Latitude 53 Contemporary Visual Culture

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Banana Moments: Why investing in the arts is worth the risk

This is the last post of Latitude 53’s first Writer in Residence, Carolyn Jervis. She wrote critically about Latitude 53 programming, the community and more on a regular basis over a six month term from April to September. Read more about the Writer In Residence program.

It was a quintessential Edmonton arts scene moment as I circulated through Latitude’s gallery space on the first full day of Visualeyez, banana in hand. The small number of people who came to be spectators and participants for Adina Bier’s performance illustrated some of those key character traits that make our community special:

“Did you get a banana yet?” “Have you eaten a banana?” “How many have you had?” “Make sure you don’t throw out the peel!”

The sincerity and compassionate, nervous desire with which those in attendance took up the banana consumption cause (Adina attempted to get visitors to consume a total of 364 bananas) was pretty stunning. Participants didn’t just submit themselves to following steps one through four, as listed on the audience participation instruction sheet, and consider their job done. They saw beyond their role as individuals the artist needed in order to complete a desired task and instead became active in a leadership role. These visitors took part in the outreach that was needed to maximize the artist’s success through engaging with those just entering the gallery. This didn’t just serve to help out an artist, it also illustrated that Latitude has some very dedicated and supportive community members. They clearly had a complex understanding that there was a need for collective participation to ensure the success of the project.

I don’t imagine that these ideas were factored into Bier’s desired outcome for her performance. Perhaps she would have preferred that 364 people show up and each eat a solitary banana.

On Tuesday I talked about how I am learning to negotiate my own involvement in the arts. In my final installment as Latitude’s Writer in Residence, I want to discuss what can be learned from moments like that banana moment: learning about the benefits of personally investing in the arts.

I’ve heard that people with lots of money invest in stocks and in business ventures because they believe that they will benefit positively by doing so in the form of dividends and other kinds of monetary returns. I don’t imagine that if one of these people approached a business that they wanted to invest in and only spoke ill of the existing work being done, making no investment whatsoever, that anyone would benefit. The prospective investment company would go without an investor, and the investor would be left exactly where she or he started. Without the risk there is no reward. But what would happen if this hypothetical person searched for potential in that chosen business instead of in the problems? What if he or she invested enough to become a major stockholder in that business and shared their expertise, helping to turn potential into the realization of excellence?

This summer I had a chat with a fellow arts community member, and as I told her about all of the projects I was excitedly working on, including this writer in residence position, she spoke in a way I found very disheartening. She told me that in the decades she had spent as part of Edmonton’s visual arts community, she didn’t believe anything had really changed – not the people, and not the work getting made. I don’t think it is fair to presume that this was her intention, but the result of our conversation was that I felt like this person I respected and looked up to thought the work I was doing and the position I was advocating for was useless and a waste of time. Because nothing’s ever going to change anyway, so why bother? But the conclusion that I came to about that conversation, upon further reflection, is that I don’t care if it’s true. What I do know is it doesn’t sound like any fun to live without the belief that change and excellence is always possible.

So perhaps sometimes we have to detach ourselves from a grand vision unrealized, like the dream of having an audience eat 364 bananas. Because didn’t that provide the chance for something wonderful to happen instead? I think that it’s worth identifying moments like that as a success and committing mental energy to think about how to keep building upon them. This is distinctly different from settling or lowering expectations. I just don’t know how, as a community, we can truly be taking every opportunity to learn how to be better and do better if we can’t celebrate our successes.

There’s a hitch with this approach, one that I think would be a deal breaker for that arts community member I spoke of. If you invest in something, as Bier’s participants did, and get personally involved, you are as responsible for successes as you are for failures. Although my acquaintance might be dissatisfied with the status quo in Edmonton’s art scene, her peripheral involvement means that she can’t be directly held responsible. To step up and be part of change makes you complicit for any possible all outcomes, positive and negative. But at least if you are taking a risk you have an opportunity for new learning, and wouldn’t you rather learn from a risk than stand forever static and dissatisfied on the sidelines? After all, doing anything new and innovative always means taking a risk without knowing with complete confidence that there will be a successful conclusion.

I would like you to think about whether or not you would like to be a fair-weather friend to the arts, which ensures that you get to participate in the fun and interesting programming in this city as it stands, or whether you would rather be an investor. Are you going to agreeably eat a single banana or invite your friends and neighbours in order to get a dozen consumed? Take ownership, take leadership, and take a risk.

As for me, I leave this Writer in Residence position feeling ready to soldier on in my cerebral journey through a world of art and ideas. Many thanks to Latitude 53 - and particularly Todd Janes - for taking the risk in inviting me to be their first Writer in Residence, especially since I didn’t even know that I was one. I’m excited about the learning and leadership in store for me in my work with public art, working for The Works’ Art & Design in Public Places program. I will be continuing to stir up art and activism nation-wide through my community mail art project, Love Letters to Feminism, as it travels to Toronto in November for exhibition.

Thanks for reading, for commenting, and for challenging me over the past six months. Let’s keep getting down and dirty in Edmonton’s visual arts scene, shall we?

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