[Note: The conversations have been edited for clarity, length, and grammatical mistakes. They have also been edited thematically, however the dates of these utterances are noted above each section.]
14 May 2020 Mikhel: I am very ambivalent about it, I am interested to see how institutions come out of this in the end. For a couple of weeks I was following everybody to see what type of programming that was going on and I think there are interesting things out there. In some cases it’s about putting everything online, that they are already doing. The FIFA did a really quick turn around and they put everything online and you know that’s functional and then you know there are institutions that are essentially changing their mandate like Tate Modern. It is going to focus, first on its collection, it’s a collecting institution, and also its local community which was an interesting thing, talking again to my friend at the National Gallery, the local community has never been a part of their mandate. It is a National institute and there are certain restrictions on traditionally how they have been able to represent the Nation… curators flying around the country, but now new types of research and production capacities are being built due to current circumstances. I am interested in how they come up with that.
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[Note: The conversations have been edited for clarity, length, and grammatical mistakes. They have also been edited thematically, however the dates of these utterances are noted above each section.]
14th May 2020 Alice: How do we archive this? How do we document what is going on right now? There haven’t been a lot of people who have lived through a pandemic. You could pull our conversations together into a blog series about what we need to do to get out of it, study it, and know what to do with the next one, and how do you get this data and the things that come up for the humanities through this auto-ethnography. So it makes sense that we date these online interactions, like date stamps. They are specific to a moment and they are raw and capture that rawness of what you were thinking, or what at that moment did you know? Or, did you feel the way that you did because you needed to? How what you thought or felt changed from week to week? Varda: When the news claimed that the virus is going to be forever, it just took my breath away for a moment. This is not a headline one is used to. It was scary and my husband and I were having a discussion on how there has been an obsession with the virus in the media – it can come through the air conditioning, through the washroom, a toilet bowl, these are the headlines that we read. I just want to put it in perspective. When you say (Alice) that not many people have lived through a pandemic, I just think about what we have lived through – I was born in 1986, I have lived through curfews in my city, I have lived through dictatorships, I have lived through the hype of the Berlin Wall… that is the memory around that event with my parents and their communist, socialist circles and then Y2K, 9/11, the recession and now this, it has to end at some point. Mikhel: I just wanted to add to what Alice said about archives of the future. I follow archival groups on Facebook, and am interested to see how they are creating collections about COVID. I am also in touch with archivist and curator friends working at large institutions. A friend at the National Gallery is—as we speak—doing a live Instagram interview of an artist. It is interesting to see people in institutions who have this pressure to produce new content now, different from what they are trained to do. This friend of mine resents it: she resents this push from the institution, the need to have new programming, to put the content online. I feel exhausted already by the mail-outs and the online activity institutions are producing: much of it being pretty crappy, especially for someone who is interested in art and the Internet. There are already so many solutions that these institutions are not paying attention to and this impulse to produce new content online is exhausting. [Note: The conversations have been edited for clarity, length, and grammatical mistakes. They have also been edited thematically, however the dates of these utterances are noted above each section.]
7 May 2020 Varda: One of my concerns recently has been that when we go out to the park everyday, there will be people who cross or move to the road when you are coming on the pavement. And they will try to avoid you. And I understand right now all of these gestures are gestures of care. But in a while, let's say if it goes on for another three months, we are going to embody these gestures permanently and then ... all of them are so close to ... to racist gestures right? Avoiding someone and everything. What's going to happen when we embody them? I mean how are we going to resist that? I am very uncomfortable with people saying this is the new normal. I am not comfortable... this can not be the new normal, and I am actively resisting this. Alice: About these gestures and these micro gestures of care that could also be interpreted on a good day as acts of everyday racism or microaggressions… If you could do something about the slippery nature of racism in the context of a university, what form would it take? Sanaz: It could be like a piece of writing, a manifesto, or a statement. Varda: All of this new behavior is not going to fall under the umbrella term of racism. We will have to come up with new words, a new definition for these behaviours. We were on our terrace the other day, and this lady stopped to say hello. She was walking on the pavement, and this other woman screamed at her, “you have to keep moving! Why did you stop? You have to maintain the distance.” I mean, you can just give that person a minute before you start screaming at her publicly. So we would have to come up with new words. And there has to be a zero tolerance policy. And it has to be more grassroots, whatever happens, so there is a dialogue happening between students of colour and between those who are white and they would have to talk about these things. Because you can have a policy that is up there....to overcome this, these embodied gestures of racism, but you need dialogues so that everyone can air out their concerns, and you can really start building up a community foundation over again. [Note: The conversations have been edited for clarity, length, and grammatical mistakes. They have also been edited thematically, however the dates of these utterances are noted above each section.]
7 May 2020 Alice: Women make up the majority of students going into art history. Eli: And yet the directors of galleries and museums are mostly men. Alice: How has gender factored into your experience dealing with everything in the last six weeks (related to COVID or not)? Kanwal: Garima Kothari, a “Masterchef” finalist as well as a celebrated chef, was found beaten to death inside her apartment on Sunday in New Jersey. Five months pregnant, the woman was beaten to death by her husband, who later comintted suicide in the Hudson River. According to many sources, domestic violence has risen through the roof during quarantine, due to the fact that many women were already living in difficult relationships. Women are always doubly affected in crises due to their gender which determines their inherent subjugation in heteronormative patriarchial relationships. Alice: Would you say that this is COVID-related? Kanwal: As per many sources, abusive relationships have worsened during COVID because there is no respite. People do not get to leave their homes and are forced to live with their abusive spouses 24/7. Hence, it makes the situation much worse than it is. The same goes for kids who experience violence domestically. Olivia: Someone I know explained the many reasons for his dilemma of whether or not his children will go back to school when it is possible. One of the motivations under discussion for reopening schools is that for Social Services, it is really tricky right now because some children experiencing abuse are often identified through schools. [Note: The conversations have been edited for clarity, length, and grammatical mistakes. They have also been edited thematically, however the dates of these utterances are noted above each section.]
30 April 2020 Mikhel: Do any of you benefit from other student fundings that the government released, the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB)? I guess it is only for Canadian citizens? Kanwal: There is a daily briefing by the Prime Minister at 11 am everyday, and as far as immigrants and international students are concerned, it was very disappointing the way he has handled the situation. Sanaz : If you are on a student visa you can not apply for CERB? Varda: I think you can apply for CERB, but you need to pay for it whenever you file your taxes? Olivia: I am not sure if this is helpful. In terms of immigrants, do you mean at large or particular communities? Because every summer many Jamaicans come to Canada and I am just looking locally but there is a support network like the Jamaican Association that is doing something. Kanwal: I was talking about how it [the Government address] wasn't actually done specifically targeting immigrants or the international students community because when you are not in your own country you are doubly affected by the circumstances. Varda: I also think that it has to do with that because you are coming to Canada and Canada's reputation as a good country or a nice country, we kind of expect them [the Canadian Government] to do something. Sanaz: A friend of mine was concerned and didn't want to apply to CERB because he was afraid it would negatively affect his immigration process; technically you are not allowed to take federal money or government aid while you are applying for residency. But he was also thinking maybe they have some exceptional measures that take the pandemic into account. Also, in the US if you are applying for a Green Card and you are getting food stamps or federal aid, as of a couple of weeks ago it is a new law by the Trump administration, it will negatively impact you. [Note: The conversations have been edited for clarity, length, and grammatical mistakes. They have also been edited thematically, however the dates of these utterances are noted above each section.]
16 April 2020 Sanaz: In order to fully grasp our current situation, we have to use different perspectives ,and situate them vis-à-vis a historical backdrop. In the case of the United States, where I currently am,the nationlistic/media response is extremely militarized. For instance, all the pandemic-related death cases are compared to those of 9/11 instead of, for example, the HIV pandemic which was a total disaster with the way it was handled by the US government. Thousands of people also have died due to the inaction of the government with the lobbied protection of pharmaceutical companies during the Opioid Crisis. It is really interesting if we connect our experience with the ones that have been historicised and institutionalized, and see what examples have been used (nationally). In the case of the US, they are always tethering COVID to a recent war, there is no other example used to contextualize COVID There has barely been a mention of other pandemics or epidemics or public health crises, rather the state and the media tend to exemplify US military interventions and invasions for the American public. There is always a move to project our post-pandemic futures with these mediated histories pulled into our current conversations. [Note: The conversations have been edited for clarity, length, and grammatical mistakes. They have also been edited thematically, however the dates of these utterances are noted above each section.]
16 April 2020 Varda: Does anyone have any views on what Premier Legault said about buying Quebec products? On one hand, it is a good idea because we need to start thinking local and shrink down global corporate culture but on the other hand it's also a way to perpetuate the rhetoric of nationalism. Kanwal: Don’t you think nationalism is always a standard reaction to a crisis? It’s a different form of nationalism. It’s either religious nationalism, or capitalistic nationalism. Nima: The idea of nationalism is emerging in different and stricter ways, like closing borders and the economy. What are the limits of nationalism? When I think about history and the movements that were inspired by nationalists, I think about anti-colonial movements since the 1950s and 1960s, when forces like anti-colonial elites were standing outside the imperial matrix of power. And I understand that in terms of politics and economy there are exceptions. When you think about history and when you think about what is happening now. For example, Cuba is among those harshly sanctioned by the US while helping other countries in crisis. These are inspiring exceptions also in terms of how these forms of governance who resisted the capitalist order or have been left out of the global market are responding to the COVID-19 situation, and so when we think about history, these are the examples we can think about. [Note: The conversations have been edited for clarity, length, and grammatical mistakes. They have also been edited thematically, however the dates of these utterances are noted above each section.]
16 April 2020 Nima: I have been reading a lot these days about how people respond to these kinds of inquiries - how they are trying to rearticulate what they were doing in the past and how they are approaching the future, especially in artmaking and education. Some are following institutional methods in terms of following the same course, putting it online. I understand this has to happen in terms of how institutions expect and want to continue a sense of normalcy in terms of the activities and evaluation in art. But it’s also good to think about these fundamental questions in terms of the more abstract foundational questions. Sanaz: Does anyone have other perspectives on how different institutions have worked before, any online sources? How are they handling resources in terms of their current programming or forthcoming programs that have been paused? Resources for the artists who have been involved with the project that have been put on hold, how are they managing? If you have any observations from your networks that you could share... Mikhel: Mine are all very pessimistic, I think about the financial crash of 2008, when we witnessed a bunch of institutions severing relationships with artists, like commercial gallerists, for example, with written contracts with artists to be delivered and signed who just abandoned these connections and left the artists out on their own with no funds. And I am curious to see essentially the same thing repeating, especially within the types of institutions I have worked with like educational institutions. I talked with people both at OCAD and ACAD and it's dire in both of these art colleges, there will certainly not be new hires for several years to come and they have already started cutting off support to art historical and critical pedagogical faculty. Fears and Anxieties: Reflections on Job Precarity and the Future in Art History and Academia8/23/2020 [Note: The conversations have been edited for clarity, length, and grammatical mistakes. They have also been edited thematically, however the dates of these utterances are noted above each section.] 9 April 2020 Sanaz: The other thing that I am concerned about is the future of job prospects. I was already pessimistic about getting into a post-PhD market. What is going to happen with institutions that were already in the midst of a crisis of neo-liberalized academia? And now what will happen to students involved with them? I know for instance some universities have actually halted their admission for this year. It’s important for us to also share this information about career/life consequences for other artists or cultural workers to have a prospect of what may happen and what is at stake in the next couple of months. Mikhel: And in fact the next couple of years! In the Canadian context, since I work with artist-run centers a lot, we are going to see a crunch happen sooner than later. And for those of us that rely on that for some amount of income, it's a scary prospect . And like you Sanaz, I have had a couple of projects that have been wiped off the slate for this season. And ... yeah, I have no expectation to be able to do that - to make up that work! Varda: But when you say that MOMA is putting everything online, then shouldn't we really be thinking of the function of things in the first place? How do we understand the function of institutions and these objects from the onset? And how do we re-contextualize it? Despite a critique that is present in all of our work on institutions, we obviously rely on them, for obvious reasons. But maybe, this is a good time for thinking about possible alternative spaces? Are there alternatives out there that we can look for, so we can start discussing them and bringing them into our talks? |
AuthorThe Graduate Teach-in Group, 2020 ArchivesCategories |