Rabble: The Art of Resistance

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The Art of Resistance
The Mayworks Festival of Working People and the Arts begins in Toronto today

by Krystalline Kraus
April 25, 2003

If it is true, as Che Guevara, said, that "at the risk of seeming ridiculous,
the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love," then let me be
bold enough to suggest another ridiculous notion: every act of resistance is a
work of art.

This is the premise behind Toronto's Mayworks Festival of Working People and
the Arts, that in a world where the media turns us all into passive
spectators, art and creativity are essential to the working class condition.

Mayworks is a multidisciplinary art festival that celebrates working-class
culture. Founded in 1986 by the Labour Arts Media Committee of the Toronto and
York Region Labour Council, Mayworks is Canada's largest and oldest labour
arts festival.

Mayworks' philosophy is that the struggle to survive and grow happens
everywhere, whether or not that narrative is a CNN-news-worthy protest or a
bonding experience between neighbours. "Things happen all the time in the
community, daily lived resistance and organized resistance. Mayworks
celebrates stories from both by bringing together different communities for a
common interest," explains Matt Adams, the festival's publicity co-ordinator.

Permanent Markers

Marches and other common stock of the activist community are temporary
manifestations of resistance, like someone flicking on a lighter in a darkened
room. A march marches down a street and then is gone; a demonstration
demonstrates a moment of anger and, as often as not, is often forgotten.

Sometimes I get so frustrated, I feel like retracing the route of a demo with
a staple gun and an armful of photographs from the day, affixing them to every
telephone pole I find - anything to mark that we were there, to help the event
last.

It is equally as important to capture the individual struggles for change that
happen every day. These are important stories that we would never know about
if someone hadn't paid attention and documented it somehow.

Art opens up at least the possibility of permanence - proof that resistance to
the current system is occurring in many different forms - and a chance to
secure that knowledge in our personal memories and our collective history.

There is a whole history of living struggle, and, complex as it is, it's not
so much captured as integrated. "Plays, theatre and photography are major ways
of influencing collective memory. But the meaning of a picture can change over
time, it doesn't just sit there quietly, it continues to live," Adams said.

Anna Camilleri, Mayworks co-ordinator and an artist in her own right, also
cautions that permanence doesn't mean static. "At Mayworks, art can be a
living documentation of struggle and become a permanent part of our cultural
fabric. In some ways, you keep part of the art with you beyond the CD or piece
of theatre or book, the thing that is the most permanent is the emotional
experience," she said.

Mayworks seeks to provide that experience to its audience through its diverse,
and often personal and intimate programming, like the Injured Workers:
Portraits of Life and Loss display.

Propaganda of the Deed

Far removed from the experience of "embedded" opinions and the presto-ization
of culture in Toronto, Mayworks strives to present an alternative form of art
for the masses.

"Art is a reflection of our desires, our ability to imagine that a better
world is possible. The festival engages people to experience what it means to
live in a world where there is equality, a community that is pluralistic and
dynamic," Camilleri says.

This is what makes art anything but ridiculous or redundant in regards to the
state of the world today. After all, that the desire for alternatives can only
begin with our ability to imagine them.

Working-Class Culture

Mayworks helps make art accessible to the masses by providing mostly free or
pay-what-you-can events. With venues spread throughout Toronto, it highlight a
diverse range of different geographical and identity-based communities.

According to Camilleri, "Our audience includes everyone from twenty-something
gay couples to hetro couples in their 70s; the performances range from
contemporary art to the more traditional.

Outreach goes far beyond the progressive, usual suspects, often to the
non-activist, non-union audience. "The people who are going to come to
Mayworks might have no connection to activism or the labour movement. We want
to reach out to people immersed in pop culture to experience labour and art,
she said.

Artists Working, Working Artists

Mayworks was established to help highlight the link between workers and
artists in their "common struggle for decent wages, healthy working conditions
and a living culture." The 2003 call out of "May Day! May Day!" (a festival
theme this year) is a rallying cry to raise an alarm "concerning the
deterioration of our public infrastructures both locally and on a global
political level.

Far from being a temporary display of art and resistance, Mayworks hopes the
festival will help unite artists (and potential activists) from around Toronto
in a common struggle. It provides an artist directory and resources to help
create a permanent community of creative resistance as well as uniting the
inspired and curious to form networks within their own mediums and
communities.

Celebrating Resistance

In a world consumed with the possibility of its own destruction, our ability
to think creatively and express ourselves through art may be one of the best
ways we've got to make a better world for ourselves. Art, as something to hold
in our hands or hearts to keep us from going crazy and to celebrate the common
history we share.

"Mayworks is essentially a celebration of art and resistance and basic
survival," said Adams, "And celebration has to be part of all forms of
resistance or we have lost.

Celebration? Now that's ridiculous!

---------------

Krystalline Kraus's photography documenting the Pope Squat, summer 2002,
called "Squat to Live: Fight to Win," will be showing at Mayworks at the
Working Images exhibit, from April 28 to May 1 at Metro Hall in Toronto.