My new year's project

Dear Media Friends and Supporters:

Way back in the 1980’s, at the tender young age of 25, I discovered that my work in media didn’t have to be as an observer, “objectively” reporting on things that I saw around me in a dispassionate, detached way.

I’d learned in school and by doing classical journalism that this was the only role of the media maker. And then I arrived in Vancouver, 1982 ... a city in a polarized province reeling from the cutbacks of the Bill Bennett government. Cruise missile testing in Cold Lake Alberta was a catalyst for some of the largest peace marches in history. Ronald Reagan had just arrived in the White House. For seven years his ideological mistress, Margaret Thatcher, had been convincing us from 10 Downing Street that only the rich and powerful mattered. And here in Canada, too many people were starting to believe her.

It was in the midst of this climate that I discovered Vancouver Co-op Radio and its message that media makers didn’t have to stand by and merely watch. We could write, take photos, do documentaries, create video and audio art in a way that participates in society, not just reports it. We could be catalysts for change, not just hold up a mirror to reflect the status quo.

Ever since that time, I’ve looked at my work in a different way. I have done my share of “objective” journalism but no longer believe that this is the only role for people working in the media. In more recent years, my experience in community-based activist media has taken me in some interesting directions. Two years at Appalshop, a major American community media arts organization dedicated to social change in the heart of the impoverished, environmentally devastated Appalachian Mountains; working with teenagers in an American inner city living in poverty; working with immigrants and mental health survivors helping them use tools of the media to tell their own stories .. All of this and my continuing involvement in community radio and the internet magazine Rabble.ca have strengthened my belief that we have important work to do.

Comparatively speaking, media for social justice is less developed in Canada than it is in places such as the United States, Europe and the UK. For a few years now I’ve wanted to start a new organization to provide a focus for work of people who share my aesthetic and my perspective on life (and more practically, so we can get grants that are only available to organizations.) I know there are a lot of you out there .. because many of you are my friends.

I am writing to tell you I am now doing it. The main goal of the yet-unnamed organization – to produce new works about some of the burning issues of our time; to create festivals, exhibitions and other dissemination opportunities for artists working in social justice oriented media; to provide workshops for our fellow travellers. And most important – to build a community of artists who work in social change so that we can work collaboratively and support each other in our work.

This is just beginning, so I don’t have it all figure out yet. If you would like to join the community of artists who have already said “Count me in”, get in touch. We’ll figure it out together.

Because this is important work we’re all doing, especially now. In many ways, it feels like the work I did and the things I learned way back in the 1980’s was just the dress rehearsal for the conditions we find ourselves in now. Our voices are needed now more than ever.

In the words of an inspiring writer, Clarissa Pinkola Estes ..

“I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world right now. .. Ours is a time of almost daily jaw-dropping astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.

… For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.

.. Do Not Lose Heart. We Were Meant for These Times”

In Peace,
Victoria