On March 2, Feeding My Family, a sculpture depicting the food insecurity faced by Inuit people, was featured at Montreal’s Nuit Blanche. The artist, Jesse Tungilik, is an Inuit artist from Iqaluit and is currently studying as an Artist-in-Residence at Concordia University. The McGill Daily had the opportunity to interview Tungilik, gaining insight into his artistic process and his method of using visual art to raise awareness of structural inequalities.

The McGill Daily (MD): What was the process like for your sculpture Feeding My Family to become a part of Nuit Blanche?

Jesse Tungilik (JT): I was invited to take part in Nuit Blanche as part of a longer artist residency at Concordia sponsored by two Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) projects – Inuit Futures in Arts Leadership, and the Initiative for Indigenous Futures. It was through this residency that I was put in touch with the GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) Collective for the “Memory Keepers” installation.

MD: In Feeding My Family, the hunter and seal are covered in receipts, and the hunter’s hands are cut off. Why did you choose to make political statements through these specific artistic decisions?

JT: Feeding My Family is a mixed-media conceptual sculpture of an Inuit hunter butchering a seal. Both the hunter and seal are covered in Northern and NorthMart receipts that I collected over a period of five years while living in Pangnirtung and Iqaluit, Nunavut. I created this sculpture to bring attention to the issues of food insecurity and the prohibitively high cost of living in the North, as well as forced relocation, colonization, and the assimilation of Inuit people into the Canadian body politic. Inuit people used to be self-sufficient before they were made Canadian subjects. With this sculpture, I wanted to juxtapose the traditional imagery of the Inuit hunter with the contemporary imagery of the grocery receipts. I also wanted to give the impression of disconnection between the hunter and the seal by removing the hunter’s hands. Additionally, I wanted to demonstrate the erasure of cultural identity by removing the facial features of the hunter, and to reference forced relocation by having both figures planted in place by the receipts inside the tent structure.

In terms of physical characteristics, my original intention was to make the figures life-sized, but I ended up scaling them down slightly due to time constraints. It also needed to fit within the tent structure, which was size-restricted, because the whole thing needed to fit through double doors. Additionally, I have always been very interested in exploring different scales in my sculptures. My grandfather was well-known for his ultra-miniature ivory carvings, so I like the idea of working in a large scale as a way to contrast our work.

In terms of materials, with this work, as well as other similar sculptures I’ve made, I have been very interested in using the various objects I find as a way to explore contemporary imagery and themes. Further, these objects act as an extension of the traditional Inuit way of using materials from our physical surroundings. Our surroundings have changed dramatically over time, and I want to convey that in my art. To me, this is an analogue of the dramatic cultural and social changes that Inuit have been experiencing as well.

MD: How do you hope to use visual art to raise awareness about food insecurity or other issues?

JT: I am very interested in using conceptual art as a way to alter public perception and to draw attention to the many social and political issues faced by Inuit in Canada today. Because the North is so inaccessible to most, and has been portrayed in the media mostly by non-Inuit, I think it’s particularly important for Inuit to tell our own stories, to offer our own perspectives, and to start to dispel some of the cultural stereotypes that we have been saddled with. Our lives today are far more complex and nuanced than most people realize, and I think art has an important role in communicating this. For generations, the government has controlled almost every aspect of life for the Inuit, and that has created a sense of powerlessness among many. I think art has the potential of empowering Inuit to start thinking about the future that we want to create for ourselves.

MD: What kinds of barriers are present in producing social or political work, and specifically social or political work pertaining to issues affecting Indigenous peoples in Canada?

JT: Some of my sculptural work deals with subject matter that is deeply unsettling to many Canadians, such as colonization, assimilation, inter-generational trauma, addiction, and abuse. These themes and subjects are at odds with popular stereotypes of Inuit art and the trope of the “happy-go-lucky Esk*mo” portrayed in classic films and literature. I think it’s important to portray the actual reality facing Inuit people in Canada. I think one of the major barriers faced by Indigenous peoples today is that we live in a country that refuses to acknowledge, at a very basic level, that it was founded on colonization. The policies of assimilation and cultural warfare have never stopped. We are constantly being gaslighted at a societal scale and told that colonization is a thing of the past in Canada, but the truth is that it never stopped. The only reconciliation Canada is actually interested in is for Indigenous peoples to reconcile with the status quo. I started creating conceptual art as a way to discuss these issues with the hope that it will get people to think differently and change their  behaviour. I’ve found that so many discussions about contemporary Indigenous issues in Canada have become very polarized and emotional, so that people have become desensitized and apathetic and tend to zone out. I turned to conceptual art as a way to get around preconceived notions, and to portray complex issues in a way that engages people in thoughtful discussion.

MD: Do you have any future pieces that you’re working on that we should look out for?

JT: I have a number of contemporary and conceptual sculptures planned in the future, but my primary focus for the rest of my residency at Concordia is to design and make a spacesuit out of sealskin and other traditional materials.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Jesse Tungilik is currently an Artist-in–Residence at Concordia University. Keep an eye out for his future artwork.

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On March 15, during Friday (Jummah) prayers, a gunman opened fire on worshippers at Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand. The shooter live streamed the terrorist attack on his Facebook account. He then drove five kilometres to Linwood Mosque, where he carried out a second shooting. In total, 49 people were murdered.

Local police arrested three people on suspicion of possession of firearms. Weapons were found at both mosques and explosives were found in cars. A twenty eight-year-old man has been charged with murder in connection with the attacks.

Before the first shooting, a 16,000 word unsigned manifesto was posted on Twitter and 8chan. The document expresses severe anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiments as well as white supremacist ideology, and includes plans for the attacks. The same Twitter account, now deleted, posted pictures of weapons and protective gear painted with the names of other mass shooters who have carried out Islamophobic and anti-immigrant attacks, as well as a neo-Nazi symbol. In the live stream and in the manifesto, the shooter listed other white nationalists and white supremacists, some of whom have also committed mass shootings and terrorist attacks on racialized communities, as sources of inspiration for his own attack.

The gunman was clear in his Islamophobic, racist, and extremist intentions. His decision to open fire during Jummah prayers is also a deliberate and targeted one, as midday Friday prayers are sacred and significant in Islam.

There is a fund for the victims’ families on LaunchGood. Funds will be distributed by The New Zealand Islamic Information Centre. The New Zealand Council of Victim Support Groups has also set up a donation fund, which can be found on our website.

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The McGill Daily (MD): The Sir George Williams Affair has largely been remembered as a “student riot,” and Blackout aims to tell the story differently from the mainstream narrative that the media portrayed at the time. What led you to want to tell this story, and why specifically on the 50th anniversary of the events?

Kym Dominique-Ferguson (KDF): Black voices are often vilified once they do not conform to white standards. The misnomer of “computer riots” or “student riots” of the Sir George Williams Affair was a deliberate move by the media to elicit a specific response from their viewers and readers at the time. If they named it the “Peaceful Computer Sit-In Protest” the public would react differently; perhaps more folks would have been empathetic to the students, rather than chanting “let the n****** burn.” Once Mathieu Murphy-Perron approached me to be a part of the writers of this project, I was immediately connected to it, and the answer was clear that I needed to be a part of this project. I was a member and am the former president of the Caribbean Students’ Union, the first student union in Canada, created to represent Caribbean and West Indian students following the ’69 SGW Affair.

Why tell this story on its 50th anniversary? The climate demands it. Things have barely changed in the world, but Black, Indigenous, and people of colour are sick and we are tired. It’s time for the truth to shine and for our stories to be told in our voices.

MD: Why did you choose the medium of a play, specifically, to tell this story, and how do you feel its impact would’ve been different through another medium?

KDF: Art knows very few boundaries. We were blessed with the very beautiful documentary, Ninth Floor, directed by Mina Shum and produced by the National Film Board in 2015. Four years later, there are people who still haven’t heard about this moment in Canadian or Montreal history. Stories must be told in different forms, because we are not all monolithic in the way we absorb information. Some people prefer documentaries, some folks like a play, others would rather look at art in a museum, and even rarer, there are folks who will take in all types of mediums and more. It’s been documented in David Austin’s Fear of a Black Nation and was reexamined in Ninth Floor, so the stage was the most natural progression after books and movies.

MD: The roles of activist women and POC are often pushed to the back, even in their own stories. Can you speak to the decision to have an all-Black and largely female cast?

KDF: Black women have always had a large role in activism. However, we lived, and still live, in a patriarchal society. So the natural tendency has always been to push forward the men of the groups. With this production, we wrote our characters as gender neutral as possible throughout the play, and the casting ended up with many powerful leading ladies. In the future, the cast may be vastly different if the play is given new life with an entirely new roster. Not only that, but we wanted to twist the narrative, allowing women’s voices, who weren’t always present, to be given a platform. After the show, some elders, many of them women, expressed joy and gratitude from seeing their story told onstage.

MD: Students of colour are often blamed for the SGW Affair, rather than the institutional abuse of power and racism, specifically anti-Black racism, that led the students’ occupation to what it became. Many forget that the events started after the university failed to properly address students’ racism complaints. How does Blackout point out what is so often forgotten – the university’s institutional racism and lack of accountability?

KDF: I can say this without giving an official spoiler alert, since there is no telling when Blackout will be given life onstage again. The penultimate scene, an adaptation of the Three Witches Scene from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, demonstrated our satirical interpretation of the cover-up that happened: the renaming of Sir George Williams to Concordia. Blackout ripped the band-aid off the old wound and bared the truth – the voices of the unheard – for all to see and experience.

MD: The physical damages, the computer centre, and the fire are often remembered as among the most important “consequences” of the Affair – but many students were arrested, assaulted, some were deported, and of course Coralee Hutchison died as a result of the police riot squad. How does Blackout shift the focus of the narrative back to the lives altered or lost rather than the secondary events that often take the spotlight?

KDF: Blackout puts the students front and centre at all times. We show their differences and similarities, their ups and downs, and we see their evolution throughout the play. Blackness is not monolithic, and this play makes the audience acutely aware of it. We incorporate breakout scenes to give the actors a moment to breathe because shit is intense, but also to provide the audience with pertinent information that cannot always be acted out onstage for fear of extending the play into three or four hours. Another way that we shift the focus back is through the projections, showing the faces of the people who were present at the time, so you never forget the faces that were visible. Finally, we say their names, over and over and over, from the opening scene until the closing one. 

MD: Why did you make the decision to “modernize” the events in the play, such as by bringing in Black Lives Matter, and what effect do you think it had on the play overall?

KDF: We didn’t “modernize” much. The intentions are exactly the same today as they were back in the 1960s. The only difference is that the taglines of today, such as Black Lives Matter, are very catchy and succinct. Personally, I find people can put a block in their mind and say, “oh this was happening ‘back then,'” and refuse to draw the lines that connect the past to the present. We needed folks to wake up. Police brutality, racial segregation and systemic racism are things we, as people of colour, deal with regularly.

I feel Canadian racism is extremely insidious today, especially because we like to believe that “we’re not as bad as the US.” Not overtly, but we do have extremist groups bombing mosques, people in the streets telling protestors like myself to “protest in French,” or that our protest is not the “right way,” without looking at the bigger picture. Our government tells people, “we welcome you with open arms as you are,” and when people arrive that’s when we see the fine print that says: “so long as you conform to our rules and regulations and don’t you dare make me uncomfortable by speaking a different language, dressing differently, or having a different shade of skin.”

MD: What did it mean to perform the play in the same building as the occupation took place, in terms of how much or how little you see has changed in the past 50 years?

KDF: It was surreal. Many of the cast and crew kept wondering if the play would get shut down. I think back a few years when the Caribbean Students’ Union brought in Senator Anne Cools, the first Black Senator in Canada, who was present at the computer centre in 1969 and was arrested at the time, for a talk at Concordia. The university effectively muzzled Senator Cools, letting the Union know that she could not speak about the SGW Affair. This was only about five or six years ago. There was a cheeky feeling to presenting this play as well; the acting principal at the time of the Affair was D.B. Clarke, and the theatre was named after him. For the most part I experienced a deep, yet mischievous joy at being able to scream at the top of my lungs, “BLACK GRADES THEY MATTER HERE” every night in this production, so that the echoes can be heard today, only a few stories above the theatre, for the students whose voices were barely heard then. It was an honour to come into the building where a history I unknowingly became a part of and took part in took place, and to be able to retell the story in our own voices.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You can read more about the Sir George Williams Affair at mcgilldaily.com/2019/02/memories-of-the-sir-george-williams-affair/.

Images courtesy of  Jaclyn Turner/Tableau D’Hôte.

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The McGill Daily (MD): Can you tell us a little about what The Why Intersection does?

Grace Bahler (GB): Essentially, it’s an online satirical magazine. When we created it, we envisioned it as a place where people could make fun of the administration, and just the ridiculousness of being at McGill or in Montreal.

Catherine Morrison (CM): It doesn’t have to be about McGill; we have some Concordia students and some students from Ottawa writing for us. It’s just a place for people to get their voices heard about anything that bothers them or anything they want to make fun of about being a student.

GB: It’s a way to vent but in a funny way.

MD: So you started it because you saw the need for an outlet like this?

GB: Yeah, I was a fan of The McTavish Radish but I noticed they weren’t posting anymore. I thought it was an opportunity to create something, so we started messaging each other over the summer saying, “let’s do this!”

CM: Both of us already had a background in journalistic writing, but neither of us had really gotten into satire, even though it’s a huge interest for both of us. We couldn’t really find a place on campus where we could practice satirical writing, so we decided to start our own.

MD: What do you see as The Why Intersection’s role on campus and for students?

GB: I think it’s adding a much needed voice to the McGill campus for people who feel like they’re not being represented through traditional op-ed pieces or other kinds of reporting. Anyone can write for it, and it shows an entirely new perspective on things and people on campus.

CM: Even though other student publications do take people of all levels of experience, sometimes new writers feel like they don’t have a lot of control over their writing or that their writing isn’t appreciated. I know that when I started out, it was a little hard to break through the system, so I think this is a good way for people to start. We have a really direct editing style, so people’s articles don’t change too much. We accept almost all of the submissions we get, so it’s a really good way for people to get their voices heard and express themselves.

GB: And to think critically too, even about the small things on campus. It’s turning observational humour into a very structured headline. A lot of stand-up comedians and sketch writers write for sites like The Onion, Reductress, and The Beaverton, so it’s cool for people to have that on a university level. That way they’re ready to apply and submit pitches to bigger publications.

MD: What do you mean by “direct editing”?

CM: A lot of the time, you write something and then the editors take over and you don’t have much input anymore, which is totally fine and works really well for a lot of publications. But for us, writers will bring an idea to us, then we’ll come up with a headline together, and from there they’ll write their piece. And then we’ll go through the editing process with them. Me and Grace usually split up the articles, so it’s only one editor editing each piece, which I think makes writers a lot more comfortable and not like it’s overcrowded.

GB: And we try to be as non-hierarchical as possible. Everyone’s on the same page and they have as much control as we do over what we’re publishing.

CM: We’re the editors, but it’s not like we impose our own opinions over others.

GB: It’s really just a signature on an email at the end of the day! It’s also a good outlet for people interested in comedy writing. Staff writers are required to write three articles every two weeks; we just oversee everything to make sure they’re hitting deadlines and we give them feedback.

We wrote an article about the professor who was accused of sexual assault; we felt satire could also be a good way to address issues like this. Sometimes comedic relief can be really helpful in getting through things, for me personally as well.

– Catherine Morrison

MD: Opinions, or “hot takes,” that are actively harmful are often passed off as just jokes or satire. How do you navigate that in terms of submissions that are potentially harmful?

GB: We have had a few instances where people will submit something and it’s like, “that really doesn’t sound right.” I think it’s our role as editors to look at it and walk them through why it’s not okay to want to say that, and why we wouldn’t publish it. We really dive into the underlying meaning of the “joke” and maybe offer a different perspective they can take so that it’s not problematic anymore.

CM: We definitely wouldn’t publish anything that’s offensive. We haven’t really had anything that could be described as offensive satire.

GB: If anything, we’re mean to the administration. But we would never want to hurt any students on campus.

MD: It’s really easy for people to use the excuse of “that’s just my opinion!” or “it was just a joke!”

GB: Yeah, The Cut recently published an article about Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas that was only up for a few hours. It was racist. Of course the writer shouldn’t have written that, but it’s the responsibility of the editors to step in and say “this isn’t okay. I want to make sure that what you’re putting out into the world is okay and doesn’t hurt anyone.” It’s a huge responsibility, especially with humour, because it can be really easy to cross lines.

MD: Do you feel a responsibility to comment on current social issues and try to dismantle some of them through comedy?

CM: We definitely address current issues. A good example of that was the article we wrote about the professor who was accused of sexual assault; we felt satire could also be a good way to address issues like this. Sometimes comedic relief can be really helpful in getting through things, for me personally as well. It’s really important for us to help people do that too; sometimes writing it out in a satirical style can be a really good way to address issues and cope with them.

GB: Just like serious journalism can work to dismantle things from white supremacy to aspects of the patriarchy, I feel like satire can play its part if done correctly.

CM: And it can sometimes take a more personal voice too, which can be helpful.

GB: And there’s just so much to make fun of at McGill. And I like making fun of myself too.

MD: Is there anything else you want to add about politically-aware satire and the role of The Why Intersection in that?

GB: We definitely think politically-aware satire is really important, and I look at it as a way for marginalized people to take the spotlight and run with the humour and have full control over what’s being said. That’s really important to us because it could be a way for voices to be heard that aren’t being heard through other kinds of journalism.

MD: How do you make sure that your content remains accessible to students, as comedy can often be an exclusive and elitist space in terms of content, types of jokes, etc.?

GB: We try to emphasize that The Why Intersection is a platform for and by students without any university oversight. It’s completely independent.

CM: And we really try welcoming writers from any level of experience, especially if they have none! We view the site as a way to gain experience, and there are no boundaries in writing for us. For types of jokes and content, our writing staff and contributors make up who we are and what we publish, so it’s super important that we include viewpoints that aren’t necessarily prevalent in the pop comedy scene. We want our platform to be theirs.

The Why Intersection has been a great way for us to think critically about the small things on campus. It’s turning observational humour into a very structured headline.
– Grace Bahler

MD: What direction do you want to take the website in the future?

GB: We have big projects planned for this semester. We’re definitely going to dive into video production. We would also like to produce a variety show with sketch, improv, stand-up, really anything.

CM: I think a lot of our writers are really interested in those areas of comedy, so it’d be really interesting to let everyone have an opportunity to explore that as well. One of our big goals is to help people prepare for their future, especially people who want to go into comedy, so this is a good space for them to practice that in a comfortable way. It’s not competitive or anything; it’s just a fun way to practice it.

GB: It’s to get experience, because it can be really scary to try areas of comedy in front of complete strangers, especially because the comedy scene can be filled with a lot of older people. It’s terrifying as a university student to do that. I want to see this website really take off – the writers are amazing, Catherine’s amazing. It’s been so much fun just working on it, and I know if people keep putting in work, it can soar.

MD: What should someone do if they want to write for you?

GB: They can email us at thewhyintersection@gmail.com. They can also join “The Why Intersection contribz and writerz” group on Facebook. We post weekly pitch sheets on there.

MD: Can people pitch their own ideas to you?

GB: Yeah, we never pitch our ideas to them. Everyone writes their own. If they have a topic they want to tackle, they can message us on Facebook, and we’ll work through potential headlines together. But at the end of the day they’re the ones coming up with ideas.

MD: What has been your favourite piece that you’ve published or written?

CM: That’s my favourite too. That’s definitely my style of writing. My goal is to be a Reductress writer. I feel like I take on a lot of women issues that no one wants to talk about. My favourite article that I wrote was around Halloween. I was in my political science class and trying to figure out what I was going to wear to a Halloween party, and I wrote “Woman Uses Period Blood for Halloween Costume.” I wrote it all during my class, and I edited in a picture of this girl wearing a bloody costume.

GB: There are some wacky, weird ones, and some that follow the “satire formula,” so it’s kind of all over the board. I wrote “McGill to Salt Sidewalks with Students’ Tears” a couple of weeks ago. I liked that one. We also have the John Milton opinion column. It’s the ghost of John Milton; I write that one for him. It’s just a funny way to yell at students for being annoying. The “Lifestyle” section is definitely my favourite one, cause it’s kind of like Reductress.

GB: One of my favourite ones ever was also “SNL to Air on Mondays Pre-Recorded.” I thought that was so funny! And “Four Ways to Catch a Dick at Activities Night.” I loved that one. You can also tell which writers write which pieces because everyone has a very unique voice and it’s been really cool to see them grow into that.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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Wedad Mitry was the first woman elected to the student union in her university in 1951. She was inspired to join the Women’s Popular Resistance Committee when it was founded in 1951. She did so in order to “take part in the acts of resistance against the British occupation of the Suez Canal zone in Egypt.” As a journalist later in life, she was briefly imprisoned for her political engagement and alignments.

The second of the women, Shahenda Maklad, became involved in nationalist movements and the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 when she was a student. She worked with the Peasants and Union Parties and participated in parliamentary elections. She fought for the economic equality of Egypt’s lower classes alongside her husband, until he was assassinated in 1966. According to Kazem, Maklad “embodies the spirit of [Egypt’s] popular uprisings.”

Safinaz Kazem is a journalist and literary critic who studied in the United States during the 1960s. When asked about her experience of integrating into a North American culture, she said, “[I] disowned all [my] values to assume all their catastrophes.” Kazem’s ideologies are more heavily influenced by Islamist thought than those of the other women in the film, but she, along with Shahenda Maklad, believes that her politics do not conform to the ideologies of a single political party. The women are adamant that they “agree on many things,” and are able to navigate their differing opinions on more “sensitive issues,” due to their histories and shared overarching political goals.

The last of the four women is Amina Rachid, who was born into the upper class as the granddaughter of a former prime minister of Egypt. She spent most of her life in lower class villages. She studied in Paris and became a writer as well as a professor of French literature at Cairo University. She has fought alongside the other women for class rights and was imprisoned with Kazem and Maklad in 1981. She described being a political prisoner as “being in a parenthesis,” temporarily halting her life and work and resuming both after her release.

Each of the four women met at different times from the 50s to the 80s, either through their political work or their time spent together in prison. They express their disappointment that the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 did not yield the desired results for economic, religious, and sexual freedoms.

Though the film’s main focus is the efforts of the four women as political activists, it does not aim to make any political statements. At times, it lacks the historical background necessary to contextualize their efforts and struggles. Though the women offer glimpses into their personal and political ideologies, they are rarely deeply explored or explicitly communicated with the audience. Similarly, the documentary does not work to preach tolerance and coexistence, or to offer hope that through civil engagement, ordinary people can bring about meaningful change. Instead, it is acutely aware of the work left to be done in order to improve the political climate and social life in Egypt for lower classes, women, and religious minorities. Rachid acknowledges the disappointment that weighs on their shared histories, saying, “we’ve experienced a series of ruptures, including a rupture in our national history and our struggles (the 1952 revolution). It’s hard that things haven’t changed in the 40 years since what we call the revolution.” Maklad describes the unknown future of politics in Egypt, saying, “we have the same view of history. Today we all speculate. We know history goes on, but we’re not sure where our place is in the permanence of this history.”

However, the group shots of the women walking the streets of Cairo, sitting in local cafes, and reminiscing about their time in jail, serve to remind the audience that the women’s political efforts are perhaps not the core message the documentary aims to convey. Instead, the lifelong solidarity between them, and their dedication both to their causes and to their allyship, is the heart of the film. Amina Rachid express this, saying, on their relationship, “we have the same fundamental values: the love of our country, for example. But it’s not an abstract relationship. It involves personal feelings. Our childhood, a feeling of being lost, an awareness of what’s been achieved.” Adding to this in one of the film’s most memorable quotes, Maklad echoes Rachid’s sentiment, saying, “we are sisters in arms. And that means we are the closest of friends.” Four Women of Egypt was touching and inspiring, not because of its presentation of the future of politics they aim for, but in its portrayal of the women themselves, tireless and outspoken, as necessary actors in the futures they all individually hope to create.

Four Women of Egypt can be streamed online at nfb.ca/film/four_women_egypt/.

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On November 6, Americans participated in midterm elections, voting in senators, house representatives, and governors. Early estimates say that over 113 million people voted in the midterms, with an incredible surge of young people and women. This election is believed to be a referendum on President Trump and how the public feels about his government. After two years of Republican rule, Democrats gained control of the House, winning 31 additional seats to secure a majority (some races are still undetermined).

The 2018 midterms saw many historical victories across the country. More than 100 women were elected: 95 in the House of Representatives and 12 in the Senate, among them were a record 42 women of colour. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Abby Finkenauer (D-IA) both became the youngest women ever to be elected to Congress at the age of 29. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), became the first Muslim women to serve in Congress, as well as becoming the first Somali-American congresswoman and Palestinian-American congresswoman, respectively. Breaking ground for Native Americans, Sharice Davids (D-KS) and Deb Haaland (DNM) became the first Native American women elected to Congress, 56 years after Native Americans were granted the right to vote. Additionally, more than 100 LGBTQ candidates won races at the federal, state, and local levels. Jared Polis, Chris Pappas, Tammy Baldwin, Jennifer Web, and the aforementioned Sharice Davids are all the first openly LGBTQ identifying candidates to be elected in their respective states.

Suicide Crisis in Nunavik
Content warning: suicide

So far in 2018, 15 youths have taken their own lives in Nunavik, the subarctic region of Quebec. This suicide crisis is affecting an area with a population of 12,000, 90 per cent of whom are Inuit. In October alone, two people took their lives in Kuujjuaq, a town of 3,000. In response, Kativik Ilisarniliriniq (Nunavik’s school board) organized an emergency meeting from October 30-31 to “plot out a course of action.” Seventy people from various Nunavik organizations attended, as did a delegation from the Quebec government.

Robert Watt, president of the Kativik council of school commissioners, addressed the crisis in a letter to government officials: “over the past four weeks, our communities have dealt with youth suicides that directly affected students, families and staff in Nunavik.” Watt also wrote, “one of the victims was as young as 11 years old. We feel the situation requires urgent collective action at the regional level.”

Tunu Napartuk, the mayor of Kuujjuaq, opened the meeting calling for immediate action: “we are talking about the same thing from ten years ago, we keep passing the buck. We need to break this wall, during today and tomorrow, how can we start breaking the wall?”

In a press release, Quebec’s new government stated that they are “concerned about this situation, and wishes to support Indigenous communities.” It is also stated that “the ministries concerned will […] be advised of the measures to be taken.” While the Quebec government sent a delegation to the emergency meeting and has announced a Public Inquiry Commission on relations between “Indigenous Peoples and certain public services in Quebec,” they have not yet announced any concrete actions or policy. Due to the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, health care services are under provincial jurisdiction. Mary Simon, Kuujjuaq native and former ambassador to Denmark, lost her 22 year-old niece to suicide this year. In a public post on Facebook, she wrote, “we desperately need ongoing mental health support and services in every Inuit community.” She and others have emphasized the lack of physical and mental health services for Inuit communities. Simon pointed out that she had made a previous plea for government aid in the crisis two years ago in a report, yet did not receive the support requested. “I am making this plea again and others should do likewise,” she said.

This phenomenon is not limited to Nunavik. Statistics show that First Nations youths are five to six times more likely to commit suicide than non-Indigenous youths. In the case of Inuit youth, the rates are eleven times the national average. The suicide crisis in Nunavik is also reminiscent of the 2015- 2016 crises in First Nations in Manitoba and Northern Ontario.

Mass Emigration in Venezuela

According to a United Nations report published on November 1, three million people have fled Venezuela since 2015, one in 12 people of the country’s population. The increase of people leaving Venezuela is a result of political and economic crises, including an increase in violence, hyperinflation, and lack of food and medicine. The crisis has been ongoing since 2015; however, conditions have worsened in the last six months, forcing elevated more people to flee. In August 2018, the United Nations declared it one of the largest mass migrations in Latin American history.

2.4 million migrants have relocated to, or sought refuge in, other Latin American countries or other parts of the world. Over one million migrants have fled to Colombia, which shares a border with Venezuela, with 3,000 new migrants arriving every day. Peru has received over half a million Venezuelans thus far, with Ecuador, Argentina, Chile, and Brazil also taking in a substantial number of migrants.

Under the current president, Nicolás Maduro, economic and political conditions have worsened after oil prices started falling in 2014. Previous to the price drop, Venezuela earned 96 per cent of its revenue from oil. Maduro has called the migration crisis “fake news” created to justify interference on an international scale.

The World Bank warns that other Latin American countries should expect more migrants in the near future, as political change in the country cannot be expected soon. While neighbouring countries have taken in large numbers of migrants, the situation warrants “a more robust and immediate response from the international community,” according to Edward Stein, the Joint Special Representative for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela for the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and International Organization for Migration (UNHCR-IOM).

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The myth of the tortured artist – the mysterious creative genius who suffers but creates beautiful work – is a troublingly seductive story to believe in, insofar as it implies that pain is beneficial if it is productive. However, it is an actively harmful stereotype to those who create and consume art. The romanticization of mental illness and the way in which an artist’s mental health is seen as collateral damage in the warpath to creating “good” art is extremely common; struggling is often seen as a necessary step to achieving greatness in the creative field.

Have we, and do we still, condone the destructive behavior of artists who struggle with mental illness? Do the rose-tinted lenses through which we view art play a part in dooming artists to seek and tolerate pain in order to be productive?

As the legacies of great artists come to have a life of their own, the artists themselves become dehumanized.

Vincent Van Gogh is, among other things, known for his love for the colour yellow. He is believed to have consumed the toxic paint in what was allegedly an attempt to poison himself, but the cult belief still remains that he ate the paint because yellow was a “happy colour,” and he wanted to “feel happy, too.” His destructive and dangerous behaviour is misconstrued by the public to fit the myth of artists who “suffer for their work.”

Other artists, however, have channelled their struggles in ways that showcase their artistic mastery and deftness. Frida Kahlo suffered from depression throughout her adult life. She also struggled with various severe physical disabilities. One of her most popular paintings, “The Two Fridas,” shows two depictions of herself holding hands; both have visible hearts on their chests, one of them broken. She has said, “my painting carries with it the message of pain.”

Similarly, part of the self-aggrandizing mission of the Romantics was to establish the artist as a greater being and to attach a sense of heroism and divinity to all things which were deemed poetic. Solitude and isolation were seen as necessary features of making artists good at their craft; self-destructive attitudes were seen as empowering. The opening lines to Poe’s story “Eleonora” proudly declare madness as being the “loftiest intelligence,” and that “all that is profound spring[s] from the disease of thought.” Romantic artists, such as Poe, themselves perpetuated the myth that having a mental illness equals a greater creative output. They did so to cope with problems like addiction and depression as well as to advance the mission of Romanticism of portraying artists as transcendent superhumans. However, the values attached to being “poetic” are prevalent in contemporary society, too. We rationalize suffering, because it furthers our notion of the tortured artist, which puts pressure on artists themselves to self-destruct in order to create.

When we fail to recognize the circumstances under which the art was created, we are complicit in placing the work of the artist before their wellbeing. Artists deserve treatment for their mental illnesses whether or not they are able to articulate their pain through their work.

In a more modern example, Amy Winehouse also channels her experiences into her art. She struggled with addiction and mental health issues. In one of her most popular songs, “Rehab,” Winehouse sings about her experiences with rehab and conflicts she had about the value of rehab for her wellbeing. The concepts of addiction and rehab that she sings about are commonly romanticized and disassociated from their painful contexts in reality. Much like other artists, her personal trauma led to her material success and while she struggled openly, the media still romanticized her experiences and public persona. At the time of her death, an album of her most popular songs was released, showing that even in death, her experiences were exploited under the guise of appreciating her art. This has been a continuous trend when valuing the work of artists with mental illnesses; the public has capitalized on their pain and struggles during their lives and after their deaths.

Perhaps the reason the myth of the tortured artist is continuously upheld lies in the great art suffering is believed to have produced. Van Gogh, Kahlo, Poe, and Winehouse are all artists whose work has outlived them. In that sense, as the legacies of great artists come to have a life of their own, the artists themselves become dehumanized. While this has no direct repercussions for artists who have already died, it does have an effect on the ones actively striving to leave a legacy. Oftentimes, we consume art in an uncritical way, and we detach the artist from the art piece. This, in turn, plays into the continued disregard for the mental health of artists and the romanticization of their illnesses.

In detaching the art from the artist and simply appreciating the latter, we are accepting – and in the eyes of those struggling with mental illness, even welcoming – Poe’s alcoholism and the deterioration of his mental health as necessary casualties to his work. In doing so, we are placing more value on his work than on his life. When we fail to recognize the circumstances under which the art was created, we are complicit in placing the work of the artist before their wellbeing. Artists deserve treatment for their mental illnesses whether or not they are able to articulate their pain through their work. The myth of the tortured artist becomes most dangerous when it identifies a person’s pain as a source of creativity, rather than acknowledging it as harmful. Turning an artist’s pain into marketable art is not a consolation prize for struggling with untreated mental illness.

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I had the chance to interview her prior to the release of her book, and the conversation easily moved between discussions of Thus Speaks Mother Simorq, Iranian folklore, art therapy, and modern feminism. The conversation was in equal parts admiration of the perseverance of women and questions about her work as a feminist author and artist. The stories she shared situate her as an outspoken, self-assured Middle-Eastern woman, navigating her way through North American society.

Azad tells tales of female resilience, female imperfection, and female bonds, interweaving Iranian folklore with magical realism.

Simorq, a mythical bird in Persian folklore who often exists as either male, female, or sexually ambiguous, is entirely feminized in Azad’s version of the tale. She is an all-seeing and all-knowing entity that appears throughout the stories of other women in the collection, to guide or to share her wisdom. Azad’s decision to make Simorq explicitly female subverts the common presumption that a mythical, sexually indistinct bird-person should be male.

No act of defiance is too small or too radical to be meaningful, and though never explicit in its call for action, these stories of female strength are a constant reminder of the need for feminism in big and small situations alike.

In addition to falling back on Iranian folklore, the book weaves aspects of magical realism into the stories of the 16 different women and their experiences of the patriarchy. Many of these stories, set between Iran and modern day Montreal, are authentic illustrations of the different aspects of womanhood. Azad tells tales of female resilience, female imperfection, and female bonds. In her depictions of female emotions, Azad celebrates the power of vulnerability and the importance of self-expression. In the second story from the collection, Safa of the Spring, the title character becomes so overwhelmed watching an emotional scene play out in front of her that every cell in her body begins to shed tears until all that is left in her place is her “fountain of tears.” When asked about whether the choice not to conceal negative emotions throughout the book was a conscious move, Azad responded, “I just wrote it that way to show the depth of her sorrow. That was my only goal. [The tendency to hide our emotions] applies only to Western societies; expressing emotions too intensely is not viewed as good here, but in the Middle East, outbursts, especially crying, are very normal.”

Azad debunked the cliché of Middle Eastern women being more submissive and more oppressed than Western women, explaining that Middle Eastern women “are, and have to be, stronger” than Western women.

The sixteen short stories are filled with unwavering messages of female empowerment, and while some are more explicit than others, the book believes in the power of every patriarchy-defying move women make. These moves range from a wife walking away from her husband after a fight in Her father’s portrait, to a woman dressing up as a man from 20th century Tehran and fully integrating into male social circles only to narrowly avoid arrest through a combination of luck and careful strategy in Outside of the Box. No act of defiance is too small or too radical to be meaningful, and though never explicit in its call for action, these stories of female strength are a constant reminder of the need for feminism in big and small situations alike.

At times, Azad’s stories are deliberately provocative, and when asked about which story she enjoyed writing the most, she cited the final tale — a modern and controversial take on the story of Siavosh, a figure from Persian mythology. She explained that “Iranians are very sensitive to their mythical heroes. You can’t say anything against Rostam. He was a male chauvinist, a mythical national hero of Iran. He and Siavosh are very misogynistic; they are women-killers. I enjoyed showing them as they were. Especially Siavosh, as he shows signs of [mental illness] and exhibits schizophrenic behavior in Ferdowsi’s The Book of Kings. So, I made him a schizophrenic in this story. Many Iranians won’t like it when they read it. And that’s okay with me.”

As the conversation moved from Thus Speaks Mother Simorq to feminism and life as a woman, Azad proudly announced that she was a feminist, saying, “I have always been a feminist and I still am. What I have seen and felt since I was very young is the basis of my feminism. My feminism didn’t come from reading books, it came from my observation of my environment.” This prompted a conversation about the differences between Western and Middle Eastern feminism. She debunked the cliché of Middle Eastern women being more submissive and more oppressed than Western women, explaining that Middle Eastern women “are, and have to be, stronger” than Western women. For her, men envy the authority women have in the household as it represents a threat to their power and perceived superiority outside of home. Azad said that the individual efforts women take to shift traditional gender roles are a source of collective female power, ranging from political to personal subversions of these views.

Azad expressed her conviction that portrayals of female strength are crucial, as they dismiss the idea that female characters only fall into categories of “good” or “evil.”

She went on to explain that the reason she felt it was important to write this book was not to declare the superiority of one sex over the other, but to bring light to the collective struggles and strengths of women around the world, all of whom are ultimately fighting the same struggle but in different ways.

Her feminism, as she explained, is not bound to literature. Azad is also a painter, and has worked on art that is “beautiful, but at the same time says something.” There are many shapes with which she expresses her activism in art, ranging from images of domesticated brown women to work that is more overtly political and which directly subverts the patriarchal expectations of Middle Eastern women. An example of the latter depicts an Afghan woman sitting on a hill, using her burqa as a picnic blanket while wearing Western clothes. Azad expressed her conviction that portrayals of female strength are crucial, as they dismiss the idea that female characters only fall into categories of “good” or “evil.”

My discussion with Azad highlighted that vulnerability isn’t inherently bad: emotional nakedness can be a source of strength for women and for all people. I asked the writer what advice she would give women navigating modern society. Her reply was a confident affirmation of the power of self-love as the basis for all other relationships. Azad also stressed the power of female solidarity in allowing women to persevere through patriarchal social barriers to succeed. Azad’s words, both in conversation and in Thus Speaks Mother Simorq, were welcome reminders of the importance of female empowerment and resilience in our collective stories.

Thus Speaks Mother Simorq is now available in bookstores across Canada.

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