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To Build A Swing

You carry

All the ingredients

To turn your life into a nightmare –

Don’t mix them!

You have all the genius

To build a swing in your backyard

For God.

That sounds

Like a hell of a lot more fun.

Let’s start laughing, drawing blueprints,

Gathering out talented friends.

I will help you

With my divine lyre and drum.

Hafiz

Will sing a thousand words

You can take into your hands,

Like golden saws,

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Silver hammers,

Polished teakwood,

Strong silk rope.

You carry all the ingredients

To turn your existence into joy,

Mix them, mix

Them!

(Hafiz , 14th century Persian Sufi poet, translated by Daniel Ladinsky, 1999, The Gift, Penguin Compass, New York)

Uts’am Witness, Art, Education, and Advocacy

From 1997 to 2007, as Arts Programmer for the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre in Vancouver, I had the opportunity to work on a project with the Squamish First Nation, environmentalists, artists and the public. It was a project that came out of a joint proposal submitted by artist and photographer, Nancy Bleck, legendary mountaineer John Clarke, and telalsemkin/syam, hereditary Chief Bill Williams. This project, called Uts’am Witness, evolved into an inspiring example of cross-cultural collaboration “through the arts”. From this project, emerged a strong case for social change through community-engaged art practice. It has also emerged as a strong example of the importance of cultural diversity and the exchange of ideas between cultures. I have become a witness.

Over ten thousand individuals participated in the weekend camping trips to the old

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growth forests of the Sims Creek valley in British Columbia, the traditional territory of the Squamish Nation. These weekends were hosted by Chief Bill Williams every summer for a decade and were centered on a traditional Squamish ceremony called Uts’am. Artists, cultural experts, core-volunteers, environmentalists, students, tourists and even loggers and government and corporate officials, were among those who participated over the course of the project.

After ten years the contested territory of the Squamish was finally “leased” back to the Squamish Nation by the provincial government– with a 250-500 year land-use plan (July, 2007 - contrast with the usual 5 year plans awarded to forest companies). The project was officially completed in 2007, with an exhibition and ceremony, honoring Chief Williams for his sustained commitment and leadership. The long and patient work of advocacy was completed without violence, and through cross-cultural exchange through ritual, ceremony, and the arts.

The Squamish are, once again, the recognized stewards and keepers of this land where there is still intact old growth forest, which we learned to see as a cultural and well as environmental asset – for us all. In addition to proposed sustained logging practices, there are sacred places in this forest put aside for sharing, for use by the Nation, for use by the initiated, and for use by non-humans. The old growth will be preserved.

So what has all this got to do with Art Education or with Advocacy?

My practice as an arts educator has been outside the institutional walls of schools, colleges, or universities. It has been a practice located in community, in galleries, community centres, communities of practice and even in the forest.

This presentation focuses on culture, art, education, the environment, our health, and understanding our place in the world. All this seems like too much for the scope of this talk – unless – we see these all as aspects or facets of a single idea – that is, that our experience and engagement with these seemingly separate activities is integrated, and that it is characterized by constant transformation.

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I am always an artist within the context of a particular cultural perspective; I am always simultaneously a learner and an educator; I am always affected and situated within environment; my health is dependent on these other areas of my life and includes diet, lifestyle, genetics, and etcetera. My cognition and experience are embodied and lived. They are phenomenological experiences.

The Uts’am project gave me teachings that I have carried into different roles in my career, including the present role I have as an advocate for culture and the arts in my province of Canada. There were many teaching offered and learnings I experienced while working with the Uts’am project, and in this short time, I wanted to share what I thought were the most relevant to this audience and in the context of what I believe is, indeed, Advocacy.

Central to my learning from Ut’Sam was a shared belief that we could only affect change with an alternative approach to that offered by boardrooms, courts, protests, violence, and conflict. This alternate model was provided through the traditional Coast Salish witnessing ceremony itself – or Uts’am. Uts’am is a millennia-old oral tradition that calls on those people present to become witnesses of a particular event, fact, story, or decision. Witnesses are asked to share what they have experienced at the ceremony with their families, friends, and communities. They take on a significant responsibility as witnesses and are offered trust and honor for undertaking their roles. They become advocates. This model becomes important as I recognize the importance of collaborating across sectors (arts, education, social profit sectors, etc.) and in engaging audiences and communities in our efforts.

As an advocate, my interest is in changing opinions and affecting values. This is a long- term objective that requires strategic planning. We all understand that good information, research, and analysis are required to convince people and to change their perspectives and understanding. My experience has taught me that opinions are not easily changed through information alone. That information needs to connect to our lived experiences and we ultimately need to be “moved” in order to shift perspective.

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I’ve learned through hundreds of community-based projects, partnerships, and arts events that I’ve developed over the years, that the arts/culture have the power to transform attitudes and affect values in a much more powerful manner than through facts and figures alone. The paradigm shifts which we sense in the air and required transformations for their success depend, ultimately on shifting values. We need to be “moved” and this is accomplished through telling our stories. The arts are effective in doing this and can transcend cultural differences.

The arts exercise our emotions and feelings – they allow us to imagine a different world, they inherently increase our capacity for compassion and empathy. I’ve learned that scientific evidence or argument is often insufficient to produce social change, especially if that change entails moving people out of their comfort zones. It is values that matter and emotions that often guide and motivate people’s actions.

In our advocacy world – I find that we are often preaching to the converted and Witness

taught me about the power to engage in dialogue with those not conventionally within our circle. In fact, the traditional Uts’am ceremony is considered most effective when those outside one’s community are invited to speak and participate. It is about honoring multiple perspectives and allowing for a “two-way” ceremony. Witnesses bring their perspectives to bear on the views of the hosts of the ceremony.

Various scholars have proposed different theories of cultural change. Thomas R. Rochon proposed the following differentiation between three modes of cultural change:

Value conversion –the replacement of existing cultural values with new ones e.g. changing views of racial discrimination as acceptable behaviour to an abhorrent one;

Value Creation – the development of new ideas to apply to new situations e.g. emergence of identity politics, environmental issues, technology and copyright, creative commons etc.

Value Connection – the development of a conceptual link between phenomena previously thought unconnected or connected in a different way e.g. connecting new ideas of

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environmentalism to older traditional religious or political ones: e.g. environmental issues linked with First Nations traditions and beliefs.

The Uts’am project involved all three of these modes of cultural change and thus became a powerful project for advocacy. The once widely accepted practice of colonial subjugation has become recognized as a terrible form of cultural genocide (value conversion). The Witness project arose at a time when the “war in the woods” was leading to nothing but conflict and little hope for actual change; an alternative was being sought that placed a new value on Coast Salish history and traditions (value creation). The project revealed conceptual links between traditional Coast Salish beliefs, environmental activism, scientific research, and cultural exchange (value connection).

One of the significant phenomena that I have been able to participate in is the increased acceptance and practice of the arts in community development. I have served on the advisory committee in the establishment and launch of the International Centre for Art for Social Change (http://www.icasc.ca/creative_renewal) . Part of that change has to be an increased value in society for the arts and for art education):

One urgently needed change concerns our thinking about culture, the crucible of our

resilience, wisdom and creativity. It needs to move from the margins—arts work as a nice

but not necessary frill—to the center of our public discourse about how to build humane

and open societies.

Arlene Goldbard (ICASC website, October 4, 2009)

Remember, also, Einstein’s words “…in times of crisis, imagination is more important than knowledge (information)…” Well folks we are in times of crisis, on many levels, and I, for one, believe that art and cross-cultural collaboration will help us get out of this as we seek solutions and new ways of being.

As an advocate for the arts, I find it strange that the conventional mechanisms of rallies, protests, whiny or even rude letter-writing, meeting with disinterested and all-too-partisan politicians are not joined by more - well…art.

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Peaceful and beautiful public art/cultural interventions, on a small and human scale that engage people where they live in our world, could be effective means to involve our neighbours and communities to engage with us – to tell their stories and express that “culture matters; the arts are not a frill”. The new web technology that is so profoundly altering our means of cultural creation and consumption is another arena that has become a powerful tool in the hands of advocates. We can build virtual communities of interest through social media tools. We are able to reach potential millions of viewers as we vie for attention amongst millions. We build these networks one person at a time.

In our recent federal election in Canada, in response to cuts and flippant comments about the arts and culture, Quebecers responded with a very effective viral campaign of videos on the Internet. These high quality videos were well produced, slick and powerful. They spread their messages across the nation and many believe they cost the Conservative party their majority.

Now I do not want to be heard as trivializing the critical importance of good research, numbers and facts in any advocacy campaign. It is the delivery of this information and its inability to be effective on its own that I question.

I hope that I haven’t rambled on too long or taken too many tangents in this presentation. I hope that I have shifted some perspectives and raised new questions and possibilities regarding art, education and advocacy. Uts’am taught me that learning and evolving are embodied processes that cannot be teased out of being-in-the-world.

I leave you with a story recounted to me by the Executive Director of the Stanley Park Ecological Society in Vancouver (http://www.stanleyparkecology.ca/). Among its many programs the society engages children in school nature walks through the urban forest.

One of the tour leaders described a warm sunny afternoon, collecting insects with young children. She described being engrossed in a small patch of turf, searching for insects, when she noticed some small feet waiting patiently. She looked up into the warm brown eyes of a five-year-old girl. The girl was very excited. She held up her “bug jar” and pointed enthusiastically at a small ladybug. “Isn’t she beautiful!” exclaimed the girl; they

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spent several minutes talking about ladybugs and ecological principles. “Can I keep her?” asked the little girl. The tour leader responded by explaining that the ladybug had a role to play in the forest and probably wanted to get back to that, plus it probably had a family to get back to.

The little girl was finally convinced that it would be best to release the ladybug – so they walked over to near where the girl had found the insect and released it. “Goodbye ladybug…I hope you find your family!” said the little girl as the bug flew away. The leader went back to her turf and the little girl joined her school group. A few moments later, one of the teachers came running up to the tour leader, who thought she might be in trouble, judging from the urgency in the teacher’s steps. “Did that little girl speak with you? What did she say? You know that she has selective muteness and hasn’t spoken a word in school for more than a year? This is the first time she has spoken this year!” Maybe there were no ladybugs at school? Maybe we do not connect enough to nature, or with each other. If an insect and a human can have such a meaningful exchange, it gives me hope that we are capable of sharing across cultures and bring ourselves into relationship with one another and with the non-two-legged.

You carry all the ingredients

To turn your existence into joy,

Mix them, mix

Them!

Amir Ali Alibhai

October 4, 2009