The Dominion - photography

Cuba at 50 - In Photos

Geordie — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 04:40:31 +0000

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Photos by Gwalgen Geordie Dent and Sharmeen Khan

1. The backdrop to the Cuban anniversary celebration in Havana.

2-4. The 50th anniversary celebration. Reported in The Miami Herald the next day: "No big celebrations in Havana Cuba on the 50th anniversary of the Revolution."

5. Cuban cars. The economy has picked up with more petrol, automobiles and consumer goods.

6. A "Cuban 5" sympathy banner in Havana.

7. Quotes by Fidel on a wall in Santiago de Cuba

8. Cuban oil fields. Cuba recently found major deposits of tar-sands-like oil off the coast.

9. Pastors for Peace Caravan

10-11. 50th anniversary billboards in Santiago de Cuba near the Moncada: a major revolutionary-historical monument. Cuba has little to no commercial advertising.

12. The square in Santiago de Cuba where the revolution was officially launched 50 years ago. Raul Castro spoke here 2 days later for the anniversary.

Picture Perfect

hillarybain — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 16:42:51 +0000

How images are used to create specific relationships between people and the physical environment

In North American environmentalism, most images, campaigns and programs align with either Conservationism or Preservationism.

Conservationism’s goal is sustainability. It is a use-based approach that focuses on over-development and scarcity as the main problems facing the environment and the resources it provides. Technology and governmental policies are promoted as a means to regulate natural resources so they can be used by future generations. The main criticism of Conservationism is that ecological issues are not seen as the result of industrialization, neocolonial debts or economic structural adjustment policies, but are attributed to unchecked technological progress and patterns of misuse in general; it does not connect “patterns of misuse” with the economic and social structures that cause them. This would not be in the main interest of Conservationists, whose goal is to ensure continued consumer resources. Not surprisingly, this is the narrative upon which former US vice-president Al Gore structures his film An Inconvenient Truth.

Preservationism, on the other hand, focuses on wilderness as a realm of spiritual and aesthetic contemplation, separate from resource-use. It is based on the idea that without human interference, nature tends towards a state of balance, beauty and goodness, and that humans are separate from, rather than part of, the environment.

There are four popular image brands for “the environment”: The Happy Field, the Environmental Apocalypse, the Graph and the Logo.

If it falls into a Preservationist framework, the Happy Field is usually a photograph of “wilderness.” These beautiful, peaceful, humanless landscapes are based in the Romantic tradition of the sublime, which proposed that God could be seen in, or through, nature. This puts nature “over there,” away from humans, cities and pipelines, and does not account for urban nature, local communities, or toxic-nature anomalies (such as the use of genetic engineering to increase an endangered native population of animals).

When the Happy Field leans in the Conservationist direction, “the environment” may look like a child smiling at a tree, instead of a landscape without humans. Conservationism does not put nature “elsewhere” because humans are an integral part of environmental degradation and its solution. Humans are also seen as one of the reasons to overcome environmental problems; the mantra “save the Earth for our children” reinforces the objective that natural settings and resources be sustained for the next generation, so that their offspring can continue patterns of use and consumption similar to their own.

The Happy Field in either ecological narrative is usually an Edenic narrative because of the underlying motivation to “return” to a balanced, more sustainable nature, whose existence and possibility is hinted at in the image. It implies that long ago, things were serene; things were pure and clean. This surmises that at one time, probably before humans or at least before white humans, there was no conflict, no change, and by extension, no environmental history. This is, in fact, a very popular view.

At the other end of the visual spectrum is the Environmental Apocalypse, which frequently doubles as Climate Porn. Spewing volcanoes, billowing smoke, chunks of icebergs as big as cathedrals crashing into the ocean and trees being felled – never saplings, always redwoods – provide the Old Testament version of the sublime. Awe and terror with a hint of guilt are evoked by over-the-top, beautiful, devastating and gratuitous scenes of ecological “ravaging.” Gorgeous, slick images of environmental degradation may seem decadent and even unethical, but David Ingram, an expert in environmental imagery in cinema, notes that, “by presenting ‘worse-case scenarios’ as foregone conclusions, these images constitute a radical attack on the notions of progress held by big business, big government and big science.” Critique notwithstanding, one problem with Environmental Apocalyptic images is the promotion of the message that “we” are terrible and are to blame for climate change or pollution. "We" includes every human equally, when in fact the majority of global pollution is caused by a very specific segment of the human population: Western developed nations. Images of Climate Porn and Apocalypse also frequently depend on the pre-porn, pre-apocalyptic Virgin Earth as a necessary contrast.

Conservationists usually use the Graph, perhaps because the funding for graph-making scientists comes from organizations tied up in resource management, thus having a partisan interest in sustaining resources within current institutional frameworks. In displays like those in An Inconvenient Truth, time-lapse images and points on a graph become more than justrepresentations of a glacier in 1970 and again in 2000; they are images of global warming itself, unavailable to the naked eye. Graphs create visible relationships that implicate humans, time and the physical world in their trajectories, basically making them anti-Preservationist.

The Logo is usually an iconic, graphic representation of Preservationism. Swooping leaves, blue skies, white wind and hands holding tiny Earths all evoke the fragile environmental harmony, serenity and balance that the institution to which the Logo belongs is striving to provide for its clients. Similar Logos may be used for activist groups and international financial institutions, despite mutually exclusive environmental goals, values and programs. This is not to say that “nature” is intrinsically objective and provides common ground, but that “the environment” has become cinematically iconic and inert. It is a buzzword to rally behind and an unspecific anxiety of great import.

This is not to say that the environment is an illegitimate or vague fabrication, but that more critical and nuanced accounts and images of nature and our relationship to it are necessary for a workable model of sustainability.

The "Happy Field" Landscape

The "Environmental Apocalypse" Image

Haiti Aux Haitiens!

hillarybain — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 13:21:36 +0000

Montreal mobilizes in solidarity with Haiti

Over 100 demonstrators took to the streets in Montreal on Saturday, February 3, as part of the International Day in Solidarity with the People of Haiti. Their demands were clear: the end of MINUSTAH crimes and the departure of UN forces from Haiti; the liberation of political prisoners; the return of Jean-Bertrand Aristide to Haiti; and the repatriation of the multi-billion dollar debt paid to the French Government as price for Haitian independence. The protest came on the heels of the recent December 22 massacre in Cité Soleil, which left over a dozen dead and many more wounded. As Canadian researcher and activist Kevin Skerrett recently revealed, this grave crime -- a breach of the Geneva Conventions and a reminder of the July 2005 massacre in Cité Soleil -- was praised by the Canadian ambassador to Haiti, Claude Boucher, who encouraged MINUSTAH to “increase their operations as they did last December.” This disregard for the lives of Haitians mirrors former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin’s comments to the press during the height of the terror of the Latortue regime: “There are no political prisoners in Haiti.” There were, of course, hundreds languishing in Haitian prisons without charge.

One of these prisoners, Haitian folk singer and Lavalas activist Annette Auguste (aka So Ann), was recently in Montreal to address the media and members of the community. So Ann addressed many issues of critical importance to Haitians: the corrupt power of MINUSTAH, the criminal role of Canada, the US and France in the coup d’état, the problem of impunity for the many crimes committed against the Haitian people, the need for lasting economic development in Haiti and the strength and determination of the Haitian people. Many of So Ann’s concerns were taken up by the protestors in Montreal, whose signs read: “Canada is complicit in kidnapping in Haiti!”; “Haiti is not for sale!”; “USA: stop deporting our criminals!”; “We demand that President Aristide be returned to Haiti!”; “Stop the massacres in Cité Soleil and Bel Air!”; “The real bandits are not those being shot!”; and “USA, France and Canada out of Haiti!”

Darren Ell is an activist photographer and independent journalist from Montreal. He has previously published work with the Haiti Information Project and will be in Haiti from February 13 to March 6.

Montreal Mobilizes in Solidarity with Haiti 8

Haiti Solidarity March In Montreal 1

Haiti Solidarity March In Montreal 2

Haiti Solidarity March In Montreal 3

Haiti Solidarity March In Montreal 4

Haiti Solidarity March In Montreal 5

Haiti Solidarity March In Montreal 6

Haiti Solidarity March In Montreal 7

Strong Nudes

Fri, 26 May 2006 14:30:41 +0000

Sexuality and Disability

It should come as no surprise that people with disabilities have healthy sexualities and sex lives – but it does. According to Bob Gutler, a writer for Bent Magazine, this demonstrates "the power of a Culture Machine, which sells Sex while simultaneously limiting Eros to the smallest possible range of expression." Twelve per cent of people in
Canada are living with disabilities – both visible and invisible. Whether it's sex care workers specifically for people with disabilities, Bob's Flanagan's performance art and poetry, or Internet dating forums for people with 'life challenges,' people are speaking and acting out against the Culture Machine that excludes 'sexual minorities.'

One such person is Belinda Mason-Lovering, an artist who complicates the classical view, use, and revere for the classical nude with her photographic essay Intimate Encounters. The men and women Mason-Lovering pictures are people with physical, intellectual, learning, psychiatric and neurological disabilities. The project was collaborative in the sense that Mason-Lovering worked to create sets, compositions and finished images that represent elements significant to each person who posed. The "nude" in each photograph leaves the classical passive-object role prescribed to both nudes in art and people with disabilities. In the words of its creators, "Intimate Encounters explores the myriad connections between disability and sexuality. A sense of our sexual selves is as vital to our existence as the air we breathe. This is the pervading message present in every image in the series. The quest is to create images that 'tell a thousand words' and which reflect sexual diversity without tokenism."

Saul Food
Saul and Anonymous
Sydney NSW, Australia
2000

"Sexual Being is defined by spirit, not body. Exploring ways we best fit together is my career -- a clear choice of pleasure over prejudice."

"Sexual Being is defined by spirit, not body. Exploring ways we best fit together is my career -- a clear choice of pleasure over prejudice."
Saul is a sex worker and sex surrogate who works with men who have disabilities. Saul has been a sex worker for many years. He has worked in New Zealand and Australia. In the tradition of the ancient temple prostitutes, his career is his spiritual vocation -- "If someone told me I couldn't do this work anymore, I'd cry."

The Explorers
Titi Chartay and Carolyn Dearing
Sydney NSW, Australia
2000

"We must understand the past with clarity; there is nothing more heinous than dragging the scourge of fundamentalist belief systems into our future. Oppression in any form is an evolutionary dead-end."

A smiling veteran of Gay Liberation, the Vietnam Moratorium and Women's Liberation, Titi maintains her activism to this day. A Mardi Gras 78'er, she now applies her experience to the area of disability. A writer, musician and theatre artist, she has a strong practical streak that means she is as at ease repairing a car radiator as she is critiquing literary theory. She is a great believer in the subversive value of satire and maintains through her disdain of current dance music that she is not a Luddite. She has been fond of dinosaurs since childhood and of Motown, all her life.

Titi uses crutches in order to be mobile.

Caroline Dearing is a homeopath with a penchant for ballroom dancing. Her commitment to social justice issues and appreciation of the practical strategic thrust now sees her subverting the legal system from within. She believes that the "sledgehammer approach" of law is often the only way that the rights of the marginalized and the ignored can be respected and as such, is a strong advocate of law reform. She loves a groove to a Motown song and tolerates the presence of dinosaurs at home with whimsical forbearance.

Moment
David Toole with his partner Cherylee Houston
Manchester, UK
2002

"Until becoming a performer 10 years ago, I was not really aware of my body as such and the thought of someone finding me sexually attractive would make me laugh.

Recently, however, I have become happier with my body, having spent years giving permission to people to obviously stare when on stage......
Having a good relationship and an opportunity to share intimate moments has been something that has only occurred over the last few years of my life as people with a disability are for some reason not seen as a sexual being......"

David came into dance through workshops with CandoCo Dance Company in 1992. While working with them, he studied for a year at the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance, receiving a Professional Diploma in Community Dance in 1993. Six years of national and international touring with CandoCo followed, until 1999, when he decided to try new experiences. In 1995, David had his first taste of theatre when he played the part of Puck in Benjamin Britten's opera of A Midsummer Night's Dream. This was followed a year later with an appearance in the Sally Potter film The Tango Lesson, playing the part of the designer.
David's most recent performances have been with Graeae Theatre Company in 2000 and also 2001, playing the parts of Edgar in The Fall of the House of Usher and Deflores in The Changeling respectively. In the summer of 2000, he worked with DV8, creating and performing the piece Can We Afford This for the Sydney Arts Festival prior to the 2000 Olympics. David now works as a freelance dancer, actor and workshop leader.

David has no legs due to complications at birth.

The full series can be found at Intimate Encounters.

A supplementary list of practical guides and resources for sexuality and disability: The Illustrated Guide to Better Sex for People with Chronic Pain by Robert Rothrok and Gabriella D'Amore, 1992, Restricted Access: Lesbians on Disability, edited by Victoria A. Brownworth and Susan Raffo, 2000, MS and Intimacy: Managing Specific Issues, by Tanya Radford, 2000, and Sex and Back Pain: Advice on Restoring Comfortable Sex Lost To Back Pain, by Lauren Andrew Hebert, PT, 1997.

For the more scholarly approach, there's The Sexuality and Disability Journal published by Springer-Netherlands. In one issue, articles range from "I Thought I was Less Worthy: Low Sexual and Body Esteem and Increased Vulnerability to Intimate Partner Abuse in Women with Physical Disabilities" to "In Vitro Effect of Ginseng Extract on Sperm Count."

Max Liboiron explores sexuality and disability through Belinda Mason-Lovering's photographic essay Intimate Encounters.

The Life of A Clearcut

Sun, 26 Mar 2006 22:52:19 +0000

John Haney collaborates with his environment

It was "an especially obscene clearcut, one which came right up to the road," remembers John Haney. "I figured that I could either get mad or deal with it somehow - and there was one way I knew [how to deal with it]. So I started making trips out to this clearcut with my camera."

John Haney, a photographer currently living in St. John's, Newfoundland, has been working on a photographic series whose process is as noteworthy as its images. The process of the project has required a give-and-take between the artist and the life and agency of the project's subject: a New Brunswick clearcut.

"I knew that there had been countless pictures made of clearcutting, but I'm pretty sure nobody else has been stupid enough to haul around a 25-pound camera to do it with." Haney's camera is an Eastman Kodak 11" x 14" view camera dating back to around 1928, complete with focusing cloth.

"My first intention was simple: to document the devastation as blatantly as possible. I wanted to show something sublime — in the original sense of the word — displaying something both gorgeous and terrifying."

Haney was inspired by images he'd seen of the devastated landscape around Mount St. Helens in Washington State after it erupted; images in which all the trees were blown down in the same direction. He quickly realized, however, that his approach would have to be different. "First of all, there weren't any trees." The objects signifying the devastation, "which I had imagined might be lying around, were probably two-by-fours being used to build houses in Mississauga. Secondly, I was immediately attracted to something far less obvious. I kept getting drawn to subtle things, to the evidence of life growing back."

Haney decided to go back to the clearcut three months later to continue to document this process. "I wanted to see if there was some sign that beauty and life were returning. I realized that if I didn't find this, the project would be one-dimensional and would fall flat."

There have been thousands of documentary-style photographs depicting clearcuts and the devastation they cause, and this familiar mode of depiction was Haney's original intention. But the landscape began to show him something else.

"Returning to the clearcut in November was interesting. Many of the leaves of the living trees had yellowed and fallen off, the ferns were brown and dying, and there was ice on the water that filled the skidder tracks. I felt that the place had changed — it was coming back slowly. So if there's an underlying motive to the work, it is to show how fortunate this is. Also humbling. It points to the poignant fact that all the environmental/ecological issues that we are concerned about in regards to the earth ultimately point to us.

"The truth of the matter is that we will only kill ourselves off, and take a handful of species with us. In time, this place is going to keep on going — and, in fact, it will come tothrive — without us. As I thought about this I realized that my original intent had actually been turned on its head. That my pictures weren't an epitaph for a forest, but rather for humans – for us."

It wasn't that Haney's images had become less political – Jacqueline Rose, a feminist film critic, states that all images are political. These images of a clearcut landscape go beyond the already familiar political images of outrage that have no relation to its opposite: the equally ubiquitous and romanticized painterly landscapes of rebirth and salvation. Haney's interaction with this place and an audience's interaction with the images push careful observation into a more nuanced political-geographical-cultural-natural space. This space has an integrity — not borrowed from moralizing "nature," but from a narrative of observation. This space is more complex but also more simple in its decay, growth, re-growth, shift and pull. The space is hybridized by the passage of machines, not destroyed by them or triumphant over them. The space is a collaboration of events that have taken place within it, including Haney's photographing of it. This multiple collaboration is the subject of Haney's work.

"I made a photograph of a skidder track [a skidder is huge, log-hauling machine], whose tires had made a pair of deep trenches in the ground. It was one of the first pictures I made that looks, in some way, like a completely natural landscape. There's even a slight degree of abstraction in the way the ground is divided by a wedge of sky reflected in the water of the trench. " The image achieves a sense of dichotomy that Haney was aiming for. " It looks like a natural landscape, and it doesn't seem to bear any traces of humanity, except for the fact that, in actuality, the whole landscape is a human landscape; it was made that way by machines, and is now left to its own devices. There is no obvious evidence that one is looking at a ruined landscape, except that the entire subject of the picture is a product of that ruining."

Haney hopes these photos will provide a space for studied inspection of a place that usually doesn't get a second look. " I don't necessarily expect people looking at the pictures to go through the same stages of thought that I did, which is to say, to begin with anger, then come to wonder, then arrive at epiphany. However, I do hope that viewers will be able to get a sense of the slow and considered approach of photographing the clearcut with a view camera, and that they will afford the pictures the same consideration, paying attention to the small and interesting details in a huge, chaotic mess of a landscape. I think that there is a quality about the pictures that speaks of process — both the processes of method and thought, and the slow process of renewal."

The first public showing of the work, currently with the working title Clearcut, will be at the Emerson Gallery in Berlin from July 12 to 22, 2006. Images are currently available at www.johnhaney.ca/clearcut.

Max Liboiron speaks to photographer John Haney about the process of art. Slow down and take a second look.