#CDNTimes

For all the work to be done on public funding systems, the arms-length nature is integral to having an arts culture that can be outside the direct influence of government ministers

This is the final edition of the first volume of The #CdnCult Times. It seems appropriate that each author poses some big questions about what...

Big question. What if, collectively, we demanded that we be Perfect?

For over two years, I spent time with the community. I visited schools, shopping malls, shelters, churches, jails, and offices. I helped deliver early morning coffee to people sleeping outside, played pool with youth at shelters, stood on street corners and knocked on doors in random neighborhoods. Almost every person I talked to had something to say about the issue of homelessness.

Toronto has a hole in it where a Patrick used to be. I cannot be the only one missing his remarks on recent Rob Fordian events. Nor, I’m sure, am I the only one missing his dry rejoinders about all manner of incivility surrounding us at every turn. His response – for example – to the Sochi Olympics is missing from the front lines, or his well-structured outrage to the demise of public transit, indeed his legendary critique of (pick any show and imagine a moment) is leaving me devoid of a bon mot that I would traditionally have recounted from his lips to your ears.

Laakkuluk: I think that as artists we both help create and challenge popular culture which kind of goes back to our conversation about artists as activists. I think that no matter what, "Canada" is going to be shaped by popular culture. and it is our job to explore the extra-ordinary - outside of popular culture. Matthew: Can either of you think of irresponsible artists who don't imagine Canada well? Laakkuluk: I think more of the irresponsibility of curators and galleries more than the artists. Amy: Ah, I understand that Laakkuluk. I never thought about an irresponsible artist! Judgement?

Imagination and remembering take centre stage this week. How do we create and remember what no longer exists or never did? Each post touches on some...

Notwithstanding that I agree that conflating theatre with commercial enterprise is “perverse,” I don’t see how this should prevent us from appropriating the private sector’s most potent tools – effective branding and communications. Moreover, I don’t see how this necessarily prevents us from repositioning theatres as community institutions, rather than entertainment companies.

I’m envious too of something that I have missed out on through being an immigrant: of a seemingly rather old-fashioned way of being of people who live their whole lives in the same valley. I begin to think about vast countries that are of course not homogenous but made up of thousands and thousands of very specific communities. And here – it might be Natimuk or it might be Trois-Rivières - an artist or a group of artists identify and pursue what interests them and hope that this will thus be of interest to others.

Playwright and composer, Nick Carpenter, recently wrote to say: “Oddly enough, it is Fort Mac that feels the most foreign...” and after having been there I completely agree. But I return to the Roland Barthes notion of the Punctum(s) to bring order to my travel chaos. What follows then is a Punctum link travelogue told in 6 cities.