Wild Fire

by Barndt, Deborah

• ISBN13: 9781894549554
• ISBN10: 1894549554
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-05-30
• Publisher: Sumach Pr

Summary

This collection of seventeen essays and illustrations brings together artists and activists who share a passion for art as well as politics, community and social change. The contributors have created a wide variety of energetic and original artistic projects through which they explore the tensions between academic work, politics and activism. The essays are grouped into the four major themes of social empowerment and transformation, healing, activism and environmental awareness. The projects discussed include painting murals with youths at risk; producing theatre with new immigrants; creating art with immigrant women and children; storytelling and literacy; publishing immigrant women's stories and experiences; street performance as political resistance; and environmental installations.Each essay demonstrates that a critical artistic vision crosses many boundaries to inspire not only our imaginations but also social and environmental movements.

Table of Contents

Foreword	9	(2)
Joni Seager
Acknowledgements	11	(2)
Introduction: Playing with Wild Fire: Art as Activism	13	(12)
Deborah Barndt
PART I: ART IN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
Seriously ... Are You Really an Artist? Humour and Integrity in a Community Mural Project	25	(12)
Leah Burns
Releasing Voices, Reclaiming Power: The Personal and Collective Potential of Voice	37	(9)
Heather Chetwynd
Whose Nicaragua? Popular Communications across Eras, Regions and Generations	46	(12)
Deborah Barndt
Christine McKenzie
Ediciones Cordillera: An Exile Community's Role in Cultural Production	58	(10)
Gabrielle Etcheverry
The Strawberry Tasted So Good: The Trickster Practices of Activist Art	68	(11)
chris cavanagh
PART II: ART AS ACTIVISM
Demechanizing Our Politics: Street Performance and Making Change	79	(10)
Maggie Hutcheson
Reconstructing Our Culture of Ilm (Knowledge): Muslim Women Represent Themselves	89	(10)
Salima Bhimani
Jamming with Women's Rights Activists in East Asia: A Process of Critical Reflection	99	(11)
Yukyung Kim-Cho
Mixing Metaphors: Risk in Art and Activism	110	(11)
Petra Kukacka
PART III: ECO ART
Garden the City: Activism through Interventionist Art	121	(12)
Melanie Kramer
Salmon Tales: Eco-Art Activism	133	(13)
Aileen Penner
Jacinda Mack
Lee Bensted
Confessions of a Community Artist: A Letter to My Fellow Earthworkers	146	(14)
Sau Wai Tai
Tellingsmiths: The Work of Planting Trees and the Politics of Memory	160	(17)
Pariss Garramone
PART IV: ART HEALS
Arts in Detention: Creating Connections with Immigrant Women Detainees	177	(11)
Oona Padgham
Language as Landscape: Navigating Post-Conflict Reconstruction with Bosnian Youth	188	(17)
Heather Hermant
Acts of Embodiment: Explorations in Collaborative Phototherapy	205	(16)
Stephanie Conway
Julia Winckler
You Are My Sunshine: Refugee Participation in Performance	221	(10)
Heather Lash
Contributors	231	(5)
Dedication/dian marino	236