Alterations

On Saturday I had the great pleasure of attending the opening of the Alterations exhibition hosted by Art form the Margins (AFTM). Alterations was curated by Donna McDonald who is a disability arts researcher and writer. The contributing artists are blind or partially sighted from Brisbane and regional Queensland.

I complimented James Norquay on his beautiful landscape photography shot around the Sunshine Coast. In his bio he thoughtfully explains how he knows when to take the shot, “I am called to take photographs through a spirit that guides me. I sense this spirit by a shift in light and colour around me, or sounds harmonising in a moment, or the way the wind brushes against my skin. In these moments, I feel an electric joy bubble in my body and I know - ‘This is the moment to take a photograph!’”. The works on display are a testament to James’ connection to nature.

The Guide Dogs Queensland Art Group had six artists exhibiting their clay work. Chatting with Jenny Woolsey she mentioned that the faces she sculpts from clay have no eyes, yet when I look at her work the faces seem complete. Clay work is new to Jenny, “Throught this medium, I have found a way of expressing my feelings about issues that effect my life. This passion has also been a means of relaxation and mindfulness.”

During the official opening Donna McDonald was presented with two Aspire Awards. Their website explains the awards this way: “The awards celebrate all people who identify with a disability in any chosen field of work, volunteering, sport, hobby, advocacy, health, law, arts, writing, they celebrate opportunity, dreams, achievements of an inclusive society.” In Donna’s acceptance speech she said she was grateful to be born at a time when she could take advantage of the hard won rights by disability activists and for the immense privilege of continuing education. In thinking about her aspirations, Donna eloquently summarised that she “just wanted to be useful”. The presentation of the Aspire Awards recognise her usefulness, as does the regard of the exhibiting artists and the AFTM board members.

Besides the opportunity to enjoy a wonderful show, consider this statement from the exhibition catalogue: “These artists not only challenge us with new ways of making, viewing and interpreting art, but they also alter our understanding of the world around us.”

Alterations is open until 27 November 2020 at AFTM Gallery & Studios, 136 Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley.

Bravery

“We are all born with this tremendous capacity to be anything” so says Phil Zimbardo psychologist and a professor emeritus at Stanford University. It’s an intriguing concept to explore and it has been Zimbardo’s mission to understand human impulses – to look at why we are how we are – why some cross the line between good and evil – why some are able to act heroically.

Hannah Arendt also put considerably effort into understanding our capacity for evil, particularly in analysing the rise of Nazi Germany. How is it that faced with the choice of collaborating to help your Jewish neighbours escape or giving them up to the regime, that so few took the higher path. Her conclusion chimes with Zimbardo’s – “all that is needed for evil to thrive is for good people to do nothing”. “Arendt called it the “Banality of Evil”, Zimbardo bouncing off her observations wants us to consider the opposite the “Banality of Heroism” – that we can be taught to resist our usual compulsion to be part of the herd. To this end he has instigated The Heroic Imagination Project (HIP).

HIP trains participants to become accustomed to standing out from the crowd – small acts like walking around the city dressed as a bunny. Most of us have been taught to mind our own business, to not get involved, Zimbardo says that consequently we will be “guilty of the evil of inaction… And you have to say, “Mama, humanity is my business.”

Fellow researcher, Stanley Milgram conducted his famously controversial experiment on Obedience to Authority in the 1960s, he quantified “evil as the willingness of people to blindly obey authority.” In response to this Zimbardo advises that “The key to heroism is two things:

A: you’ve got to act when other people are passive.

B: you have to act socio-centrically, not egocentrically.”

So how is it we become passive and ego-centric? Zimbardo has developed a hit list:

·      Dehumanization of others

·      De-individuation of Self

·      Diffusion of personal responsibility

·      Blind obedience to authority

·      Uncritical conformity to group norms

·      Passive tolerance to evil through inaction or indifference

All of which seem obvious when you think about it and you can see that when these acts are combined together they have the power to erode any inclination to action. That’s why it’s important to admire heroic acts – it takes bravery to be a whistle-blower, to save lives to disobey authority, to be non-conformist, to speak up, to take action. Zimbardo exhorts us to focus on the positive to “Advocate for respect of personal dignity, for justice and peace.” That sounds worthwhile.

Respect

I, Daniel Blake left me in despair. We have become a cruel society in our quest for efficiencies and measurable outputs. Ken Loach focuses his lens on the desperation felt by those of us down on our luck. The systems put in place by government agencies, insurance companies and other corporate giants seem designed to crush the human spirit. And not just the spirit of those accessing services, but also the compassionate nature of their employees, who are bound by rules and hounded by supervisors to tow the company line.

We used to have respect for people who were less fortunate, a “there but for the grace of god” feeling of regard. A seemingly forgotten, though important aspect of respect is the consideration for the feelings, wishes, and rights of others. This has been largely forfeited, replaced by the popular notion that if you work/study/strive/want it hard enough you will be magically rewarded. This idea of meritocracy is dangerous, it allows us to write people off as unworthy, a difficult stance to justify given the wealth distribution statistics. The Oxfam Davos report highlights that “The gap between rich and poor is reaching new extremes. Credit Suisse recently revealed that the richest 1% have now accumulated more wealth than the rest of the world put together… Meanwhile, the wealth owned by the bottom half of humanity has fallen by a trillion dollars in the past five years. This is just the latest evidence that today we live in a world with levels of inequality we may not have seen for over a century.”

Yet I still believe there is enough to go around, though flummoxed by the mechanisms required to make this happen. Surely we can strive to be a respectable society – it is not proper, nor decent that “62 people own the same as half the world”. Perhaps the solution is imminent, the start up world of digital enterprises promises a sharing economy which I hope we can embrace.

Inspired

Last week was unusually filled with cultural events. On Tuesday I went along to the QBI to hear the University of Queensland's inaugural Diversity Lecture. Minister Leeanne Enoch stepped up to the lectern to share the story of her two grandfathers. One black, one white - they both fought for their country in WWII and as soldiers were treated fairly equally. After the war, the picture was very different, the returned soldier benefits and re-training opportunities provided by the government were only available to the white grandfather. The black grandfather had the right to fight for his country, but not the right to vote in his country. It's always shameful to be reminded that as a society we could think any discrimination is acceptable.

Leeanne went on to talk about some advice from her grandmother, she cautioned her "you can walk amongst them and they'll never know" referring to Leeanne's light coloured skin. It took her many years to process this advice, her conclusion was that she would change it to “I will walk amongst you and you will know.” I loved this assertive response, it's a quietly powerful statement.

After the lecture there was a panel discussion about diversity with The Honourable Leeanne Enoch, Dr Sallyanne Atkinson, Professor Cindy Shannon and Professor Iain Watson. There were individual tales about their fight for inclusion and insightful statements about diversity.

Talking about her role at UQ, Cindy said their focus was "celebrating difference and celebrating the value that diversity brings." Iain hopes "to make diversity normal, not 'special'", he wants UQ to have a culture that is welcoming and safe. To this end UQ has a PLEASE EXPLAIN policy when there is a lack of diversity in applications for senior roles, especially given that femalesnow make up 52% of graduates.

To round off the evening Leeanne stressed the many benefits that many viewpoints can bring "diversity is an important part of a nation's success."

Reminiscence

Went through the exhibition Remininscence at the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts. It celebrates 100 years of Australian visionary Judith Wright. She actively advocated for naturebeing instrumental in saving the Great Barrier Reef from oil drilling and Fraser Island from sand mining. Wrights other motivating force was concern for the lot of indigenous Australians - she had a long friendship with Minjerribah poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal and fought for land rights with Nugget Coombs.

"Are you and I a once-loved land peopled by tribes and trees; doomed by traders and stock-exchanges bought by faceless strangers."

excerpt from TWO DREAMTIMES (1973)

The exhibition shows work by artists Fiona Rafferty and Frances Smith that has been inspired by the writings of Judith Wright. It was fabulous to finally know something about Judith Wright and why we might name an arts centre after her - I am now curious to seek out the writings of this maverick.

AI WEI WEI

Whilst in London, Ai Wei Wei was exhibiting at the Royal Academy of Arts. It is a spectacular show that gave me insight into his activism, the oppressive regime of the Chinese government and his creative process. My favourite room was Wei Wei's tribute to the school children killed during the earthquake in Sichuan - when substandard buildings collapsed. Wei Wei and friends tried to get a list of the dead from the Chinese governement without success - so they have collected as many as they could by talking to local people. These are represented in large scale printed lists pasted to the walls. On the floor is 150 tonnes of straightened reinforcer bars that were covertly bought by Wei Wei. These rusty bars from the condemned buildings, form ripples that look solid, but you have the ominous feeling that they would slip underfoot if you ventured to walk on top. It is a moving memorial.

There is a mix of playful and serious as you move through the rooms of this show. The gift shop is filled with Wei Weisms:

Art is not an end but a beginning.

I want people to see their own power.

A small act is worth a million thoughts.