them and want to know why, and how, it is the way it is.
They people-watch.
Observant by nature and curious about the lives of others, creative types often love to people-watch -- and they may generate some of their best ideas from it.
"[Marcel] Proust spent almost his whole life people-watching, and he wrote down his observations, and it eventually came out in his books," says Kaufman. "For a lot of writers, people-watching is very important ... They're keen observers of human nature."
They take risks.
Part of doing creative work is taking risks, and many creative types thrive off of taking risks in various aspects of their lives.
"There is a deep and meaningful connection between risk taking and creativity and it's one that's often overlooked," contributor Steven Kotler wrote in Forbes. "Creativity is the act of making something from nothing. It requires making public those bets first placed by imagination. This is not a job for the timid. Time wasted, reputation tarnished, money not well spent -- these are all by-products of creativity gone awry."
They view all of life as an opportunity for self-expression.
Nietzsche believed that one's life and the world should be viewed as a work of art. Creative types may be more likely to see the world this way, and to constantly seek opportunities for self-expression in everyday life.
"Creative expression is self-expression," says Kaufman. "Creativity is nothing more than an individual expression of your needs, desires and uniqueness."
They follow their true passions.
Creative people tend to be intrinsically motivated -- meaning that they're motivated to act from some internal desire, rather than a desire for external reward or recognition. Psychologists have shown that creative people are energized by challenging activities, a sign of intrinsic motivation, and the research suggests that simply thinking of intrinsic reasons to perform an activity may be enough to boost creativity.
"Eminent creators choose and become passionately involved in challenging, risky problems that provide a powerful sense of power from the ability to use their talents,"write M.A. Collins and T.M. Amabile in The Handbook of Creativity.
Kaufman argues that another purpose of daydreaming is to help us to get out of our own limited perspective and explore other ways of thinking, which can be an important asset to creative work.
"Daydreaming has evolved to allow us to let go of the present," says Kaufman. "The same brain network associated with daydreaming is the brain network associated with theory of mind -- I like calling it the 'imagination brain network' -- it allows you to imagine your future self, but it also allows you to imagine what someone else is thinking."
Research has also suggested that inducing "psychological distance" -- that is, taking another person's perspective or thinking about a question as if it was unreal or unfamiliar -- can boost creative thinking.
They lose track of the time.
Creative types may find that when they're writing, dancing, painting or expressing themselves in another way, they get "in the zone," or what's known as a flow state, which can help them to create at their highest level. Flow is a mental state when an individual transcends conscious thought to reach a heightened state of effortless concentration and calmness. When someone is in this state, they're practically immune to any internal or external pressures and distractions that could hinder their performance.
You get into the flow state when you're performing an activity you enjoy that you're good at, but that also challenges you -- as any good creative project does.
"[Creative people] have found the thing they love, but they've also built up the skill in it to be able to get into the flow state," says Kaufman. "The flow state requires a match between your skill set and the task or activity you're engaging in."
They surround themselves with beauty.
Creatives tend to have excellent taste, and as a result, they enjoy being surrounded by beauty.
A study recently published in the journal Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts showed that musicians -- including orchestra musicians, music teachers, and soloists -- exhibit a high sensitivity and responsiveness to artistic beauty.
They connect the dots.
If there's one thing that distinguishes highly creative people from others, it's the ability to see possibilities where other don't -- or, in other words, vision. Many great artists and writers have said that creativity is simply the ability to connect the dots that others might never think to connect.
In the words of Steve Jobs:
"Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things."
They constantly shake things up.
Diversity of experience, more than anything else, is critical to creativity, says Kaufman. Creatives like to shake things up, experience new things, and avoid anything that makes life more monotonous or mundane.
"Creative people have more diversity of experiences, and habit is the killer of diversity of experience," says Kaufman.
They make time for mindfulness.
Creative types understand the value of a clear and focused mind -- because their work depends on it. Many artists, entrepreneurs, writers and other creative workers, such as David Lynch, have turned to meditation as a tool for tapping into their most creative state of mind.
And science backs up the idea that mindfulness really can boost your brain power in a number of ways. A 2012 Dutch study suggested that certain meditation techniques can promote creative thinking. And mindfulness practices have been linked withimproved memory and focus, better emotional well-being, reduced stress and anxiety, and improved mental clarity -- all of which can lead to better creative thought.
Carolyn Gregoire
Huffington Post
March 5, 2014
And I know I've posted this before, but it's so good-
Neuroscience paints a complicated picture of creativity. As scientists now understand it, creativity is far more complex than the right-left brain distinction would have us think (the theory being that left brain = rational and analytical, right brain = creative and emotional). In fact, creativity is thought to involve a number of cognitive processes, neural pathways and emotions, and we still don't have the full picture of how the imaginative mind works.
And psychologically speaking, creative personality types are difficult to pin down, largely because they're complex, paradoxical and tend to avoid habit or routine. And it's not just a stereotype of the "tortured artist" -- artists really may be more complicated people. Research has suggested that creativity involves the coming together of a multitude of traits, behaviors and social influences in a single person.
"It's actually hard for creative people to know themselves because the creative self is more complex than the non-creative self," Scott Barry Kaufman, a psychologist at New York University who has spent years researching creativity, told The Huffington Post. "The things that stand out the most are the paradoxes of the creative self ... Imaginative people have messier minds."
While there's no "typical" creative type, there are some tell-tale characteristics and behaviors of highly creative people. Here are 18 things they do differently.
They daydream.
Creative types know, despite what their third-grade teachers may have said, that daydreaming is anything but a waste of time.
According to Kaufman and psychologist Rebecca L. McMillan, who co-authored a paper titled "Ode To Positive Constructive Daydreaming," mind-wandering can aid in the process of "creative incubation." And of course, many of us know from experience that our best ideas come seemingly out of the blue when our minds are elsewhere.
Although daydreaming may seem mindless, a 2012 study suggested it could actually involve a highly engaged brain state -- daydreaming can lead to sudden connections and insights because it's related to our ability to recall information in the face of distractions. Neuroscientists have also found that daydreaming involves the same brain processes associated with imagination and creativity.
They observe everything.
The world is a creative person's oyster -- they see possibilities everywhere and are constantly taking in information that becomes fodder for creative expression. As Henry James is widely quoted, a writer is someone on whom "nothing is lost."
The writer Joan Didion kept a notebook with her at all times, and said that she wrote down observations about people and events as, ultimately, a way to better understand the complexities and contradictions of her own mind:
"However dutifully we record what we see around us, the common denominator of all we see is always, transparently, shamelessly, the implacable 'I,'" Didion wrote in her essay On Keeping A Notebook. "We are talking about something private, about bits of the mind’s string too short to use, an indiscriminate and erratic assemblage with meaning only for its marker."
Many great artists have said that they do their best work either very early in the morning or late at night. Vladimir Nabokov started writing immediately after he woke up at 6 or 7 a.m., and Frank Lloyd Wright made a practice of waking up at 3 or 4 a.m. and working for several hours before heading back to bed. No matter when it is, individuals with high creative output will often figure out what time it is that their minds start firing up, and structure their days accordingly.
They take time for solitude.
"In order to be open to creativity, one must have the capacity for constructive use of solitude. One must overcome the fear of being alone," wrote the American existential psychologist Rollo May.
Artists and creatives are often stereotyped as being loners, and while this may not actually be the case, solitude can be the key to producing their best work. For Kaufman, this links back to daydreaming -- we need to give ourselves the time alone to simply allow our minds to wander.
"You need to get in touch with that inner monologue to be able to express it," he says. "It's hard to find that inner creative voice if you're ... not getting in touch with yourself and reflecting on yourself."
They turn life's obstacles around.
Many of the most iconic stories and songs of all time have been inspired by gut-wrenching pain and heartbreak -- and the silver lining of these challenges is that they may have been the catalyst to create great art. An emerging field of psychology called post-traumatic growth is suggesting that many people are able to use their hardships and early-life trauma for substantial creative growth. Specifically, researchers have found that trauma can help people to grow in the areas of interpersonal relationships, spirituality, appreciation of life, personal strength, and -- most importantly for creativity -- seeing new possibilities in life.
"A lot of people are able to use that as the fuel they need to come up with a different perspective on reality," says Kaufman. "What's happened is that their view of the world as a safe place, or as a certain type of place, has been shattered at some point in their life, causing them to go on the periphery and see things in a new, fresh light, and that's very conducive to creativity."
Creative people love to expose themselves to new experiences, sensations and states of mind -- and this openness is a significant predictor of creative output.
"Openness to experience is consistently the strongest predictor of creative achievement," says Kaufman. "This consists of lots of different facets, but they're all related to each other: Intellectual curiosity, thrill seeking, openness to your emotions, openness to fantasy. The thing that brings them all together is a drive for cognitive and behavioral exploration of the world, your inner world and your outer world."
They "fail up."
Resilience is practically a prerequisite for creative success, says Kaufman. Doing creative work is often described as a process of failing repeatedly until you find something that sticks, and creatives -- at least the successful ones -- learn not to take failure so personally.
"Creatives fail and the really good ones fail often," Forbes contributor Steven Kotler wrote in a piece on Einstein's creative genius.
They ask the big questions.
Creative people are insatiably curious -- they generally opt to live the examined life, and even as they get older, maintain a sense of curiosity about life. Whether through intense conversation or solitary mind-wandering, creatives look at the world around them and want to know why, and how, it is the way it is.
Observant by nature and curious about the lives of others, creative types often love to people-watch -- and they may generate some of their best ideas from it.
"[Marcel] Proust spent almost his whole life people-watching, and he wrote down his observations, and it eventually came out in his books," says Kaufman. "For a lot of writers, people-watching is very important ... They're keen observers of human nature."
Part of doing creative work is taking risks, and many creative types thrive off of taking risks in various aspects of their lives.
"There is a deep and meaningful connection between risk taking and creativity and it's one that's often overlooked," contributor Steven Kotler wrote in Forbes. "Creativity is the act of making something from nothing. It requires making public those bets first placed by imagination. This is not a job for the timid. Time wasted, reputation tarnished, money not well spent -- these are all by-products of creativity gone awry."
Nietzsche believed that one's life and the world should be viewed as a work of art. Creative types may be more likely to see the world this way, and to constantly seek opportunities for self-expression in everyday life.
"Creative expression is self-expression," says Kaufman. "Creativity is nothing more than an individual expression of your needs, desires and uniqueness."
They follow their true passions.
Creative people tend to be intrinsically motivated -- meaning that they're motivated to act from some internal desire, rather than a desire for external reward or recognition. Psychologists have shown that creative people are energized by challenging activities, a sign of intrinsic motivation, and the research suggests that simply thinking of intrinsic reasons to perform an activity may be enough to boost creativity.
"Eminent creators choose and become passionately involved in challenging, risky problems that provide a powerful sense of power from the ability to use their talents,"write M.A. Collins and T.M. Amabile in The Handbook of Creativity.
They get out of their own heads.
Kaufman argues that another purpose of daydreaming is to help us to get out of our own limited perspective and explore other ways of thinking, which can be an important asset to creative work.
"Daydreaming has evolved to allow us to let go of the present," says Kaufman. "The same brain network associated with daydreaming is the brain network associated with theory of mind -- I like calling it the 'imagination brain network' -- it allows you to imagine your future self, but it also allows you to imagine what someone else is thinking."
Research has also suggested that inducing "psychological distance" -- that is, taking another person's perspective or thinking about a question as if it was unreal or unfamiliar -- can boost creative thinking.
Creative types may find that when they're writing, dancing, painting or expressing themselves in another way, they get "in the zone," or what's known as a flow state, which can help them to create at their highest level. Flow is a mental state when an individual transcends conscious thought to reach a heightened state of effortless concentration and calmness. When someone is in this state, they're practically immune to any internal or external pressures and distractions that could hinder their performance.
You get into the flow state when you're performing an activity you enjoy that you're good at, but that also challenges you -- as any good creative project does.
"[Creative people] have found the thing they love, but they've also built up the skill in it to be able to get into the flow state," says Kaufman. "The flow state requires a match between your skill set and the task or activity you're engaging in."
They surround themselves with beauty.
Creatives tend to have excellent taste, and as a result, they enjoy being surrounded by beauty.
A study recently published in the journal Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts showed that musicians -- including orchestra musicians, music teachers, and soloists -- exhibit a high sensitivity and responsiveness to artistic beauty.
If there's one thing that distinguishes highly creative people from others, it's the ability to see possibilities where other don't -- or, in other words, vision. Many great artists and writers have said that creativity is simply the ability to connect the dots that others might never think to connect.
In the words of Steve Jobs:
"Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things."
Diversity of experience, more than anything else, is critical to creativity, says Kaufman. Creatives like to shake things up, experience new things, and avoid anything that makes life more monotonous or mundane.
"Creative people have more diversity of experiences, and habit is the killer of diversity of experience," says Kaufman.
Creative types understand the value of a clear and focused mind -- because their work depends on it. Many artists, entrepreneurs, writers and other creative workers, such as David Lynch, have turned to meditation as a tool for tapping into their most creative state of mind.
And science backs up the idea that mindfulness really can boost your brain power in a number of ways. A 2012 Dutch study suggested that certain meditation techniques can promote creative thinking. And mindfulness practices have been linked withimproved memory and focus, better emotional well-being, reduced stress and anxiety, and improved mental clarity -- all of which can lead to better creative thought.
Huffington Post
March 5, 2014
And I know I've posted this before, but it's so good-
Only 10 days left before the annual Montreal Burning Man decompression party, and here's a sneak peek at a few of the artists (and a couple of the djs) that will be showing at this amazing event! See more info here or buy your ticket here!
The Seizure Dome
Collaborative Art Project
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Seizure Dome (le dôme aux crises d'épilepsie) est un projet collaboratif de longue date qui créé une expérience partagée, immersive et hallucinatoire. Au coeur du projet: La Boîte, un module que les participants peuvent utiliser pour contrôler des groupes de DEL RGB, manipulant la fréquence stroboscopique, les patrons de couleur, et la saturation. Le projet se manifeste dans un espace renfermé: un dôme géodésique rempli de gens et de brouillard. Quand le brouillard devient assez épais, des patrons inattendus et des hallucinations vont et viennent dans le champ visuel des participants au fur et à mesure que l'opérateur manipule La Boîte. Des couleurs sans nom ont été apreçues et le dôme a probablement contenu la plus grande concentration de gens de l'espace-temps à avoir dit “Oh my god.”
Andrei Kalamkaeov Photography
Photo booth
Professional photographer setting up a photo booth to document wonderful costumes and happenings throughout the evening. http://www.andreikalamkarov.com/
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Photographe professionnel montant un kiosque pour documenter costumes et circonstances exceptionnels de la soirée. http://www.andreikalamkarov.com/
Collaborative Art Project
Abrité par une yourte, le livre de fortune est un livre géant en pop up qui est fait de carton et de bois. Il mettra en scène un univers de foire et de saltimbanque dans lequel Aya, une jeune fille orpheline, fait la connaissance d’un univers loufoque. C’est à la suite d’une rencontre avec une diseuse de bonne aventure dans un cirque que tout chamboule. Malgré les avertissements de la voyante, curieuse, elle désobéit celle-ci en manipulant un objet qui lui n'était pas permis. Comme punition, elle se fait donc lancé un sort qui la rend prisonnière de son propre sort. Or, pour briser ce piège, elle devra affronter plusieurs créatures dans plusieurs univers afin de retrouver son chemin.
Kendal Made Photobooth
Ce livre interactif offrira aux spectateur une expérience multi sensorielle dans lequel il sera amener à activer plusieurs éléments de décors pour qu’ils prennent vie. Soit, en tirant des languettes disposées de part et d’autres des rebords du livre ou en soulevant des rabats dissimulés un peu partout à l’intérieur des pages. De cette manière, l’aventure prendra vie de tableau en tableau comme l’illusion d’un rêve. Puisque le spectateur participe activement à l’évolution de l’histoire, le mystère lui revient à découvrir toutes les surprises qui s’y cache.
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Sheltered by a yurt, the Fortune Book is a giant pop-up book made out of cardboard and wood. It will feature a world of circus and fairs wherein Aya, a young orphan girl, discovers a crazy new universe. Everything goes upside-down after she meets a fortune teller in a circus. Despite the latter's warnings, Aya disobeys her by manipulating a forbidden object. As punishment, a spell is cast upon her which makes her prisoner of her experience. To break the spell, she will have to confront many creatures in many universes to find ehr way home.
This interactive book offers the participants a multi-sensory experience in which they will activate many stage elements to bring them to life: either by pulling tabs located on either side of the book, or by lifting flaps hidden throughout the pages. This way, the adventure will come to life from frame to frame as within a dream. Since the spectator is participating within the evolution of the story, the mystery lies within the discovery of all of its surprises, twists, and turns.
Glowing Cuboctahedron Chillout Space
Collaborative Art Project
A bubble of calm repose in the midst of chaos, the structure is a 9x9x9 foot Cuboctahedron, also known as Vector Equilibrium, where event attendees can sit back, relax, enjoy waves of color flooding their retinas, and have a sip of tea. Sacred geometry is all around us, and we indeed are made from it. The Cuboctahedron itself is a special shape, as it is delivered from the nesting of 13 spheres, one in the middle, six around it, three above, and three below. The lines drawn through the centres of the encircling spheres create linear, masculine, geometric shape from the nesting female spheres. It is the 'bones' of these 13 nesting spheres, and implies a balance between our inherent dualistic nature. To sit within this structure is to sit within 13 spheres, or magnetic fields, and the vibratory nature of the black-light yarn reminds us of our own vibratory existence.
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Bulle de repos en plein chaos, la structure est un cuboctahèdre de 9x9x9 pieds, aussi connu sous le nom d'Équilibre Vectoriel, dans lequel les participants peuvent s'allonger, se détendre, se laisser bercer bar les vagues de couleur qui bercent leurs rétines, et siroter un thé. La géométrie sacrée est partout autour de nous et nous en sommes même faits. Le cuboctahèdre même est une forme spéciale, car il résulte de l'imbrication de 13 sphères: une au milieu, six autour, trois dessus, trois dessous. Les lignes reliant les centres des sphères extérieures crééent des formes masculines, linéaires, géométriques parmi les sphères féminines environnantes. Elles sont les os de ces 13 sphères et impliquent l'équilibre de notre nature dualiste inhérente. S'asseoir dans cette structure, c'est s'asseoir dans treize sphères ou champs magnétiques, et la nature vibratiore du fil sensible à la lumière ultraviolette nous rappelle de notre propre existence vibratoire.
Costume and Photography
Creating a bombastic on site photographic experience. A ton of costumes of various types and sizes will be available. People can try on all the crazy things and have their photo taken by photographer Danielle Holmes.
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Creating a bombastic on site photographic experience. A ton of costumes of various types and sizes will be available. People can try on all the crazy things and have their photo taken by photographer Danielle Holmes.
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Une expérience photographique grandiloquente sur-place. Un tas de costumes de tous genres et toutes tailles seront disponibles. Les gens peuvent essayer toutes les choses folles et se faire prendre en photo par la photographe Danielle Holmes.
Kevin Beaulieu
Performance Artist
Je suis un artiste québécois vivant et travaillant à Montréal. Ma pratique est centrée sur mon propre mythe artistique. Je suis la représentation même de mes questionnements; leur point de départ. L'autoreprésentation répétitive à travers mes œuvres fait image de mes réflexions par rapport aux normes de mon sexe. En adoptant ou en me représentant de façon idéale, malade ou stéréotypée, je questionne la condition générale des hommes à travers ma propre représentation.
C’est dans la métropole que je me repère: les quartiers chauds et les sphères élitistes de l'art actuel m'alimentent. C'est dans ces deux univers que je repositionne constamment la condition de mon genre. Mes images en font une relecture à la fois critique et ambiguë. Elles sont figuratives, poétiques et satiriques.
Ma stratégie est de faire glisser l'implicite vers l'explicite. Je soulève des questions de nature éthique. Mon art est une recherche sur la morale, sur les vertus humaines et artistiques. Je recherche les limites de la représentation acceptable, au profit de l'inacceptable. Pour moi l'art découle de l'inconfort, c'est un outil critique envers les multiples conventions factices et sécurisantes de notre société. En confrontant sans cesse les dogmes, j'essaie de susciter le débat afin de remettre en question les conventions et préjugés reliés aux genres et aux classes sociales.
L'opposition règne dans mon travail. Je joue des potentialités du chaos et de l'organisation, des pouvoirs de la sensibilité et de la rationalité, de l'attirance et de la répulsion visuelle. Mes œuvres font transparaître l'esthétique, le signifiant et le sensible des sujets boudés. J'investis le monde de l'art en adoptant ses stratégies touchant les affectes du facile et du fascinant; les signes connus et appréciés du public.
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I am a Québécois artist living and working in Montreal. My practice centers around my own artistic myth. I am the very representation and starting point of my questionings. Repetitive self-representation throughout my work represents my reflections towards the norms of my gender. By adopting or representing myself in an ideal, diseased, or stereotyped way, I question the general condition of men throughout my own representation.
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I am a Québécois artist living and working in Montreal. My practice centers around my own artistic myth. I am the very representation and starting point of my questionings. Repetitive self-representation throughout my work represents my reflections towards the norms of my gender. By adopting or representing myself in an ideal, diseased, or stereotyped way, I question the general condition of men throughout my own representation.
I find my bearings in the metropolis: the seamier neighbourhoods and the elitist spheres of contemporary art feed me. I constantly reposition the condition of my gender within both these universes. My images read them both critically and ambiguously. They are figurative, poetic and satirical.
My strategy is to render the implicit explicit. I raise ethical questions. My art is research on morals, on human and artistic virtues. I seek and transgress the limits of acceptable representation. For me art comes from discomfort, a criticism of the many fake and reassuring conventions of our societies. By incessantly confronting dogma, I try to provoke debate to question conventions and presumptions related to class and gender.
Opposition reigns in my work. I play with the potentials of chaos and order, the powers of sensitivity and reason, of visual attraction and repulsion. My work brings through the aesthetic, the significant, and the sensitive in the snubbed subjects. I forge ahead into the art world by adopting its strategies on the affects of the easy and the fascinating; on signs known and appreciated by the public.
Matt Hammond-Collins
Painter and Sculpter
Presenting a series which depicts a reaching towards a higher level of awareness of our inner selves. A play between visible light and blacklight in these paintings, creating sharp contrasts in the different modes of representation. Each piece echoes a slightly different story but all are interconnected.
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Présente une série qui représente la recherche d'un niveau de conscience supérieur de nos êtres intérieurs. Un jeu entre la lumière visible et ultraviolette existe dans ces peintures, créant des contrastes nets entre les modes de représentation. Chaque oeuvre représente une histoire différente, mais elles sont toutes reliées.
Midnight Poutine
Collaborative Project
We are Midnight Poutine, a camp at Burning Man hailing mostly from Montreal, Québec. What we do is in our name---we serve poutine to hungry burners each night starting at midnight. What's poutine, you ask? A Québecois tradition! Greasy goodness! To be precise, poutine is french fries, covered in cheese curds, with hot gravy poured on top, turning the whole thing into a gooey mess. Sound gross? It's not! In fact, it's the greatest thing you've ever eaten while out on the playa.
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Nous sommes Midnight Poutine, un campement à Burning Man majoritairement de Montréal, Québec. Notre nom définit notre objectif: servir de la poutine aux « Burners » affamés chaque soir à minuit. Mais la poutine c’est quoi? La poutine est un plat traditionnel québécois, un délice bien gras. Pour être plus précis, il s’agit de frites parsemées de fromage en grains et le tout couvert d’une sauce brune BBQ bien chaude. Ça ne titille pas vos papilles? Détrompez-vous : il s’agit en fait de la meilleure chose que vous aurez engloutit sur la playa.
Tie Dye Workshop
Art Workshop
By giving simple instructions and walking people through a few easy steps to know and remember while trying to create tie-dyed goods. Participants will get to bring home their own unique handmade item which they can have to remember the amazing time night they had, and also wear at festivals, work, school, home or at the park. Tie dye is a timeless fashion that carries with it the connotations of peace, love, self expression and freedom.
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Présentation d'instructions simples et d'étapes faciles à suivre pour pouvoir créer des oeuvres tie-dye. Les participants pourront ramener chez eux leur propre création unique et faite à la main pour se rappeler de leur soirée extraordinaire, ainsi que pour la porter dans des festivals, au travail, à l'école, à la maison, ou dans le parc. Le tie-dye est un style intemporel qui porte les connotations de paix, d'amour, de l'expression de soi et de la liberté.
I'm doing the art coordination for taBURNak! the Montreal Burning Man Decompression party that's coming up really soon. And helping run an event means, new costume time!
And, what I'm listening to-
Well, it's finished! The official screening of Impermanence took place on February 22 at Ganzeld, and today it's released for your viewing pleasure. So proud to be part of such an awesome project!
For in process shots, you can go here.
Dylan Davies-
Music
Writer
Director
Producer
Jodi Sharp-
Co-producer
Shot Supervisor
Camera
Actors-
Clay Nikiforuk
Tristan Arseneault
Guest Appearances-
Christopher Ayling
Aaron Ball
Lane Clark
Dylan Davies
Patrick Dussault
Michael Gauthier
Glenn Grant
Trampis Hogg
Collin McManus
Kaitlin McManus
Iris Moore
Levana Prud'homme
Lucie Rey
Special Thanks to-
Christopher Ayling
The Hive
Aaron Ball
Make sure you keep your ears open for Dylan Davies' EP, being released sometime this year.
One of the most wonderful spiritual places that I went on my trip to Thailand was to the Tiger Temple or Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua, which is located in the Saiyok district of Thailand's Kanchanaburi province.
This temple is a fairly regular tourist attraction for one particular reason. In the late-nineties a tiger cub was given to the temple for protection from poachers, and a tradition followed of other communities that did the same. As of 2012 the temple had over 100 tigers, and it became known as a place for tourists to come and see these animals, get their picture taken with them and even sit on their backs for an few thousand Baht.
There is quite a lot of controversy about this temple regarding if their methods of tiger care is good for the animals or not, and several conservation groups are fighting against it as a "glorified petting zoo". But, regardless of this controversy, this space is still a fully functional temple where people come to worship, pray and experience spiritual occurrence.
We did not go to this temple to see their tiger population, but instead went as pilgrims to climb the 1237 uneven cement stairs all the way to the top of the mountain to reach the smaller temple right on the very tip. The process of doing this made me think very hard about the necessity of challenge and exhaustion in reaching a spiritual space or as a method of learning.
This small pilgrimage wasn't even close to the most difficult thing like this I have ever done. But it did remind me of a process that I find extremely helpful in using to quiet my mind and to reach a place of true thankfulness and openness.
I think that, in this day and age, my generation is so used to everything being quick and easy. If we can't click a link on the internet to buy something, or call someone immediately when we want to change plans, or google something when we're lost and so on and so on, then we don't even bother to do certain things. But I think that the process is more than half of generating understanding and progressing anywhere.
For me the process of any journey goes something like this-
I begin full of hope and excitement. From the bottom anything looks easy, and I am always fully confident in my ability make it to the top. For the first few hundred steps I am thinking about how great it feels to walk, to be using my body, to be trying to accomplish something. I am buoyant, seeing the end goal as closer than it is.
Soon however, my breathing becomes more laboured, my steps not as quick. I sober up a little and remind myself that I knew that this would be difficult, and now it is time to be serious and think about why I am doing this. I begin to start to focus on the journey and what it is teaching me. I think of all the monks who made this path to begin with, how difficult it would've been for them to be making these concrete steps one by one, hauling all of their materials up the side of the mountain. I am grateful for those who came before me, who had a more difficult journey than mine in order to make mine easier. I feel proud to be thinking these thoughts, thinking that I am getting the most out of my journey and am learning something.
But then there is the point, and it comes for me in anything that is difficult, where you can't see where you began or where you will end. You are alone, beginning to truly tire. And it is then where I begin to ask the question, is it really worth it? Is seeing this temple, or accomplishing this goal, or finishing this project, or furthering this relationship, or so on or so on, is it something I really need to do? I'm tired. The end result probably won't be that great anyway. I don't even know why I'm doing this anymore.
It always seems that it is then, that the points of encouragement magically begin to enter.
The trees part and there is a view so breathtaking that your spirit rises again.
Or there is a resting place where you can pause and catch your breath. Where there is something beautiful you are so glad that you can see, where you can say a prayer and remember your purpose, where there is a kind word from a passer-by.
And then, after this point, becomes what is the real purpose of any journey for me. My head, which is so normally filled with thoughts, words, and ideas, suddenly becomes silent. There is no more energy for me to impose anything other than what is there. I am completely and solidly in the moment. I do not question turning back, there is only up. I do not know when this journey will end, I do not ask. I only know that I must go forward, and one day, I will get there.
And just when I think that I may be climbing for the rest of my life, I turn a corner, and there it is- that thing that I was seeking, right up ahead of me, only one more flight of stairs away.
This is the point where I want to rush ahead, run sprinting towards my goal, but I don't. Instead, I stop myself. I stop myself and I think about all that I have gone through to get here. And gratefulness floods over me, and I learn the lesson that I learn and re-learn every time I go through something difficult- that it is not the end goal that is the point, it is the journey. That without that exhaustion, without that pain, I would not have been open to the lessons I needed to learn, I would not have become quiet and truly listened to the world around me, and I would not be nearly as awestruck or grateful about where I ended up.
And at the end there is always that reward. Where you walk into a new place and see the beauty that is offered to you. Beauty you might not have even noticed if you hadn't have worked so hard to get there. And as you look down your mountain, and watch the sun set, you can clearly see all that you've accomplished. And that is worth so much more, than a simple click of a button, or someone doing it for you, or an easy elevator to the top. It's amazing how I still forget this every time...
This weekend I worked on a incredible project with musician and producer Dylan Davies to create a music video for his new single "Impermanence".
Here's a few shots from the shooting day, and hopefully the final edited version coming before the end of the month!
Acting by writer Clay Nikiforuk, and Tristan Arseneault.
Funny how the most romantic shots are the least romantic in real life.
Dylan, co-owner of La Terrasse Recording Studios and renowned songwriter in other projects such as Future Not Earth, has finally gone in his own direction and has put something with just his name on it. His new song is incredible, and working with him is always an immense pleasure.
Here's a few shots from the shooting day, and hopefully the final edited version coming before the end of the month!
Acting by writer Clay Nikiforuk, and Tristan Arseneault.
Hammering out the shots for the day.
Our actress, Clay Nikiforuk.
The great DIY camera stabilizer Dylan made out of a old bike rim and some hardware.
And the light board we made out of some LEDs, some sheer fabric and a piece of an old desk.
Working hard!
Look for Dylan Davies' new video, coming soon!
I was checking out some vintage Valentines the other day, and I'd never noticed before just how creepy some of them are. For some strange reason there is a huge amount of violence and stalking associated with love (although, I guess that makes a lot of sense, come to think about it.)
So, for your viewing pleasure, and just in time to send one of these to someone you, ermmm, love, I have selected some of my favourite creepy Valentines cards. Just for you and your loved ones on this, "special," day.
Okay I'm done. But seriously. Love is kinda creepy.
"When I was a child in Tibet, I heard the story of Krisha Gotami, a young woman who had the good fortune to live at the time of the Buddha. When her firstborn child was about a year old, it fell ill and died. Grief-stricken and clutching its little body, Krisha Gotami roamed the streets, begging anyone she met for a medicine that could restore her child to life. Some ignored her, some laughed at her, some thought she was mad, but finally she met a wise man who told her that the only person in the world who could perform the miracle she was looking for was the Buddha.
So she went to the Buddha, laid the body of her child at his feet, and told him her story. The Buddha listened with infinite compassion. Then he said gently, “There is only one way to heal your affliction. Go down to the city and bring me back a mustard seed from any house in which there has never been a death.”
Krisha Gotami felt elated and set off at once for the city. She stopped at the first house she saw and said: “I have been told by the Buddha to fetch a mustard seed from a house that has never known death.”
“Many people have died in this house,” she was told. She went on to the next house. “There have been countless deaths in our family,” they said. And so to a third and a fourth house, until she had been all around the city and realized the Buddha’s condition could not be fulfilled.
She took the body of her child to the charnel ground and said goodbye to him for the last time, then returned to the Buddha.
“Did you bring the mustard seed?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I am beginning to understand the lesson you are trying to teach me. Grief made me blind and I thought that only I had suffered at the hands of death.”
“Why have you come back?” asked the Buddha.
“To ask you to teach me the truth,” she replied, “of what death is, what might be behind and beyond death, and what in me, if anything, will not die.”
The Buddha began to teach her: “If you want to know the truth of life and death, you must reflect continually on this: There is only one law in the universe that never changes – that all things change, and all things are impermanent. Because pain has now made you ready to learn and your heart is opening to truth, I will show it to you.”
Krisha Gotami knelt at his feet, and followed the Buddha for the rest of her life."
Pg 28-29, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
Sogyal Rimpoche
Rigpa Fellowship, 1993
I will not remain in this world any longer,
But will go dwell in the stronghold of the great bliss of deathlessness...
...Now all the connections in this life between us are ending,
I am going to die as I like,
Do not feel sad for me, but go on praying always.
Pg 340, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
Sogyal Rimpoche
Rigpa Fellowship 1993
While in Thailand I did attend a electronic music festival, curious to see what my own culture would be like on the other side of the world.
The Experience was a Psy-Trance festival held in Koa Toa, a breath-taking island off of the east coast of Thailand. I had two different experiences, one with how I felt about the festival, and one with how I felt about the place.
The festival itself was interesting to me because, while it seemed similar to what I was used to in appearance, music, and types of attendees, it felt very different. First off, it was really expensive, it cost more than some festivals I went to in North America this summer. This, right off the bat, cut out the ability for a lot of local people to come. There were almost no Thai people there, the festival was made up almost entirely of travellers, which I think is why it felt so different to me.
A makeshift shrine set up in front of the main-stage
In festivals like this, the thing that speaks to me the most is the type of community that's created through it. And that community building generally happens off the backs of the local community that's already there, that has an investment in the space. At Experience there was a surprising lack of people just hanging out during the day talking to each other. The groups seemed smaller, broken up. It seemed as though people were a little more insular when it came to making friends. It's possible that this was some of my own energy I put into the festival as well, you get out what you put in, but the overarching feeling I had of the space was one of disconnection. This festival felt to me like what it was, a bunch of out-of-towners who came for a party.
To be fair, it was a bunch of very respectful out-of-towners. Even while I found New Years to be a lot of bros getting drunk, the festival stayed super clean throughout the entire thing. And, while there were some super trashed people there, they were still all friendly even when wasted. A lot of the people attending seemed like they would be part of these communities elsewhere, I just couldn't shake the feeling of disconnection through the entire thing. Which is exactly the opposite of what I normally feel in these spaces, even when I don't know anyone.
The island of Koa Toa however, made up for the community spirit where this festival failed. I felt so at home here, it was by far my favourite place in Thailand. There were still definitely the touristy places where the vibe wasn't so great, but as soon as we got off the beaten path we found incredibly beautiful, soul-filled places. We stayed at this one place called High Bar, where the staff was so hilarious and friendly, it really felt like home.
It was interesting to me to have the experience of going to a festival and not connecting, but having that connection so present in the surrounding area. My sense of home shifted from the festival space, to the local space. It just goes to show you, it's the people who make things great, which means we all have the power to create good spaces wherever we are.
All this week the Concordia MFA program is opening its doors for people to experience just what goes on in these crazy artist studios!
Tomorrow afternoon from 3-6 pm and Saturday from 12-4 pm you can come visit me and see my space at 1395 René Lévesque Blvd W. in room 412.
Make sure and check out the other amazing events that are happening all week as well-
OPEN DOORS / PORTES OUVERTES 03/02/14-08/02/14
The OPEN DOORS week offers visitors a chance to meet current Studio Arts MFA students in their studios and engage with their work through performances, film and video screenings and on-campus exhibitions. Over 70 MFA candidates will be presenting their work and research in one of the following program areas: Fibres & Material Practices, Film Production, Open Media, Painting & Drawing, Photography, Print Media and Sculpture.
All events are free of charge and everyone is welcome!
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The OPEN DOORS EXHIBITION runs from February 3-8 in several spaces in the VA Building: the MFA Gallery (VA 102), the MFA Sub-Gallery (VA 03) and the Project Room (VA 407) as well as additional installation rooms. Please join us for the opening.
Vernissage:
Tuesday, February 4, 2014, 5-7pm
MFA Gallery, VA 102, 1395 René Lévesque Blvd W.
Tuesday, February 4, 2014, 5-7pm
MFA Gallery, VA 102, 1395 René Lévesque Blvd W.
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The MFA OPEN STUDIOS offer a chance to meet with MFA students in their own studios to see works in progress and discuss their current practice. The OPEN STUDIOS sessions are scheduled on two separate dates:
The MFA OPEN STUDIOS offer a chance to meet with MFA students in their own studios to see works in progress and discuss their current practice. The OPEN STUDIOS sessions are scheduled on two separate dates:
Wednesday, February 5
1-3pm Open Studios in EV Building, 1515 St. Catherine St. W.
3-6pm Open Studios in VA Building, 1395 René Lévesque Blvd W.
Saturday, February 8
12-4pm Open Studios in EV Building, 1515 St. Catherine St. W. and at the VA Building, 1395 René Lévesque Blvd W.
1-3pm Open Studios in EV Building, 1515 St. Catherine St. W.
3-6pm Open Studios in VA Building, 1395 René Lévesque Blvd W.
Saturday, February 8
12-4pm Open Studios in EV Building, 1515 St. Catherine St. W. and at the VA Building, 1395 René Lévesque Blvd W.
A PERFORMANCE evening featuring “interviews on art” hosted by Matthew Palmer and Tim Messeiller, better known as Palmer & Messeiller, will take place on Wednesday, February 5. Drinks and snacks will be available.
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FILM & VIDEO SCREENINGS are scheduled for Thursday, February 6 from 6pm-9pm in VA-114.
Tumbler http://mfaconcordia.tumblr.com/
Facebook event https://www.facebook.com/events/559428820800495
Just got published in a new book last week! It's a catalogue of up-and-coming artists, 188 pages total, and it's quite lovely. Glossy pages, beautiful photos. Yay. :)
Trevor Gould, excerpt from book forward, Pg 8.
"Working from the notion that power is produced from one moment to the next with the help of every individual, I define my practice around societal issues that I desire to change. Using performance, ritual creation and object making, I focus on the invention of stories and myth which parallel our current societal space, yet create new ways in which society can relate to others and the environment. Through small actions, and an inclusion of others into the dialogue for societal change, I seek to change the structure of the system by changing myself."
Open Doors
Forward by Trevor Gould
Concordia University Press
Montreal 2014
"There is no way out of it, "we are now in a material environment," says jonathan Crary, "where earlier 20th century models of spectatorship, contemplation and experience are inadequate for understanding conditions of cultural creation and reception." The tension expressed in these works on display is precisely because they teeter on the edge of these circumstances that dominate social thought between depletion and renewal, belief and reason, digital and analogue, living and dead. Each of these artists attached to one or the other cognate field, expresses in their work this dissonance, a depletion of some form of social and cultural values embedded in history, while engaged in a kind of renewal based on completely different referent points."
"There is no way out of it, "we are now in a material environment," says jonathan Crary, "where earlier 20th century models of spectatorship, contemplation and experience are inadequate for understanding conditions of cultural creation and reception." The tension expressed in these works on display is precisely because they teeter on the edge of these circumstances that dominate social thought between depletion and renewal, belief and reason, digital and analogue, living and dead. Each of these artists attached to one or the other cognate field, expresses in their work this dissonance, a depletion of some form of social and cultural values embedded in history, while engaged in a kind of renewal based on completely different referent points."
Trevor Gould, excerpt from book forward, Pg 8.
The image of mine that was selected was from Siren Project. My excerpt reads,
Some of the other incredible artists that are in the book-
Yay. :)