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Related to this project: Creating Local Connections Canada/Liaisons locales Canada

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Hey team! I hope everyone’s April has gone well and that for those of you in university you’ve survived exams and all that fun stuff. A lot has been going on in Ottawa, so I thought I’d drop a line to keep you all informed. Last night I attended an event at the St. Bridgid’s Community Centre. It was a conversation between former Governor General Adrienne Clarkson and historian Margaret Macmillan. Though it was interesting it was not about the uses and abuses of history as the programme claimed. They talked a lot about how things have changed in Canada and how in the late 1950s (1959 I think) women were not allowed in the history club at the University of Toronto and there was a whole university centre donated by the Massey family that women were not welcome in except for at dances. They even talked about how Kennedy (before he was president) when he came to the UofT for a debate, women were not going to be allowed in. Though women were allowed in after some serious lobbying, there was still a quota because they didn’t want the event to turn into buffoonery. Earlier in the month Lynne and I did two workshops at the Jane Goodall Roots and Shoots Conference held at Algonquin College. One was climate change guide to action and the other was on social networking for social change. Due to a room mix-up we had double the participants for the second workshop than we were expecting but it still went really well. That evening Lynne and I returned for a very interesting and inspirational talk by Dr. Jane Goodall. She spoke a lot about how she got her start and I wouldn’t be surprised in 30 years from now to see some of you guys coming to conferences as distinguished guest speakers. This week I have been helping Mai with compiling some Ontario stats and also just doing some wrap up meetings with different partner organizations. It’s weird to be wrapping up. These past two years have gone by really really fast.

April 28, 2009 | 1:57 PM Comments  2 comments

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Hunger (the film)
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Tonight I watched the film Hunger by Steve McQueen for the first time. For my historical films class I thought it would be really interesting to look at how contemporary English directors like Ken Loach (The Wind that Shakes the Barley), Paul Greengrass (Bloody Sunday) and Steve McQueen have become important in constructing a history of Irish republicanism that has maybe on purpose, maybe indirectly contributed to the construction of national identity. It's an interesting concept, how the outsider can, without trying to move into 'the inside', can help to construct and define the 'inside'. I chose these three films in particular because of their diversity. While Bloody Sunday and Hunger deal with historical representations of the events of the modern troubles, The Wind that Shakes the Barley looks at the Black and Tan War and Irish Civil War. While Bloody Sunday was originally meant to be broadcast on television (and only later secured cinematic distribution), the other two were festival darlings. While Ken Loach is a veteran director and Greengrass is fairly accomplished, Hunger was McQueen's first feature film. While Loach and Greengrass opt for realism (with Greengrass trying for total immersion) McQueen was exceptionally and unapologetically artistic. Anyways, sorry for the side track. What I am trying to get at is the film Hunger – I'm not sure that it worked for me. Based on the reception that Hunger has received most people have gained some sympathy for the man at a personal level, while I think I lost a lot. The film completely ignored the politics of it all and brought a national memory down to a personal one and in the process left out a lot of the context that I feel gives his story some sympathy. While before watching it, certainly not approving of the methods used by Sands and the like (violence is never the answer and the killing of civilians is unacceptable under all circumstances) I had a certain respect for the strength of his convictions and his political beliefs. Without this political context I found that Sands was reduced to the role of a selfish martyr, someone that was toying with his own mortality in some sick power game. I can see where people who do not have a sense of the history of the troubles, a context, or an understanding of previous prison protests might get lost or fall into a trap of accepting the mysticism around the hunger strikers, the legend that has been passed down without questioning it. Luckily, this is an area of interest for me and I finished reading Denis O'Hearn's biography of Sands, Nothing but an Unfinished Song. Though the film and the book are totally unrelated. I think this is one case where history did not necessarily need to be played out on film. Because art has such a power to change the way people see things I think that historical films really really need to be careful to try to surpass being beyond art, recognizing their place in historical discourse.

March 26, 2009 | 1:27 AM Comments  0 comments



Untitled
Related to this project: Creating Local Connections Canada/Liaisons locales Canada

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

This past month has really flown by in Ottawa for the CLC team. With things finally getting back to normal on the transit front it became a lot easier to meet with groups and to get back into our office with host partner YouCan. Events are happening more frequently and people are getting out to them. A lot of effort has been put on getting things set up as far as workshops over the next couple of months go as well as planning for the last live chat on national identity. I also did a social networking for social change and TIG training with Mothercraft Ottawa and some of their partners. This went really well and even Mothercraft's Executive Director attended most of it. The Ottawa team (Lynne and I) will be doing a social networking for social change workshop at the TYPS Conference coming up at the end of this month as well as doing a climate change guide to action and a social networking for social change workshop at the Jane Goodall Institute Roots and Shoots conference happening at the end of this month. With 4 SNFSC workshops in Ottawa, it seems like our little team team has found our niche.
This month I also had the opportunity to attend the IMPACT conference in Washington DC and to meet with some of our key partners from the past year to see where we should be concentrating our efforts over our last few months and opportunities for final collaborations. The biggest challenge I faced this month was in finding a balance between administrative and active duties, often finding myself bogged down in paperwork and forgetting about the world outside and the on the groups with youth work that I enjoy and that CLC needs. I think I'm finding a better balance now though. I'm really looking forward to all the workshops coming up and for getting to meet more young people from my community, so I think that will help tip the scales back away from paperwork.
Have a nice month,
Nikki

March 12, 2009 | 12:46 PM Comments  0 comments

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