another haiku for our time

solace

    clouds trump sun and moon

    warm rain like tears streaming down

    dog-god comforts me

                                              written by rob goetze for rachel,

                             for poem in your pocket day, april 30, 2020

[revision and resistance - kent monkman]

My birthday present just arrived in the mail, and I'm super excited about it:

In collaboration with Kent Monkman and his studio, the Art Canada Institute is publishing a book on the commission and creation of his diptych unveiled at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art this week. Revision & Resistance: mistikôsiwak at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which will be available for sale in March 2020, celebrates Monkman’s groundbreaking paintings with essays by today’s most prominent voices on Indigenous art and Canadian painting. (source: the Art Institute of Canada webpage)

Kent Monkman is a  Cree two-spirited artist living in the Toronto area whose work I've been following for a few years. He combines traditional European painting techniques with Indigenous imagery with critiques of colonization and Eurocentric views of history.

Here is one of the two pieces that he created for the Met:

Read more about the book:
https://aci-iac.ca/news/art-canada-institute-in-collaboration-with-kent-monkman

View my post about Monkman's exhibit, "The Rise and Fall of Civilization", at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary last year.

[rise and fall of civilization - exhibit]

In the late summer of 2019, I visited the Glenbow Museum with one specific goal in mind: to see the exhibit "The Rise and Fall of Civilization" by Kent Monkman, a Cree two-spirit artist based in Toronto.

From the museum's website:

Kent Monkman’s The Rise and Fall of Civilization references the near extinction of the American bison in the 1800s when unsustainable hunting practices, used primarily by white settlers, reduced the number of bison from over 30 million to just a few hundred by the 1880s. During this time, bison or buffalo were hunted for their durable hides and their bones were used for fertilizer and in the manufacture of bone china. The buffalo meat was left to rot, decimating a food source that had sustained Indigenous peoples for generations.

(source) 

Read more at the Glenbow Site: https://www.glenbow.org/exhibitions/kent-monkman-the-rise-and-fall-of-civilization/

The exhibit is long-term at the Glenbow, so be sure to check it out once the pandemic is over.


For a video about one of Monkman's other works, The Deluge, visit:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OqbhG4BX6oU

All photos by rob goetze. (c) 2019.

holy egg!

And now for my contribution to Easter:

[inclusion lens - event management tool]

York University has a great "inclusion lens" event management tool which is very helpful for ensuring that events are as inclusive and accessible to all as possible. And even better, this tool is available to the public!

Each of the four main categories - Planning, Advertising, Implementing and Evaluating - offers a list of questions. Click on any question and it expands to show specific considerations. Click on any consideration and a tip pops up with an explanation or more information.

Here's an example from the Planning section, showing the considerations for the question: "Is your event location accessible?"

Go have a look and try it out for your next event:
https://inclusionlens.yorku.ca/

[god as a black woman]

"Harmonia Rosales is a 33-year-old artist based Chicago who’s doing something really powerful. She’s recreating some classical paintings, but portraying God as a black woman instead."

Here's one example of her work:

Read more:

This Artist Reimagines Classic Paintings With God As A Black Woman And They're Beautiful

Harmonia Rosales' website:  https://www.harmoniarosales.com

Harmonia Rosales' Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/honeiee/