Abante v birch communications settlement

Working the Margins of Community-Based Adult Learning

INTERNATIONAL ISSUES IN ADULT EDUCATION

Volume 19

Series Editor: Peter Mayo, University of Malta, Msida, Malta

Editorial Advisory Board: Stephen Brookfield, University of St Thomas, Minnesota, USA Waguida El Bakary, American University in Cairo, Egypt Budd L. Hall, University of Victoria, BC, Canada Astrid Von Kotze, University of Natal, South Africa Alberto Melo, University of the Algarve, Portugal Lidia Puigvert-Mallart, CREA-University of Barcelona, Spain Daniel Schugurensky, Arizona State University, USA Joyce Stalker, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand/Aotearoa Juha Suoranta, University of Tampere, Finland

Scope: This international book series attempts to do justice to adult education as an ever expanding field. It is intended to be internationally inclusive and attract writers and readers from different parts of the world. It also attempts to cover many of the areas that feature prominently in this amorphous field. It is a series that seeks to underline the global dimensions of adult education, covering a whole range of perspectives. In this regard, the series seeks to fill in an international void by providing a book series that complements the many journals, professional and academic, that exist in the area. The scope would be broad enough to comprise such issues as ‘Adult Education in specific regional contexts’, ‘Adult Education in the Arab world’, ‘Participatory Action Research and Adult Education’, ‘Adult Education and Participatory Citizenship’, ‘Adult Education and the World Social Forum’, ‘Adult Education and Disability’, ‘Adult Education and the Elderly’, ‘Adult Education in Prisons’, ‘Adult Education, Work and Livelihoods’, ‘Adult Education and Migration’, ‘The Education of Older Adults’, ‘Southern Perspectives on Adult Education’, ‘Adult Education and Progressive Social Movements’, ‘Popular Education in Latin America and Beyond’, ‘Eastern European perspectives on Adult Education’, ‘An Anti-Racist Agenda in Adult Education’, ‘Postcolonial perspectives on Adult Education’, ‘Adult Education and Indigenous Movements’, ‘Adult Education and Small States’. There is also room for single country studies of Adult Education provided that a market for such a study is guaranteed.

Working the Margins of Community-Based Adult Learning The Power of Arts-Making in Finding Voice and Creating Conditions for Seeing/Listening

Edited by Shauna Butterwick University of British Columbia, Canada

and

Carole Roy St. Francis Xavier University, Canada

A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN: 978-94-6300-481-7 (paperback) ISBN: 978-94-6300-482-4 (hardback) ISBN: 978-94-6300-483-1 (e-book)

Published by: Sense Publishers, P.O. Box 21858, 3001 AW Rotterdam, The Netherlands https://www.sensepublishers.com/

All chapters in this book have undergone peer review.

About the cover image:

Let’s Go to the People’s Place, 2011 92 × 150 cm, Gobelins tapestry of wool

Tapestry designed and woven by Murray Gibson; based on artworks by members from L’Arche Antigonish, Nova Scotia: Michael Boddy, Tommy Landry, Lisa Leuschner, Mary Anne MacKinnon, Cory Pelly, and Matthew Wright.

Commissioned by The People’s Place Library, Antigonish, Nova Scotia.

Photographer: Jeffrey C. Parker

Printed on acid-free paper

All Rights Reserved © 2016 Sense Publishers

No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.

https://www.sensepublishers.com/
v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements vii

Introduction ix Shauna Butterwick and Carole Roy

Section 1: Telling Our Story through Visual Arts

1. Feminist Arts-Based Adult Education with Homeless and Street-Involved Women 3 Darlene E. Clover

2. “I Still Have My Hands”: Rural Women, Depression, and Zines 15 Paula Cameron

3. Weaving Community Together: Learning at the Loom 27 Murray Gibson

4. A Psychotherapist Brings Art-Making to Patients in Zimbabwe: The Gift of Presence 39 Brian Nichols

Section 2: Creative Expression: Increasing Understanding between Communities

5. Amplifying Voices: Film Festivals, New Perspectives, Critical Reflection, and Inspiration 51 Carole Roy

6. Through the Lens of Transformative Learning: A Photovoice Pilot Project with Persons with Diverse Abilities in Belize 61 Beverly A. Hoffman

7. Meeting on the River of Life: Fostering Loyalist and Mohawk Exchanges through the Arts 75 Bryan Bowers

8. Voice, Identity, and Community: The Possibilities and Challenges of Facilitating Arts-Based Engagement 89 Kim Villagante

9. The Art Peace Project 103 Gordon Mitchell

TABLE OF CONTENTS

vi

Section 3: Enacting & Embodying

10. Speaking Truth to Power: The Political Fashion Shows of Filipino Activists 117 Shauna Butterwick and Marilou Carrillo (with Kim Villagante)

11. Fractured Fables: A Prison Puppet Project 133 Ingrid Hansen and Peter Balkwill

12. The Park Bench Players: Telling Stories of Living with Mental Illness with Sincerity, Humour, and Respect 145 Verna MacDonald

13. Telling Old Stories in New Ways: Popular Theatre in Western Kenya 157 Jan Selman and John Battye

14. A Mother/Daughter Distance Dance: Virtually Connecting Incarcerated Mothers and Their Daughters through Choreography 169 Elizabeth Johnson

Conclusion: The Strands and the Braid 181 Randee Lipson Lawrence

Contributors 189

vii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We are inspired by the creativity and dedication of artists, community arts facilitators and adult educators who work with the arts in community settings or as researchers. Their vibrant practices offer hope in challenging times when divisions are often exacerbated. Yet, through the arts, we find pockets where efforts are made to communicate across differences with respect and sincerity.

We thank all the authors who so enthusiastically contributed to this collection. We are also especially thankful to Trina Davenport for her help in the selection of the cover image of the tapestry by Murray Gibson and L’Arche folks, and to Murray for allowing us to use it on the cover. We are grateful that Randee Lawrence agreed to review the book and write the concluding chapter. Thanks also go to Jessica Egbert for assisting with reviewing the final proofs and working with authors.

We also thank the team at Sense Publishers, Peter de Liefde for his openness, Jolanda Karada for her reliability and professionalism, and all the people who work behind the scene in the creation of this book.

ix

SHAUNA BUTTERWICK AND CAROLE ROY

INTRODUCTION

OUR ORIENTATION AND INTENTIONS

A dynamic and vibrant pluralistic democracy involves communicative practices where the voices of all citizens are included and considered important. Some groups and individuals, however, which are positioned on the margins (due to structural inequalities) have had a harder time expressing themselves and being heard. The margin, as Denis Donoghue (1983) says, is also “the place for those feelings and intuitions which daily life doesn’t have a place for and mostly seems to suppress” (p. 129). Our dream for this volume was to gather stories from the margins and explore how various art and creative forms of expression can enable the voices of underrepresented individuals and communities to take shape and form. Voice is not enough however, voices and stories and truths must be heard, must be listened to. And so the stories gathered here also speak to how creative processes enable conditions for listening and the development of empathy for other perspectives, which is essential for democracy. This orientation to listening is one that Susan Bickford (1996) pays particular attention to; she argues that listening is a crucial aspect of pluralistic democracies along with the development of empathy. Listening, not just speaking, “is what unites us, and we accomplish this through the exercise of empathy” (p. 13).

Artistic and creative expression can enliven our empathy with others and build relations of solidarity. While there are various orientations to the notion of solidarity, we align with a decolonizing perspective. As Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández (2012) argues:

Decolonization is about challenging the very idea of what it means to be human, and by extension, the logics of inclusion and exclusion that enforce social boundaries, including notions of social, political, and civic solidarity. It is about imagining human relations that are premised on the relationship between difference and interdependency, rather than similarity and a rational calculation of self-interests. (p. 49)

Artistic expression allows insights into particular situations; audiences are often more emotionally open to creative representations than other forms of communication. As feminist philosopher Martha Nussbaum notes, “as we tell stories about the lives of others, we learn how to imagine what another creature might feel in response to various events. At the same time, we identify with the other creature and

x

learn something about ourselves” (in Harmon, 2002, p. 176). At times empathy also provides impetus for action and the arts can also communicate ideas and emotions in a way that provokes engagement and responses.

Creative and arts-based forms of expression, many believe, are powerful forms of adult learning, engagement, and community building because they engage our imaginations. As Maxine Greene (1995) has articulated:

Imagination is what, above all, makes empathy possible. It is what enables us to cross the empty spaces between ourselves and those we teachers have called “other” […] imagination … permits us to give credence to alternative realities. It allows us to break with the taken for granted, to set aside familiar distinctions and definitions. (p. 3)

In this book we honour the use of the arts and creative expression as ways to enable underrepresented groups to communicate their experiences, create audiences who can learn from and bear witness to those experiences, thus building “the capacity to invent visions of what should be and what might be in our deficient society, on the streets where we live, in our schools” (Greene, 1995, p. 5).

ADDING TO THE CONVERSATION

There are adult educators and community activists and artists working in a wide range of settings who promote the use of the arts as ways to communicate individual and collective perspectives and provide opportunities for exchanges in multicultural and pluralistic societies. Some of these stories have been gathered together in a number of recent publications that have focused on the contribution the arts make to community and to a more just society, including a series of books on the arts and education published by Lesley University. Several of those volumes relate to this project, including: Dancing the Data (Bagley & Cancienne, 2002) which focused mainly on using alternative forms of creative expression in research, Passion and Pedagogy (Mirochnik & Sherman, 2002) which was oriented to teaching art to children and teachers, and The Arts, Education and Social Change (Powell & Speiser, 2005) which explored therapeutic and transformative work through the arts.

There have been two volumes (Lawrence, 2005; Hayes & Yorks, 2007) on the arts in adult learning published by New Directions in Adult and Continuing Education (NDCAE) a well-known publication in the field of adult education. In the 2005 NDCAE special issue, chapters depicted a variety of art forms including poetry, storytelling, photography, theater, and autobiographical writing created by ordinary people. A key theme was illustrating how these art forms were mechanisms for releasing the imagination in a variety of adult learning settings. The 2007 NDCAE special issue continued with the exploration, making the case for how the arts are “integral to the learning process” (p. 90). Chapters explored how the arts have been used in prisons, community development, and with young adults, concluding that

S. BUTTERWICK & C. ROY

xi

“the arts can bridge boundaries separating people and keep those boundaries porous” (Hayes, 2007, p. 2).

How arts- and crafts-based learning can and should be considered as a site of overtly politically oriented adult learning was a strong thread running throughout Darlene Clover and Joyce Stalker’s 2007 co-edited book, The Arts and Social Justice – Re-crafting Adult Education and Community Cultural Leadership. As with NDCAE volumes, Clover and Stalker’s book covered a broad range of social justice concerns using various arts practices such as clowning, graffiti, story-telling and other literary arts, performative art, fabric art including weaving, tapestries and quilt making, and popular theatre. Here in Canada, Deborah Barndt’s collected edition VIVA – Community Arts and Popular Education in the Americas was published in 2011; the volume examined the power of community arts projects in five countries adding an important international dimension to the conversation. It documented the results of a transnational exchange with multiple partners in Panama, Nicaragua, Mexico, the United States and Canada. Similar to earlier publications, this text sought to interrupt notions of art as elitist and created only by individuals, illustrating “the integration of art in its infinite cultural forms into daily rituals, community building, and movements for social change” (p. viii). In 2012 the “Aesthetic Practices and Adult Education” was the theme of a special issue of International Journal of Lifelong Education (edited by Clover, Sanford, & Butterwick) which was later published in 2013 by Routledge as a book. As with others, that special issue explored how arts-based processes were integral to adult learning and community engagement in a variety of contexts with a variety of learners.

AND NOW…

The focus of this book is on the practice of arts-based adult education that occurs at the edges or margins. We solicited carefully chosen examples, including some international, of how various art-making practices (poetry, visual art, film, theatre, music, dance) can support individuals and groups at the edges of mainstream society to tell their story and speak their truths, often the first steps to valuing one’s identity and organizing for change.

In addition to some narratives from academics working in the arena, we have invited community-based artists to share stories bringing these creative endeavors into the wider conversation about the power of arts-making to open up spaces for dialogue across differences. Furthermore, we have also sought contributions that, while taking up the category of margin as a site of practice and a social location in relation to hierarchies of privilege and penalty, also trouble the assumed binary of margin and centre. Art practices from the edges can expand our visions by encouraging critical thinking and broadening our worldview. At this time on the earth when we face many serious challenges the arts can stimulate hope, openness, and individual and collective imaginations for preferred futures. Inspiration comes from people who, at the edges of their community, communicate their experience.

INTRODUCTION

xii

S. BUTTERWICK & C. ROY

The art practices used by adult educators in this collection are as varied as the groups involved. Darlene Clover writes about visual arts used with street-involved women in Victoria while Verna MacDonald reports on a successful play with people who live with mental illness and Paula Cameron discusses the use of zines with young women who experienced severe depression. Brian Nichols reflects on his annual visits to a hospital in Zimbabwe where he provides art making, films, and massage to people with HIV while Jan Selman and John Battye recount the use of popular theatre in Kenya. Murray Gibson tells the story of tapestry making with residents of l’Arche while Beverly Hoffman writes of a photovoice project with people with disabilities in Belize. Elizabeth Johnson describes the dance created by women prisoners and their daughters in Arizona while Ingrid Hansen and Peter Balkwill used puppetry with prisoners in British Columbia. Bryan Bowers writes of an experiment in peacemaking with Indigenous and settlers communities using visual arts and historical artefacts while Gordon Mitchell examines the use of arts with immigrants to Europe and with residents of South Africa. Kim Villagante reflects on her practice of mural and music making with Filipino youth while she, Shauna Butterwick, and Marilou Carrillo write about fashion shows with Filipino women immigrants to Canada. Carole Roy suggests that documentary film festivals can bring diverse perspectives and experiences to new audiences.

The results are inspiring: from exploring new means of expression and coming to voice, to establishing new identities or re-establishing relationships between separated mothers and daughters, to building a sense of community with immigrant youth or among people who live with mental illnesses, to challenging stereotypes of immigrants or people with disabilities. Others found greater understanding from audiences or developed a collective critique as immigrant women. In the wake of these art projects participants were left with a more positive sense of themselves and greater confidence and resilience, as well as tools for reflecting on, expressing and valorizing their experiences.

The book is divided into three sections; the first part, “Telling Our Story through Visual Arts” includes four chapters that, while diverse with respect to the location of the creative activities and the issues being explored, all speak to the power of visual expression, such as photography, zines, tapestry and art therapy, as a medium for telling stories not often told nor heard. In the second section, “Creative Expression: Increasing Understanding between Communities” the power of film festivals and documentaries, photovoice, exhibits and community dialogue, as well as creating community murals and using photography is explored. In the final section of the book “Enacting and Embodying” yet more creative processes are explored including political fashion shows, puppetry, community theatre and dance. We have invited Randee Lawrence to review all of the chapters and offer some concluding thoughts reflecting on the themes that thread their way through these various stories and what they add to the growing conversation and appreciation for arts-based engagement. She brings a strong aesthetic sensibility and extensive experience in using arts-based approaches in her own teaching and research.

xiii

INTRODUCTION

IN CONCLUSION

We have captured a few examples in this book, but we know that the field is even more diverse and there are other inspiring stories we need to hear. lliot Eisner (2010), well known for his advocacy for arts-based approaches, points to how “the kinds of nets we know how to weave determine the kinds of nets we cast. These nets, in turn, determine the kinds of fish we catch” (p. 49). Our hope for this book was to cast a bit of a different net and as a result, capture stories that might not have been told. We invite others to use different nets and thus contribute to the growing literature and conversation on the use of arts in adult learning, community engagement, and democratic practices. We hope this volume encourages other—academics, artists, community organizers—to document their practices and share their wisdom.

REFERENCES

Bagley, C., & Cancienne, M. B. (2002). Dancing the data (Vol. 5). Lesley University Series in Arts and Education.

Bickford, S. (1996). Listening, conflict and citizenship: Dissonance of democracy. New York, NY: Cornell University Press.

Clover, D., & Stalker, J. (Eds.). (2007). The arts and social justice – Re-crafting adult education and community cultural leadership. Leicester, England: National Institute for Adult and Continuing Education.

Clover, D., Sanford, K., & Butterwick, S. (Eds.). (2013). Aesthetic practices and adult education. New York, NY: Routledge.

Donaghue, D. (1983). The arts without mystery. London: British Broadcasting Corporation. Gaztambide-Fernández, R. (2012). Decolonization and the pedagogy of solidarity. Decolonization:

Indigeneity, Education & Society, 1(1), 41–67. Eisner, E. (2010). Cognition and curriculum. In H. Austen (Ed.), Artistry unleashed: A guide to pursuing

great performance in work and life. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Greene, M. (1995). Releasing the imagination: Essays on education, the arts, and social change. San

Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, a Wiley Imprint. Hayes, S., & Yorks, L. (2007). Arts and societal learning: Transforming communities socially, politically,

and culturally. Special issue, New directions for adult and continuing education, 116 (pp. 3–11). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, a Wiley Imprint.

Harmon, J. K. (Ed.). (2002). Take my advice: Letters to the next generation from people who know a thing or two. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Lawrence. R. (2005). Artistic ways of knowing: Expanded opportunities for teaching and learning. Special issue, New directions for adult and continuing education, 107 (pp. 1–2). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, a Wiley Imprint.

Mirochnik, E., & Sherman, D. (2002). Passion and pedagogy: Relation, creation, and transformation in teaching (Vol. 1). New York, NY: Lesley University Series in Arts and Education.

Powell, M. C., & Speiser, V. (2005). The arts, education, and social change – Little signs of hope (Vol. 9). New York, NY: Lesley University Series in Arts and Education.

SECTION 1

TELLING OUR STORY THROUGH VISUAL ARTS

S. Butterwick & C. Roy (Eds.), Working the Margins of Community-Based Adult Learning, 3–14. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

DARLENE E. CLOVER

1. FEMINIST ARTS-BASED ADULT EDUCATION WITH HOMELESS AND STREET-INVOLVED WOMEN

The arts have both a social significance and a social function, which might be defined as the transformation of desire into reality, reality into dreams and change, and back again. (Lucy Lippard, 1983, p. 5)

This chapter is about the brutal reality of poverty and homelessness in the lives of women who suffer from mental illness, have experienced violence or trauma, or have simply taken one too many tight economic turns and found themselves destitute. An increasing number of women are subject to violence and rank amongst the ‘visible’ homeless across Canada today, yet they are frequently and paradoxically, invisible. This chapter is also about aesthetics, about art, and their role in deepening personal and social connections, transforming how poor and marginalised women understand and negotiate reality, enabling them to imaginatively construct new possibilities, and apply these back to reality in various ways. Therefore, this chapter is about feminist adult education and its juncture with art practice in what Walby (2011) calls, the interests of women.

For a period of two years, I was involved in a feminist, arts-based adult education project with approximately 20 homeless/street-involved women in the city of Victoria, British Columbia. I say ‘approximate’ because women tended to ebb and flow in the project for social, economic, and health reasons. I use both homeless and street-involved terms, as this was how the women in the project described themselves, as many did not live rough. I begin this chapter by locating myself in the context of this project, and by locating this project in discourses of women’s homelessness, and feminist arts-based adult education. Following this, I describe the workshops, and the collective and individual aesthetic artworks that emerged. I weave these descriptions through the looms of feminist arts-based and adult education thinking, to illustrate their purpose and aims. The final section of the chapter highlights some of the successes of this project, at personal, social and institutional levels. It also explores the complexities, challenges, and outlines lessons learned. These types of creative, pedagogical projects are not a panacea; they do not stop homelessness and neoliberalism in their tracks; they do not prevent women from reverting back to problematic ways that can prove fatal. I argue, however, that when understood in more local and less aggrandising ways, projects such as this can alter understandings and change some realities (Manicom & Walters, 2012; Walby, 2011).

D. E. CLOVER

4

LOCATING MYSELF; CONTEXTUALISING THE PROJECT

I am a feminist adult educator who works in community settings, facilitating workshops and engaging in participatory forms of research, and in the university, as a professor of adult education and leadership at the University of Victoria. To me, feminist adult education is a means to render visible and challenge sexism and other ideologies and inter-related acts of oppression that affect women in their lives, and thereby, affect society. I also identify as an arts-based adult educator, a discourse I have helped to shape and expand, along with other feminist adult educators (e.g. Clover & Sanford, 2012; Clover, Butterwick, & Sanford, 2012; Clover & Stalker, 2007). I have come to view the arts as critical, creative forces in education, learning and knowledge mobilisation. They are at times gentle, nurturing, and therapeutic; they are also, at times, provocative, oppositional and explosive in their power to activate the critical and defiant imagination. The imagination is central to arts-based teaching and learning as it creates opportunities “to explore experiences other than our own, in ways that can expand our comprehension” (Thompson, 2002, p. 31). For Mohanty (2012), the “imagination is the most subversive thing a public can have” (p. vii), since it is what allows us credence to alternatives of neoliberal and gendered normatives which we are being programmed to believe. As Collins (2006) reminds us, it is vital “to keep in mind the significance of the aesthetic dimension within a politically oriented emancipatory pedagogy [as it can be] an [expression] of support for a more just society” (p. 125).

The two-year feminist arts-based adult education project with a group of homeless and street-involved women began following a course I had taught on arts-based adult education. The course explored feminist aesthetics and pedagogical theories, community arts projects, and arts-based and informed research practices. Corrina, a student who had taken the course, and who worked for a social service agency that served the needs of the homeless, approached me one afternoon. She had taken the course out of interest, but the power of arts-based approaches had now come alive as she considered the outcomes of a recent needs assessment her agency had undertaken to explore ideas for new programming.

The many homeless/street-involved women who responded to the survey requested three things. One was for a women’s programme. The number of women living in sub-standard housing or on the streets in Canada, and particularly in the small but wealthy city of Victoria, is growing. Yet this phenomenon is little understood. Homelessness is still framed through a male-orientated lens – ‘sleeping rough’ – whereas women’s homelessness and street involvement differs in many ways (Lenon, 2000; Scott, 2007). The outcome within many agencies that support the homeless is ’gender neutrality’. Batliwala (2013) reminds us that although there is no universal gendered experience, all experience is gendered.

The second request by the women was for an opportunity to explore their creativity and artistic sides. Illeris (2009) reminds us that neo-liberal discourses of lifelong

FEMINIST ARTS-BASED ADULT EDUCATION

5

learning are not about empowerment but rather, individualized commitments to learn, to develop, and to change according to the market. For the homeless, the educational scope is limited to one of employability, training to acquire the skills necessary to enter the workforce and become ‘productive’ members of society. Adult education is not meant to be used to engage them in what Greene (2005) satirically called ‘the frivolous pursuit of art’. Yet cultural activity is integral to building a sense of community, to self-worth, and personal and collective identity. The arts encourage learning, respect, understanding, and “bring pleasure and gaiety to our lives” (Wyman, 2004, p. 14). They are integral to what it is to be human, not add-ons to be enjoyed by those with the privilege to do so.

A third request by the women was for the development of ‘non-threatening ways’ to speak to the public about the realities of homelessness and poverty. Although many people in Victoria support homeless shelters, transitions houses, safe injection sites and low-income housing, there is an equally large, and often more vocal group, that rages against homeless women, portraying them as too lazy to get a ‘real’ job, worthless prostitutes, or as ‘choosing’ to be addicts or alcoholics and live off the backs of taxpayers. Newspaper headlines frequently include comments about ‘cleaning up the streets’, as if those living there were bits of trash to be collected and discarded. How do we more effectively tackle this ignorance and the negative stereotypes it perpetuates?

Corrina and I began a series of discussions with community-based artists, and the homeless/street involved women at the agency to develop a project that would combine the three requests. Everyone was enthusiastic and agreed art would be central to the project; everyone was firm that we would all engage in the art making; everyone was firm that I would act as a spokesperson, an advocate, on their behalf with the agency and other external forces; everyone was determined, despite fears, that we would do something public.

Approximately 20 women took part in the project, participating as they could over the two years. These women varied in artistic ability and cultural heritage: Caucasian, Metis, First Nations, South African to name but a few. The majority were highly educated, with university degrees – in one case a PhD – and they were born in or near Victoria, or had been living in the city for years before becoming homeless. These facts disrupt two stereotypical discourses of those who live in poverty in Victoria: (1) the homeless gravitate here for the climate; (2) the homeless are illiterate or otherwise uneducated because if they were not, they would not be in their current position. What had brought all the women to their current status was some form of violence or trauma, mostly at the hands of men, although the violent legacy of residential schools played its part. In a recent global report, UN Women (2013) found that 35% of women worldwide have experienced physical and/or sexual violence by a male, although national figures bring this closer to 70%. Most women surveyed for that report, admitted to, and/or exhibited, mental health problems, exacerbated from living on the streets.

D. E. CLOVER

6

THE STRUCTURE AND ARTS OF THE PROJECT

An important framework of the project was cultural democracy, defined as active participation in the creation’ of artistic works, both individually and collectively (McGauley, 2006). This does not negate the value of visiting museums and reflecting upon or engaging with arts and exhibitions, as this too can be a valuable aesthetic practice (e.g. Styles, 2009). Hyland-Russell and Groen (2012) illustrate how these cultural sites develop greater community literacy and a sense of belonging in marginalised learners. This is also important to keep in mind since a key element of the project was the public exhibition of our work in art galleries. But in this project, a cultural democracy emphasis enabled us to be the creators, actors, and meaning makers of culture/art. Through direct experience with art making we positioned it as a means to both personal and collective development (e.g. McGauley, 2006; Thompson, 2002).

The first year or phase of the project we titled Warrior Women Garden of Art in reference to the number of Indigenous women, as well as our resistant and pro-active natures. The second phase we called Phoenix Rising, a metaphor of growth and change. The project consisted of workshops, four hours per day, three days per week. One key feature of the workshops was its flexible format. We needed to respond to the differing needs, and to the unpredictability in the lives of poor and homeless/ street involved women. A second feature was food. Among other things, finding food takes a great deal of time in these women’s lives so this had to be dealt with. This combination is commonly known as the ‘bread and roses’ approach, responding to the physical need for sustenance with the need to be creative, in our case (e.g. Thompson, 2002).

Six artist-educators – Josie Broker, Suzanne Jackson, Sasha Collins, Candace McKivett, Paulette Francoeur, Shylene Schlackl – facilitated the majority of the workshops, although Corrina and I also facilitated three collective project workshops. Collectively we had skills in quilt, mask and plaster-cast making, collage, poetry, photography, and mosaics. Individual artworks included small sculptures, poems, collages, paintings, bead work, miniature mosaics, masks, and a traditional indigenous dress assembled from plastic bags and aptly named Disposable people; Disposable culture. Hundreds of Indigenous women have actually been murdered or gone missing over the past few decades, a horrific fact that sees little or no concern from either the police or governments (Taber, 2015). Collective works included a quilt, a mural, a life-size marionette, a decoupage on wood, and a tile mosaic featuring our Phoenix taking flight.

By engaging in individual art making, although this was always done in a group setting with conversations flowing, we allowed for our personal creativity; by engaging in collective art making we built relationships, collaborations and developed our collective voice. Therefore, the project focussed on individual concerns, and personal challenges, but it was equally a space to broaden our discussions to the

FEMINIST ARTS-BASED ADULT EDUCATION

7

politics of homelessness and violence, and issues of gender. There were tensions around these, and I will address them in the next section.

At times, we focussed more on the ‘process’ of creating and our political/collective statements. One example is Busted But Not Broken.

Figure 1. Busted But Not Broken

As illustrated in the above image, she was a life-size marionette, a somewhat haphazard collection of plaster casts of all our body parts (mine was the leg). Busted was strung together with a piece of rope to symbolise the ties that can bind us as women, barbed wire to symbolise violence and pain, and a heavy chain to symbolise the weight of these in our lives. The feather boa was illustrative of the moments of gaiety, fun, and lightness in our lives, but equally in the process of the marionette’s creation. This was one of the merriest of times as we slapped wet plaster across each other and jokingly haggled about what body parts were our best, frequently in relation to how society would assess them in reference to the glossy magazines we used in the collage making.

Other pieces, however, were of much higher quality, such as the mask below.

D. E. CLOVER

8

Figure 2. The many faces we present mask series

The artist-educators were gifted at teaching skills and techniques that augmented the artistry and story of the works. Mullin (2003) sees engaging with artistry as critical to any arts-based project, as it helps to bring respect to feminist works. Although there are important challenges to any over-emphasis on the product (artwork) (e.g. Clover, 2012; Felshin, 2005), we were reminded through their careful instruction, that “to consciously execute something with less skill than one actually commands on the grounds that this is good enough for community work – surely the insult inherent in such a decision cancels any democratic intention that might motivate it” (Adams & Goldard, 2006, p. 23). The artists illustrated how to put images together to convey multiple meanings, and to create something more symbolic or metaphoric, rather than purely literal (although we did that too), and didactic. An example of this was the beautiful dress made of plastic bags I noted earlier; artistry was equally important, as our work would hit the public stage.

PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT AND ACTIVIST ART

Reaching out to the public, as noted earlier, was a key component of the project. The artworks were our ‘non-threatening’ way to engage with the people of Victoria, about women and the issues of homelessness. They were ‘their’ stories; but they were also our stories. Cole and McIntyre (2006) argued the arts were powerful tools of public engagement because of their ability to involve “an audience in meaning making and knowledge construction” (pp. 60–61). Communications with the public around complex or controversial issues such as women’s homelessness and poverty need to be more than simply didactic transferences of information (Chwe, 1998). Linked to the above comments around quality, it was also important to us that the project be seen as ‘art’, and not simply dismissed as some ‘nice’ project as can often happen with collective community arts projects (e.g. Adams & Goldard, 2006; Felshin, 2009). One of the most empowering aspects of the project for the women, as the women talked about time and again and demonstrated each time they spoke to various audiences, was the acquisition of an identity as an artist and the artist

FEMINIST ARTS-BASED ADULT EDUCATION

9

skills they were acquiring. We therefore chose to exhibit the works in ‘traditional’ art spaces.

The first was held in a performative art centre and the second, an art gallery in Chinatown. I will return to why we moved the location. Using the art gallery and cultural space firmly positioned our work as ‘art’ (Felshin, 2005; Mullins, 2003). But ours was what Mullin (2003) calls ‘activist art’, art that is political in its content and actively seeking audience participation and dialogue in its mission.

Over 300 people attended each of the two gala openings, and hundreds more went through the exhibitions over the weeks they remained on display. The audience included local politicians, artists, university students, professors, teachers, small business owners, homeless men and women, social and community development workers and a variety of others who were simply intrigued by the idea of the show. We talked with them about the project, about homelessness, about gender, and about art. Some women read aloud their poems; others discussed their individual pieces; others reflected on the collective pieces. The media put in a fine showing. Four articles appeared in daily and weekly newspapers. A piece appeared on local television. There is perhaps no greater testament to the power of the exhibitions than an article that appeared in the Times Colonist by a young woman who attended the final opening:

The women say they are rising from the ashes…while browsing the silent auction table…I was approached by a researcher. She asks if street woman is a term I usually associate with artists and I shamefully have to admit the truth, which is no. There is so little opportunity for women in poverty to have their voices heard and their journey openly offered for the public. I normally pride myself on being a particularly sociologically aware teen, but I now see

Figure 3. Odette Laramee, Exhibition Attendee and Master Student, and Debroah Norton, Featuring Artist

D. E. CLOVER

10

that awareness and up-close-and-personal are vastly different. Judgement is an act that is grotesque and all-consuming, hovering like a festering cloud of smog…I find myself glad that at least for tonight, there are no barriers. (2007, May 3, p. C6)

SUCCESSES, CHALLENGES AND LESSONS LEARNED

As we poured through the comment books we had available at each exhibition, we came across an interesting entry: “I think the women demonstrated confidence. Those who spoke publicly really showed that they were not very different from everyone else attending this event.” It was the ‘not very different from everyone else’ that we found interesting and it ran parallel to 22 other entries that noted how ‘surprised’ people had been to find these women had talent, that they were ‘like us’, that they were ‘artists’. As the excerpt above in the media noted, homeless women are seldom cast in anything but patronising or disparaging lights. James and Shadd (2006) call this the practice of stereotyping and they argue it is ubiquitous, used by people “to categorize a vast amount of received information about others. However, stereotyping and in effect essentializing individuals’ identities often lead to blatant misrepresentations which can have serious, negative consequences on individuals and groups” (p. 6). People live in the same community with “lives intertwined socially, culturally, economically and politically” but know little about one another and what they do know is frequently shaped by “rumour, gossip or fear” (p. 4). But no one person, to borrow from Marcuse (1964), is one-dimensional and this became clear to Victorians through this project. As I alluded to above, being and becoming artists was one of the most empowering aspects of the project, not only in the women’s own eyes, but in the eyes of the public. As Doris remarked, “now I want to let everyone know about my art, that I am an artist in my own right.”

One interesting tension in the project was between the process as politics and the process as therapy. These women had experienced extreme trauma. They needed that to be acknowledged and to work through it with the art. Doreen was frequently adamant she only wanted to work on her own pieces, arguing that in a world that lumped everyone together in the basket of ‘homelessness’, she “wanted to be different…my designs, my style of colour, and my beads are different so I stand out.” Being unique was fundamental to her sense of identity and recognition. Individualism is a pervasive “narrative of freedom” (Calhoun, 1995, p. 194) from which the arts are by no means immune (Cunningham, 2001; Felshin, 1995). One artist felt the project had to be about the process of healing and she pushed back hard against making any collective pieces.

But Eccelstone (2004) reminds us that an emphasis on damage and vulnerability can oftentimes compound feelings of disempowerment. Plantenga (2012) adds that

FEMINIST ARTS-BASED ADULT EDUCATION

11

if we want our [women’s] struggle for social change to be a political one, participants should be given the tools to analyse the underlying systems of power that institutionalize and manipulate these identities in ways that justify oppression, discrimination and often violence. (p. 29)

We attempted often in conversations, woven through the making and the products of our labours, to move beyond ‘therapy’, to explore deeper the ideologies and practices that marginalise, oppress, belittle and constrain us as women. Although men in their lives had perpetuated the violence against them, some of the women challenged discourses they felt blamed or separated them from men, siding with the homeless men against other women, and making excuses for their violent actions. While this was difficult to negotiate, and negotiate we had to do, it was not surprising these women would side with those who suffer the same plight, rather than with middle-class women whose situations they see as vastly different. But another issue is that these women themselves seldom collaborated due to the amount of distrust built from living the competitive lives needed to survive the streets. The collective arts projects were the most important forces in the development of greater collaboration, solidarity, and trust amongst these women. In particular, community-based mosaic artist Shylene, was important here. She was adamant that if this project was to do anything it was to help the women become a more cohesive power group. As the women worked together on the Phoenix mosaic Shylene lead discussions around the value of becoming advocates for the homeless – remember that one aspect of the project was to get a women’s program – and mentors to young women. For Batliwala (2014), “the first step in the empowerment process is political awakening and awareness;” to be empowered is to see oneself as both political subject and actor “in a change process” (p. 294). The central comment of the collective mural read: Together we choose to scream in protest—not suffer in silence! Art empowers us! It is easier to retaliate against one of us—harder to retaliate against a group of us!

Many women commented on their new ability to openly share ideas and it was common for them to attribute this to the art as the medium through which this was most manifest:

The art gave us a way to communicate with each other casually, offhandedly even. As you work to create something together or separately, it begins to go deeper. These are by far the most powerful conversations I have had. Hearing the ‘why’s’ behind the ‘what’s’. (Lisa)

What is being expressed here is perhaps what Butterwick and Selman (2003) refer to as “deep listening”, a yearning for a practice more personal, more self- revelatory, more willing to expose and acknowledge…and more willing to express emotion” (p. 13).

Some of our political struggles were lost. The agency was moving to another building and although we argued the phoenix mosaic needed to be visible and central,

D. E. CLOVER

12

and all the other works placed about the foyer, most were tossed and the phoenix ended up on the lower ground floor, sandwiched between the washrooms and the exit door. The women were furious, and it brought them closer. We took the loss and instead goaded the agency into creating and providing funding for a women’s programme. A small victory but a powerful one in the lives of women accustomed to disappointment. Gaining some form of power and control contributes to the process of what Freire (1970) called becoming more fully human.

There were other important lessons learned. As noted above, we held the first year’s workshops in a space over a gallery. It was ideal as it had tables, a kitchen and washroom, and we could leave the supplies there for the duration of the project. But, in other ways, it was also not ideal. It was not in the centre of town and it was not particularly accessible by public transport. Although we gave women bus fare, it complicated things in their already complicated lives.

Year two, we found a space in the centre of town, near the social service agency. We eventually were able to leave the supplies in a locked space, rather than haul them back and forth. However, there was a much bigger challenge: an alcove outside the workshop space was used as a drug injection site. One afternoon, as one woman left the workshop the police stopped her and accused her of dealing drugs. She protested, insisting they go inside and speak to the artists. They refused and took her away. Once we found out we rang the police station and explained the project. We then made nametags to wear so we looked more ‘official’. Both of these actions worked but the experience triggered a trauma throughout the final days of the project and it humbled us to realise that in spite of the empowering potential of this initiative, state power is a persistent reality in the lives of these women.

Finally, as I alluded to in the beginning, the woman who created the beautiful traditional dress, and was so active in the second year of the project, over dosed this past year and died. This is a stark reminder of Canadian society’s, and our own, limitations.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The metaphor of ‘rising’ in the Phoenix mosaic very much symbolised the strength and change that resulted from the project. One of the women, a poet, began an active speaking tour in university classrooms, and for women’s and homeless organisations. Another began her own art practice, which thrives today. Others have found stable housing, and sell their artworks in galleries or on the street.

The project offered a private space to be creative and to have fun. We must “never forget the importance of bringing absolute joy, unjustified by any reason other than its existence” (Wyman, 2004, p. 14). But it also offered a space for active political debate, risk-taking, skills development, and to build new partnerships of trust. Moreover, as Ranciere reminds us, “emancipation is the possibility of a spectator’s gaze other than the one that was programmed” (cited in Lewis, 2013, p. 138). And in

FEMINIST ARTS-BASED ADULT EDUCATION

13

the end, it was this gift we were given, through the public visibility, the quality and the amazing power of art.

REFERENCES

Batliwala, S. (2013). Engaging with empowerment: An intellectual and experimental journey. New Delhi: Women Unlimited.

Butterwick, S., & Selman, J. (2003). Deep listening in a feminist popular theatre project: Upsetting the position of audience in participatory education. Adult Education Quarterly, 54(7), 7–22.

Calhoun, C. (1995). Critical social theory. Oxford: Blackwell. Chwe, M. S. Y. (1998). Culture, circles and commercials: Publicity, common knowledge and social

coordination. Rationality and Science, 10, 47–75. Clover, D. E., & Sanford, K. (Eds.) (2013). Lifelong learning, the arts, and creative cultural engagement

in the contemporary university: International perspectives. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Clover, D. E., & Stalker, J. (Eds.). (2007). The arts and social justice: Re-crafting adult education and community cultural leadership. Leicester: NIACE.

Clover, D. E., Sanford, K., & Butterwick, S. (Eds.). (2013). Aesthetic practice and adult education. Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Taylor & Francis.

Clover, D. E., Butterwick, S., & Collins, L. (In press). Women, adult education and leadership in Canada. Toronto: Thompson Educational Publishing.

Cole, A., & Knowles, J. G. (2008). Arts-informed research. In J. Knowles & A. Cole (Eds.), Handbook of the arts in qualitative research (pp. 55–70). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Collins, M. (2005). The critical legacy: Adult education against the claims of capital. In T. Fenwich, T. Nesbit, & B. Spencer (Eds.), Contexts of adult education: Canadian perspectives (pp. 118–127). Toronto: Thompson Educational Publishing.

Cunningham, B. (2001). A report to the Laidlaw Foundation on community cultural development. Toronto: Laidlaw Foundation.

Ecclestone, K. (2004, November). Developing self-esteem and emotional well-being – Inclusion or intrusion? Adults Learning, 16(3), 11–13.

Eisnor, E. (2008). Persistent tensions in arts-based research. In M. Cahnmann-Taylor & M. R. Siegesmund (Eds.), Arts-based research in education (pp. 16–27). New York, NY & London: Routledge.

Felshin, N. (Ed.). (1995). But is it art: The spirit of art as activism. Seattle, WA: Bay Press. Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Continuum. Greene, M. (1995). Releasing the imagination: Essays on education, the arts, and social change. San

Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Hyland-Russell, T., & Groen, J. (2013). Crossing a cultural divide: Transgressing the margins into

public spaces fosters adult learning. In D. E. Clover & K. Sanford (Eds.), Lifelong learning, the arts and contemporary universities: International perspectives (pp. 42–53). Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Illeris, H. (2009). Museums and galleries as performative sites for lifelong learning: Constructions, deconstructions and reconstructions of audience positions in museum and gallery education. Museum and Society, 4(1), 15–26. Retrieved April 15, 2014, from https://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/ museumstudies/museumsociety/documents/volumes/2illeris.pdf

Lenon, S. (2000). Living on the edge: Women, poverty and homelessness. Canadian Women’s Studies, 20(3), 123–127.

Lewis, T. (2012). The aesthetics of education: Theatre, curiosity, and politics in the work of Jacques Ranciere and Paulo Freire. London: Continuum International Publishing Group.

Lippard, L. (1984). Get the message? A decade of art for social change. New York, NY: E. P. Dutton, Inc. Manicom, L., & Walters, S. (Eds.). (2012). Feminist popular education in transnational debates. New

York, NY: Palgrave MacMillian.

https://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/museumstudies/museumsociety/documents/volumes/2illeris.pdf
https://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/museumstudies/museumsociety/documents/volumes/2illeris.pdf
D. E. CLOVER

14

McGauley, L. (2006). Utopian longings: Romanticism, subversion and democracy in community arts (Unpublished thesis). Laurentian University, Ontario, Canada.

Mohanty, C. (2012). Foreward. In L. Manicom & S. Walters (Eds.), Feminist popular education in transnational debates (pp. vii–x). New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillian.

Mullin, A. (2003). Feminist art and the political imagination. Hypatia, 18(4), 190–213. Plantenga, D. (2012). Shaping the magic: Reflections on some core principles of feminist popular

education. In L. Manicom & S. Walters (Eds.), Feminist popular education in transnational debates (pp. 25–40). New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillian.

Styles, C. (2011). Dialogic learning in the museum space. Ethos, 19(3), 12–20. Taber, N. (2015). Learning gendered militarism in Canada: Lifelong pedagogies of conformity and

resistance. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press. Thompson, J. (2002). Bread and roses: Arts, culture and lifelong learning. Leicester: NIACE. Walby, S. (2011). The future of feminism. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press. Wyman, M. (2004). The defiant imagination. Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre.

Darlene E. Clover Faculty of Education University of Victoria

S. Butterwick & C. Roy (Eds.), Working the Margins of Community-Based Adult Learning, 15–25. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

PAULA CAMERON

2. “I STILL HAVE MY HANDS”

Rural Women, Depression, and Zines

When I am unsure of reality, deranged Unsure of where the tangible ends and intangible begins When I have no sense of having a body, am Disembodied I still have my hands. (Magdeline, zine excerpt, 2011)