Controversial topics are hard to talk about. What makes the process even more difficult is when one side, for whatever reason, decides that disagreeing with their position is equivalent to you *hating* their position. The disagreement=hate confab is almost an exclusive feature of attempting to dialogue with someone on the
Continue readingTag: Conversations
Dead Wild Roses: Sadly, no. – Conversations between Radical Feminists and Transactivists.
Transactivist: Aint nothing radical about your “movement”…. you’re reactionary. You’re all bigoted and transmisogynistic. Step ya pussy game up. RF: ok RF: do u even know what “radical” means lol, it means “getting to the root”, as in getting to the root of women’s oppression which is male desire to
Continue readingArt Threat: Curating the North: Documentary Screening Ethics and Inuit Representation in (Festival) Cinema
Documentary festivals are certainly not immune to scandal and controversy, and this year’s RIDM, which took place in Montreal in November 2015, was no exception. Following on the heels of the festival’s public screenings of Dominic Gagnon’s film Of the North, Inuit artists like Tanya Tagaq and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril took to social media to express […]
Continue readingArt Threat: Artist says Nope to Stephen Harper (again)
Four years ago, Bob Preston found himself in the same position as millions of Canadians: he desperately wanted to see prime minsiter Stephen Harper turfed from office. Influenced by Shepard Fairey’s iconic
Continue readingArt Threat: Activist pasts, austere presents, queered futures: An interview with Emily Davidson
“Imagine a new relationship to every aspect of everything.” “Capitalism has fallen; Art must be redefined.” “You get to pick your gender when you come of age, but feel free to change your mind.” “Living together is still hard; Art makes it better.” These missives from the Inner City Artists’
Continue readingArt Threat: Painting, Resisting, Giggling: An Interview with George Littlechild
I first stumbled upon George Littlechild’s art at the Comox Valley Art Gallery in my hometown of Courtenay, British Columbia. After reeling from the emotional turmoil and historical reopening, rapprochement and reordering rendered in his bold and colourful brush strokes and integration of collage through archives, I was delighted further
Continue readingArt Threat: P.INK takes heathcare to an unexpected place: the tattoo parlour
As a man with no tattoos, Noel Franus is an unlikely candidate as the founder of P.INK: an organization that connects breast cancer survivors with tattoo ideas and artists. But as anyone with a family member who is also a breast cancer survivor can attest, the urge to do something
Continue readingArt Threat: Allegheny, BC: transformative theatre that shirks corporate culture
With six internationally acclaimed albums and a well-received book of poetry to his name, Rodney DeCroo is turning his talents to the theatre. I met with Mr. DeCroo in Vancouver at a Commercial Drive café in late August and talked with him about his current project. Allegheny, BC, directed by
Continue readingArt Threat: Friday Film Pick: Things are Different Now
Ryan Conrad recently pulled his film from the Frameline San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival because the festival, despite a robust budget and years of protest from filmmakers, audiences and activists, continues to accept money from the Israeli consulate. Conrad joins a growing list of artists who are taking a stand in
Continue readingArt Threat: Butch Dykes: A Herstory told in zines
At the recent Montreal Anarchist Bookfair, where another (better) world of incredibly inspiring, provocative and boundary-pushing art and media is on display each year, I stumbled upon Eloisa Aquino and her wares – a series of zines on awesome butch dykes, appropriately called The Life and Times of Butch Dykes.
Continue readingArt Threat: The Art & Money Project
It’s no secret that money rules our lives. I think what we’re now seeing is really the final and most ruthless stage of the integration of art and creativity into the capitalist market or, in other words, the final stages of art’s subordination to money. But I think that almost
Continue readingArt Threat: Blood work: A conversation with the director of Blood Relative
One ongoing trend in documentary filmmaking involves privileged minority world saviours travelling to distant destitute lands in order to do good or capture the act of doing good on film. In films like FUCK FOR FOREST, playing at this year’s Hot Docs film festival, people from rich countries set out
Continue readingArt Threat: Return to Gummo
Harmony Korine has been making headlines for his new pop-culture romp, Spring Breakers, with the usual fanfare and some reviewers decidedly giddy with the possibility of maybe “getting it” or maybe not. The film is apparently non-stop debauch and at least one critic has pointed out the work’s contribution to
Continue readingArt Threat: Ideal, Think, Reality
The above video was uploaded a few months ago but started making the rounds in a viral way this weekend. Sunday food for thought.
Continue readingArt Threat: The Documentary Download Dilemma
Much ink has been spilled and pixels punctuated regarding the ongoing controversial topic around the copyright, downloading, streaming and file sharing of creative content, yet there has been little discussion (outside of organizational listserves and at festival forums) of documentary cinema and file sharing. This may be in large part due to
Continue readingArt Threat: A visit to Josh Keyes’ dystopian zoo
If Josh Keyes’ paintings don’t take a bit of your breath away, I suggest you visit an optometrist. Each one sits as a stand-alone diorama, a moment caught in a fictional time, with beautiful realistic paintings of animals in a world so strange that it is most likely caused by
Continue readingArt Threat: Scrap America – Friday Film Pick & Interview: Scrappers
An interview with one of the filmmakers behind the poetic documentary Scrappers.
Continue readingArt Threat: The art of roadkill – A conversation with artist Kate Puxley
Kate Puxley is a visual artist whose work has drawn attention to the Harper government’s damaging policies toward art and culture as well as our relationship with animals and the natural environment. Arresting, breathtaking, and inimitable, her drawings, paintings, installations, and most recently her taxidermy sculptures, are provocations and interventions
Continue readingArt Threat: Russian LGBT Film Fest pushes ahead despite attacks – A conversation with the founder of the Side By Side Festival
It is an extreme act of bravery and commitment to put on a queer film festival in many parts of the world, where the cultural politics of film festivals play out in ugly and often violent manifestations of hatred and ignorance. Homophobia is rampant the world over, but in countries
Continue readingArt Threat: Pioneer Ladies [of the Evening] – Photos of incarcerated women are transformed
An exhibition at PLATFORM Centre for Photographic + Digital Arts in Winnipeg is testing the sexualized and gendered boundaries of our Canadian history. Curator Dr. Laurie K. Bertram has taken archival mugshots of Western Canadian female sex trade workers, taken from the Winnipeg Police Museum Archive, and reworked them into
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