Civil War Commemoration and Christmas Contention

This Christmas season has me wondering about the disconnect between expressed ideals and the created reality. Even as I observe this in myself I see how it frames the questions of interest...and the work it inspires in this series.
[converging research interests - Cultural Fusion Art as Philosophy:evolution of oral traditions, art based research: cultural vocabulary, A/r/tographic community change research model, Prallaxic Praxis:Touchstones Learning, Public Art a Public Service in development of open source solutions]

Living History and Pubic Protest Art



My Aunt and Uncle were among those who showed up to protest the gala event attended by director to whom my questions about the Fairfield County Museum were addressed in my comment post at the end of this blog entry. Reports I heard said the protest attendance was a bit higher at around 250 no need to split hairs over that. Protesters using and gala attendees alike were using theatrical cultural references to demonstrate political revelation in public performance.

Picture below includes director of Fairfield County Museum mentioned in conclusion of this post.

For revellers, the Civil War wasn't about slavery

By David Usborne 5:30 AM Friday Dec 24, 2010
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10696285

"Inside the hall, 200-odd guests, all white and some in period costume, gathered on Tuesday to see a re-enactment of the signing of the secession document. When it was over, they instinctively joined the cast in singing the anthem of the South, Dixie, before dinner and dancing.

Outside, a racially mixed crowd of about 100 held electric candles aloft at dusk to begin a protest march through downtown Charleston, singing the songs of Selma and Montgomery, including We Shall Overcome. Each camp thus indulged in their forms of theatre before taking to their beds."

..."The South lost the war but they really won it, because they continue to say the war was not about slavery, which is not true of course," argued Blain Roberts, an assistant professor of history at California State University, who attended the Secession Gala to conduct research for a book. "They won the memory of the war, at least."

But the United States is only at the beginning of a four-year stretch of events to commemorate the Civil War, which will peak with the anniversary in November 2013 of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address."

Identifying sources in Cultural Vocabulary

Of the articles I found about the specific even that provide the emotional energy culmination for this post - It would be this one from a New Zealand news site that seems to best express the heart of the matter while conveying specifics of conflict and finally, why it is relevant today.

For revellers, the Civil War wasn't about slavery goes on to say...

"I am a proud American and I wouldn't want our country to go through that again," Bill Norris, 60, a maker of banking machinery and gala guest, said. Yet, he wonders, what if the Confederacy had won?

"A part of me does regret it didn't happen," he said. "I believe at some point in dividing the country. We would be better able to govern ourselves in smaller groups. Why should New Yorkers be able to influence government in South Carolina?"

Defining Multiple Contexts

While I do not argue the need for the American Civil War to be acknowledged as part of our national history, I do find some predominate interpretations to be problematic. I find it hard to ignore the obvious question when people want to celebrate the confederacy.
What would it mean for the nation today IF the Federal government had not preserved the union? Is it possible to make it a side issue a core principle and reality being denied by the confederacy was the freedom of my ancestors - the right to belong to themselves. As a matter of function of the humanities to serve the public, the history museum as a resource for the commons, must be acknowledged as an institutional authority where programmatic successes are concerned.

Since a predominate intention of this work is to use these ideas and feelings to advance the art work as inquiry and discovery I continue to use this blog to talk to you about its progress.

The piece shown to the left is a mixed media painting "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

"The dancing was interrupted only once when a plastic oak tree draped with fake Spanish moss toppled over after being sideswiped by a damsel who had briefly forgotten how impractical those old-fashioned skirts were.

Givens found all the questions about slavery pesky. "We are not celebrating that and this is not malicious," he said. "It's about honouring our forefathers for their tenacity. It's about the bravery and courage of our ancestors.

"Can you not be selective about what you are nostalgic about?"

On hand to galvanise the protesters was a local clergyman, the Rev Nelson Rivers. "If Japanese Americans chose to celebrate Pearl Harbour this way it would be outrageous and would not be allowed to occur and that is what is happening here tonight," he said into a megaphone.

Tangee Rice, 57, an African American woman, drove 190km to the march and was wearing the same hat her grandfather had worn marching with Martin Luther King. "The Confederacy is not something to celebrate," she said. "It's just not right." About those re-enacting the start of the Civil War, she said: "They still haven't grown out of it, and it's really sad."

Source: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10696285

Understanding Contexts

Understanding the contexts of questions and conclusions has pushed me to hold ProjectForgive.org in view. I want to side step the issue of blame without giving up the opportunity to present questions about how what is relates to what has been.

I was not happy when Webb Introduced Bill to Establish Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission but at the same time that I contemplate the political revelations, I ponder the apple as a persistent image with cultural significance. This piece marks precisely, an element in the cultural vocabulary that my work has been exploring with inclusion of feminist art inquiry.

Most who attended the recent ball as part of these "festivities" reenacting the state's secession ball in Charleston, S.C. are clearly marking a different set of touchstones in association with the Civil War and its southern legacy from those conjured by "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree".

Feminist art undertones

Issues of race and gender have commanded attention as part of articulating identity and deciphering national identity in a global tribe. Images that came to me when working on Surviving the South piece are reemerging in another work in process. I am preparing to cut or rip this one, still untitled, into pieces that will be applied to a found object with a sense of history - looking back, but redefined in this new context.

In response to an editorial piece by the director of the Fairfield County Museum, who has inspired other works in this series going back to "what is peace?" genesis of ProjecForgive.org , that was published in The State newspaper website I posted the following comment:

Can we agree that a terrorist is a radical who employs terror as a political weapon; usually organizes with other terrorists in small cells? In the context of the civil war - that seems to fit the confederates.

The bottom line is that many are calling for us to celebrate Domestic Terrorism. Was Lincoln's response that different from Bush's response to contemporary terrorism? It seems that the national policy has been pretty consistent in dealing with that kind of activity, so I repeat the question being asked by many who have not posted here - "what is there to celebrate?"
A terrorist is a terrorist. Whether born here or elsewhere, actions define a life and that is the legacy they leave for their descendants...as well as, in many cases, wealth built on the backs of slaves.

I also know Pelham and wonder how as a fellow student of history the obvious can be so grievously overlooked? But that also helps to explain a great deal about why things are as they are - and would ask you to consider the role of the history museum in being a place to continue dialogues about histories lessons versus enshrining the south's past with its corresponding prevalent mindsets. For example, The Oral History Project and similar exhibitions at the museum in Fairfield was an encouraging step in the right direction of increasing inclusion and the diversity of perspectives on history - very good for opening dialogues that could move the community forward. Instead, such projects have been shut down and gotten menial support at best - while fund-raising to preserve more destructive elements of our historical past have gotten full attention and considerably more funding support.

The rationale for what the confederates did - and those who think it is something worthy of celebration is every bit as logical as our modern day terrorist and their supporters.

I wonder if there will be a call for non-accusatory remembrances of September 11th in a couple hundred years? Will there be a call for the descents of those victims to be understanding of the rationalization for the terrorists crimes? How does that attack that lasted a single day compare with this one that lasted four years?

Perhaps a more constructive way of acknowledging this part of history would be to focus on Forgiveness - where to forgive is to give up hope of a better past.
If anyone is interested in continuing THIS dialogue I invite you to contact me and join me in ProjectForgive.org I am in the process of developing art and events focused on bringing people together to explore the reality and context of Forgiveness - it is the healing salve we need to strengthen our communities and families. Perhaps this time of recognition for the civil war could be a chance to explore its legacy and maybe - just maybe we can increase the peace.

Someone else mentioned a candle light vigil, which is a good place to start because each person can remember who they choose and honor lives lost - I'd be up for that...

Read more: http://www.thestate.com/2010/12/19/1611832/commemorative-events-can-benefit.html?story_link=email_msg#comment-115171745#ixzz194LjeYNb

TimeLine a WebAntiphon in Institutional Critique

In continuing to think about my response to the question of how feminist art and the movement have been internalized in the south. Feminist art wasn't really something we saw in our environment, those are among the least likely shows to have made it to my neck of the woods when I was growing up. If an artist insisted on showing work that was seen as inflammatory, then they find themselves without a place to show....unless one just put it out there beyond the ivory towers. The feminist movement has an example in the impact of "trickle down" theories. What have we learned about how this has worked in economics?

It has been the legal changes that have been the clearest evidence of its impact. For example, legislation ending the legalization of marital rape and domestic violence being taken more seriously.

Perhaps because basic assumptions of freedom were arguably more grievously overlooked in southern culture, that asserting ones worth and right to choose include and reach beyond the expected.

Generally speaking, once cases were overturned by the Supreme Court it would take about 20 years before the new laws were embraced or actually took affect down south. For example, Brown vs. Board of Education was a 1950 case ending racial segregation in schools under separate but equal. However the high school in the county where I attended did not integrate until 1970. Interracial marriage was legalized 1967 by a Supreme Court overturning Virgina ruling that said equal punishment for the crime of interracial marriage made the practice just. But when I was growing up it was not unusual for interracial couples to be asked to leave establishments, denied admission, or otherwise made to feel unwelcome or harassed.
Even in 1989 when my husband I were newly coupled, I recall a BBQ place clearing out when we entered at lunchtime. The service was colder than the food we were served. It could be that all those people just happened to have to leave when we sat down - but I have not gone inside a BBQ restaurant since. On another occasion, I recall getting upset with a hostess who wanted to sit us in the back near the kitchen although the place was not crowded. Since it has happened previously, on that occasion I wanted to know why we were be seated in this dreadful dark corner by the kitchen. I didn't get an answer but we were given a better table.

The case that led to marital rape being called Rape was decided in 1970, I think, but certainly this and related issues made the lives of many women I knew difficult because lax enforcement and stigma can be more powerful than the law.

What is emerging is that I am curious about the class division in the feminist art movement as being related to the issues of Institutional Critique. I wonder if it is class as much as race that has been the issue limiting discourse around those topics relevant to women's movements. However, with little effort this emerges as a humanitarian and ecological movement - a shift towards peace building rather than war making.

What IF the opposite of war is CREATION?
that is the question that reflections on the play Rent prompted me to Re-consider.

The Art Installations I recall from my early exposure were all in urban environments...usually presented in pristine sterile contexts. What happens if instead of fighting about the way it has been I put my attention on creating solutions... and then continue building on what I learn?

I put up the installation and a retired school teacher came over to ask about it. I briefly explained the art concept as being a TimeLine putting world events in the context of personal experiences to create a more accurate historical picture.
She shared with me about her and her husband's family history as a (white) sharecropping family. His mother was known for the speed in the cotton field. She had met her husband when he returned from the Vietnam War.

I will be adding their events to the TimeLine.

The encounter demonstrated that put in a familiar setting that "high art" can attract those people who would avoid it in an institutional setting.

Making Connections: The Tower is Haunted

Painting above is another from the most recent series. The poem below is one I wrote as part of an art based research dialogue on educational reform. The painting came first but is about the broader scope of interest to me as it has been expressed in cfAaP House of Cards diagram and installation concept..but as the thread connecting the frames shows some systemic elements link all the others. One of the major challenges is that most people are overwhelmed by the big picture but "solutions" made without this level of understanding often do more harm than good...and by the time that is obvious the damage is done. What is the alternative?

Warning: The Tower is Haunted

Ghosts of the plantations and overseers

loom and creak until

replaced

by Research Studios and the vision of Source Artists

Life

no longer outsourced

Birthed above shark infested waters

Tamed by the slyness of Red Riding Hood's Wolf

gnashing teeth

swallowing greed

devours

deny

redemption

reform

in transformation

within the alone-ness

growth

Institutional

healing

internal

Rotten to the core

ingesting proves fatal

exposure a hazard deterring

revelation

shared

once burned, twice shy

One love, One world

blooming ideals in a flower garden

should =

no fear of poisoned decoys

skull f***k

waiting to render pregnant winged ones flightless

Warning: Keep away from gardens in alabaster towers

Their basement bellies

in screaming silence

conceal bloody pulps

would be-s

ripped from the womb

time after time

blood trails and smudged prints

are not definitive evidence of robbery

our abortions are rebranded

Selective Birthing (TM)

sanctioned by Alabaster Towers Inc.

Clipped crimson buds

poorly cloned

and implanted into suitably branded uteruses

birthed by less suspecting

blind

ethereal extremities

who regurgitate

life sustaining after birth

into shark infested waters

Art Based Research in Community Intervention & Mental Health

With the dismantling of community mental health system and the erosion of personal support networks new alternatives must be devised. Currently I am working cf House of Cards series with that forming a recurring imagery/concept to be confronted. In contrast to the typical approach of assuming only bureaucratic systems can explore and solve these challenges, Cultural Fusion is interested in addressing them in the context of self organization, freedom, personalization, social media/technology, ecology, economics and social evolution via art based research.

The results are multilateral solutions, an art series, that combine visual art (performance, media/software, recycled materials, installations, sculpture, paintings) as well as music and audio. That while operating as art, and community intervention – are also operating as business solutions that promote innovation in economic development.

This is an excerpt explaining our collaborative Cultural Fusion Art as Philosophy series as a demonstration of the SoulFood model I have been developing as a Source Artist.

While it advances the idea of “Self Referencing Creativity” it has been inspired by key scholarship in the areas of community mental health. As art imbued with this layered integration it seeks to pioneer new approaches to project/product development and management that promote a culture of peace. While at the business or economic level this is best understood from the perspective meaningful marketing, CRM Strategy and Global Social Responsibility; at the personal - community level it is chiefly as an expressive therapy approach to community intervention/prevention strategy.

This work is distinguished by its policy of Radical Inclusion - integrating mental health, arts and culture, history, economic development, and personal development that goes to the roots of several issues including: domestic violence, poverty, crime, depression, a host of “at risk behaviors”, etc. Rather than seeking to exclude needs, each person is allowed the time to identify and distinguish real needs from perceived ones. Resources and “intangible assets” are valued above lacks or deficits.

One of the primary benefits of this approach is its attention to integrity – starting with the integrity and transparency of the SoulFood:Ingredients included in any given project recipe. Here in this paper attention is on the community mental health model and theories that were the basis of the early inquiry into this work.

In beginning to approach community economic renewal my instinct was to go to the weakest links first – homeless, those needing mental health services, neglected seniors, those living in economic poverty, and the disenfranchised (included the previously incarcerated). The point of Radical Inclusion is that the needs of all sides seeking inclusive expression need to be brought to the table and integrated into the Recipe.

Client engagement is critical, and this is the basis of using interactive high art concepts with multiple components that also operate on the level of a project-based expressive therapy approach as opposed to traditional cognitive therapy to deliver community mental health intervention/prevention programs.

Primary experience, which exists apart from language, is described by language (a representation, or secondary experience). Language is that secondary experience created by verbalizing primary experiences. Verbal psychotherapy, then, is a procedure for the verbal processing of verbal descriptions of events. According to discourse theory, language constructs its own reality rather than corresponding to it.

Among those practitioners who use them for the purpose of representation, action methods generally are regarded as more vivid and memorable and having more impact than verbal methods. Action methods simultaneously engage cognition, affect, and behavior and better engage those clients who process information predominantly in visual and kinesthetic modes. When used as interventions, action methods provide novel ways of altering habitual patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving.

According to some psychological theories, formative experiences that occurred at a preverbal stage of development can be accessed only by nonverbal methods. Also, there is evidence that traumatic experiences are stored or encoded differently from non-traumatic ones, suggesting that experiential therapies may have the potential to shift traumatic experience in cases in which verbal ones cannot.

“The map is not the territory.” Action methods get clients to venture into the territory of experience, enriching those clients who have come to rely solely on the maps of verbalization. Experiencing these methods provides both a way of discovery in terms other than verbal ones and material that can be juxtaposed with verbally encoded representations. In sum, action methods put verbalizations to the test of experience.

Although psychotherapy will continue to be a verbally mediated process, the inclusion of action methods appears to promote significant clinical change in relatively short periods of time, making them particularly valuable in brief therapy and with populations not very responsive to talk-only therapy.

Why use an empowerment-based model? Empowerment may be defined as a process through which people become strong enough to participate within, share in the control of, and influence events and institutions affecting their lives; in part, empowerment implies that people gain particular skills, knowledge, and sufficient power to influence their lives and the lives of those they care about (Torre, 1985). The process of empowerment is ongoing and involves changes in three dimensions of one’s self: personal, interpersonal, and sociopolitical participation.

The personal (self-perception) dimension involves attitudes, values, and beliefs about self-awareness, self-acceptance, belief in self, self-esteem, and the feeling that one has rights. The interpersonal dimension involves acquisition of knowledge and skills, assertiveness, setting limits on giving, asking for help, problem solving, accessing resources, critical thinking to participate and work with others in networks and systems of mutual aid and education in order to enhance the world they live in. The political dimension involves participation by joining appropriate social organizations, giving back by helping others, making a contribution, voting, writing letters, teach others what is learned, and taking control in generalized areas of one’s life are specific skills that will be cultivated during participation in this fully implemented program.

The underlying assumption of empowerment practice is that clients are generally disempowered through membership in devalued and oppressed groups; that the system of governmental policies and services is a barrier to achieving desired goals; and that learned powerlessness is an attribute of many clients (Albert and Green, 2002). Therefore, practical empowerment attends to power issues and promotes the creation and discovery of personal and group empowerment among clients.

Affirmational Psychology a later model I learned of that contributed to the work and let to a few major project collaborations.


It is my hope that in sharing this document that others who have similar interests....working in related areas will contact me. I have finally had a breakthrough in visually connecting this series as it evolves and organizing the huge amount of content I have already generated. In conclusion a few links to key pages in the Development Workspace:
Cultural Fusion Futurist
This is one of the primary projects - an installation called cf House of Cards Installation i
Defining Installation for SoulFood context

Recipe for a New Paradigm

Excerpt from our evolving concept paper

I hope to have this finished soon but in the meantime I will post parts of it to my blogs.


This document emerges from the realization that there is a recipe for capitalizing on the potential of a given situation. Much like cooking there are a lot of consistencies in the process, but what may seem like small differences are actually quite significant in the results produced.

While this is not to debate whether to continue investing in existing system, but to suggest that alternatives get attention. Consider that many of our old systems are based on the needs and thinking of the industrial age. Even in attempting to adapt to the information age, changes were largely superficial and do not reflect the depth of our current knowledge of information or organic systems.

Rather than a debate, this paper invites discussion on and consideration for how to develop structures that integrate more of what we have learned about freedom (creative expression), information and natural systems. This is a strong basis for developing strategies for working with rather than against the flow.

An analysis of seven tropical forests around the world has found that nature encourages species diversity by selecting for less common trees as the trees mature. The landmark study, which was conducted by 33 ecologists from 12 countries and published in the journal Science, conclusively demonstrates that diversity matters and has ecological importance

Pasted from NSF news summary

As an art based approach, the process for creating with attention towards multilateral potentiality that cultivates social capital requires a different world view. It is not based on either or, but and. Existing systems which are cracking at best and crumbling at worse, were not designed to enable inclusion. Inclusion supports diversity.

Another reason to support - explore - invest in Art based research is that Art Embraces Diversity and helps chart unknown terrain about 12:34pm from TweetDeck

To get better results we need to cultivate more original ideas using what is here identified as "self referencing creativity". Again, this is not an either or situation but in addition to what is coming from traditional institutions. Many ideas develop outside of them not by ignorance of the various programs and bureaucratic processes, but because they do not offer the context conducive to their maturation. The very environment they foster is counterproductive in this new paradigm.

It requires less energy to flow with the water moving down stream than to hold that water flow back. This energy expenditure is also expressed in resources required and the efficiency with which they can be applied to the challenge.

Decision makers would be well advised to keep this common sense example in mind when considering why broader and deeper perspectives are needed to make better decisions. For example the self organization phenomena represented by the growth in peer to peer networks gives new insight into the understanding of culture and collaboration. Within these networks there is a wealth of great ideas and the nation/community that benefits will be the one that makes it easiest to advance them. This new approach will actually reduce risk, and this counter intuitive idea needs to be explored because it could actually be the salvation for economic stabilization and renewal.