Librarians at Night

A final farewell post for my defunct blog. This funked short features Candace, the Director of the library I worked at for the past year. It all came together when she received her Fluevog leather boots in the mail: time to break it down in the stacks. Shot with one light, one camera. I used a Sony PMW-EX1 HD cam with a fig rig for a hand-held long take.

Enjoy! Librarians really do have the most fun.

Librarians at Night from Michelle Lovegrove Thomson on Vimeo.

Feminist Film & Video Art Resources

(Cindy Sherman)


Online Resources:

Video Data Bank features clips from Martha Rosler, Sadie Benning, Lynda Benglis, Peggy Ahwesh, and more.
UBU web film page full length film and video uploads from classic 20th century experiemtnal filmmakers, including Maya Deren, Lynda Benglis, Agnes Varda, Su Friedrich
Elizabeth Sackler Centre for Feminist Art in Brooklyn

Canadian Resources:

Fringe Online Canadian Experimental Filmmakers
CFMDC distributor of Canadian short film
Pleasure Dome film and video exhibition group dedicated to the presentation of experimental film and video, located in Toronto.
V tape distribtion of media works by independant Canadian Artists
Trinity Square Video An artist-run centre that continues to train and help develop many emerging artists. Several noted Canadian artists including John Greyson, Lisa Steele, Ed Sinclair, Michael Balser, Kim Tomczak, Vera Frenkel and Barbara Sternberg have created video at TSV.

Artists:

Allyson Mitchell a maximalist artist working predominantly in sculpture, installation and film. Since 1997, Mitchell has been melding feminism and pop culture to play with contemporary ideas about sexuality, autobiography, and the body, largely through the use of reclaimed textile and abandoned craft.

INAuntINA video "Lynda Barry" video featuring art by Allyson Mitchell

Barbara Sternberg Barbara Sternberg has been making (experimental) films since the mid-seventies; co-founder of Struts gallery in Sackville, New Brunswick, was a founding member of Pleasure Dome: Film Artists Exhibition Group in Toronto, and taught in Film and Visual Arts at York University.

Midi Onodera recent works feature a collage of formats and mediums -ranging from 16mm film to Hi8 video to digital video and “low end” digital toy formats such as a modified Nintendo Game Boy Camera, the Intel Mattel computer microscope, the Tyco and Trendmasters video cameras.

Midi Onodera film "I have no Memory"

Cindy Sherman creator of "untitled film still" photographs

Beginnings:
Maya Deren
Sadie Benning clips on VDB
Martha Rosler
Peggy Ahwesh
Joyce Wieland
Joan Jonas
Lynda Benglis
Cindy Sherman

Some Canadian Filmmakers and Media Artists:
Barbara Sternberg
Joyce Wieland
Allyson Mitchell
Midi Onodera
Deirdre Logue
Aleesa Cohen
Patricia Rozema
Mary Harron
Andrea Dorfman
Garine Torrosian
Izabella Pruska-Oldenhof
Janet Cardiff

Mainstream Feminist Feature Filmmakers:
Sally Potter(Orlando, Yes)
Jane Campion (The Piano, In the Cut, Bright Star)
Patricia Rozema (I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing, When Night Falls, Mansfield Park)
Mary Harron (I Shot Andy Warhol) excerpt from I Shot...

Recommended Texts:

Helen Cixous “The Laugh of the Medusa” (Essay), “Portrait of Dora” (Theatre)
Sigmund Freud “Femininity” from New Lectures on Psychoanalysis and Studies on Hysteria
Luce Irigaray “The Blind Spot of an Old Dream of Symmetry” in Speculum of the Other Woman
Teresa de Lauretis Alice Doesn’t: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema
Linda Williams “Film Bodies: Gender, Genre and Excess”
Laura Mulvey “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”
Donna Haraway “Cyborg Manifesto”
Chris Kraus I Love Dick; Aliens and Anorexia

NB’s Health Minister promotes anti-abortion stance at rally, should resign for conflict of interest

May 19, 2009

NB’s Health Minister Must Resign

As elected official, Michael Murphy is imposing his religious views and failing to enforce federal laws

FREDERICTON – A national pro-choice group is demanding the resignation of New Brunswick’s health minister Michael Murphy, after he promoted his religious views against abortion at an anti-choice rally in New Brunswick last week. Speaking in his official capacity, Murphy said that because of his personal anti-abortion views, he’s not “entirely comfortable” with administering the provincial law that allows funded abortions at New Brunswick hospitals.

“After Murphy resigns, he’s free to preach at all the anti-abortion rallies he wants,” said Joyce Arthur, Coordinator of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada. “But as an elected official with a portfolio, it’s inappropriate for Murphy to publicize a direct conflict between his personal religious views and his ministerial duties. He risks losing the confidence of voters, not to mention the thousands of women in New Brunswick who’ve had or may need abortion care.”

“Actually, if Murphy thinks it’s his duty to enforce a law he doesn’t like, why doesn’t he enforce our Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canada Health Act instead?” asked Peggy Cooke, an ARCC spokesperson based in Fredericton. “New Brunswick’s law is discriminatory and unconstitutional. We are the only province in Canada that forces women through unnecessary hoops to get approval, which results in delays, increased medical risk, and hardship.” (The Medical Services Payment Act states that Medicare will fund abortions in hospitals only if two doctors agree the procedure is medically necessary.) “These restrictions violate women’s Charter rights and the Supreme Court Morgentaler decision of 1988,” said Cooke. “Also, women who can’t wait are forced to pay out of pocket for an abortion at the Morgentaler Clinic. This contravenes the Canada Health Act because it discriminates against women, especially those who can’t afford to go to the clinic.”

Arthur pointed out that no doctor needs to decide whether an abortion is medically necessary, because all abortions are deemed medically necessary under the Canada Health Act, whether they’re done at a hospital or clinic. “There’s absolutely no difference between the abortions done at New Brunswick hospitals and those done at the Morgentaler Clinic in Fredericton,” Arthur said. “The only reason most women end up paying for an abortion at the clinic, is because hospitals don’t have nearly enough operating room access or abortion providers.”

“Murphy’s duty as Health Minister is to keep his personal views to himself when they conflict with his duties, and to repeal the discriminatory New Brunswick regulation so women can access abortion without paying,” Cooke concluded. “If he can’t do that, he must resign.”

Issued by Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada
http://www.arcc-cdac.ca/home.html

art a go-go

SO looking forward to these big box gallery exhibitions!

The AGO's Remix: New Modernities in a Post-Indian World much to excavate here.

Despite Yoko Ono's soft politics (as well as John's for that matter), after the AGO's YES Yoko Ono exhibit in '03, I will always love her conceptual art. Looking forward to the Musee des Beaux-Arts de Montreal exhibition
Imagine: The Peace Ballad of John & Yoko showing on the anniversary of their bed-in for peace at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel.

Jenny Holzer at the Whitney!! So iconic, I can't wait.

Yael Bartana has her first NYC show at P.S.1.An Isreali artist based in the Nederlands, this exhibition will gather several of her media-based pieces that I've read so much about... I've noticed that one link that should lead to her work leads instead to a Refusenik site.
Also at P.S.1, this swimming pool looks amazing.

Judy Rebick Book Launch at UNB: March 27!

Journalist, Writer, and Activist Judy Rebick will be at UNB on the afternoon of Friday, March 27th, at 4:00 pm as a guest of Women's Studies and Political Science. She is touring Canada to launch her new book, published this week, called Transforming Power: From the Personal to the Political".

Location: Chancellor's Room, Wu Centre, UNB, Fredericton
Time: 4:00 pm
Date: Friday, March 27th
There will be a short reception after her talk. Her book will be for sale.
The event is free and open to the public.



Judy Rebick is a well-known social justice activist, educator , writer, and speaker. She currently holds the Sam Gindin Chair in Social Justice and Democracy at Ryerson University.

Judy is founder of rabble.ca, Canada’s most popular independent online news and discussion site and the author of several books and articles, most recently Ten Thousand Roses: The Making of a Feminist Revolution (Penguin 2005). Her other books are Imagine Democracy (Stoddard 2000) and Politically Speaking (Douglas & McIntyre 1996).


In her new book, "Transforming Power: From the Personal to the Political", veteran activist Judy Rebick explains how globalization and mass communication technology are revolutionizing our understanding of power and producing profound new ideas about social and political life. Whether it’s the election of President Obama, the rise of democracy in Bolivia, or the success of Wikipedia, it’s the process that’s key: bringing communities of people together to produce something new; building a movement from the bottom up; sharing experience, knowledge and wisdom; emphasizing co-operation and consensus over confrontation and political partisanship.

Meaningful response to the environmental crisis and social injustice requires substantial, sustainable change at every level, which can only come through building power from the grass roots, from the people most impacted. In Transforming Power we discover the ideas, the people and the practices that can provide the paths to the change we need.

Visit her website: Transforming Power for more info on the book and Judy herself.

Action Needed: Pay Equity. Fight Bill C-10.

Please contact a Senator in your area:


Don't use the budget bill to eliminate pay equity!

If Bill C-10 passes it will…
• Allow the Conservative Government to remove pay equity complaints from the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

“Canadian Human Rights Commission does not have
jurisdiction to deal with pay equity complaints in the
public service.” (Excerpt Bill C-10)

• Force individual women to make pay equity claims without any
support from their Union, and would impose a $50,000 fine on
Unions for assisting them.

“The bargaining agent…is strictly forbidden to
encourage or assist her in filing a complaint, and is
liable to a $50,000 fine if it does.” (Excerpt Bill C-10)

• Allow Private sector workers to continue to complain and defend themselves on paydiscrimination through the Canadian Human Rights Commission while Public sector workers will no longer have that option.

I am asking you as one of the N.B. senators to vote to remove the Public Sector
Equitable Compensation Act from Bill C-10. Pay Equity is a Human Right and Human
Rights are not negotiable!

Name: ____________________________
Signature: ________________________
Mailing address:____________________
__________________________________
___________



List of New Brunswick Senators:
Listes des Sénateurs et Sénatrices du N.-B.


Name/Nom Affiliation(Parti)

Bryden, John G. LIB (NB)
damphh@sen.parl.gc.ca
The Senate of Canada, Ottawa, Ont., KlA 0A4
Tel : 613-947-7305
Fax 613-947-7307

Corbin, Eymard G. LIB (Grand-Sault)
The Senate of Canada, Ottawa, Ont. K1A 0A4
Tel: 613-996-8485
Fax: 613-995-8172

Day, Joseph A. LIB (Saint John-Kennebecasis)
dayja@sen.parl.gc.ca
The Senate of Canada, Ottawa, Ont. K1A 0A4
Tel: 613-992-0833
Fax: 613-992-1175

Kinsella, Noël A. CONS (Fredericton-York-Sunbury)
kinsen@sen.parl.gc.ca
The Senate of Canada, Ottawa, Ont. K1A 0A4
Tel: 613-992-4416
Fax: 613-992-9772

Losier-Cool, Rose-Marie LIB (Tracadie)
losier@sen.parl.gc.ca
The Senate of Canada, Ottawa, Ont. K1A 0A4
Honorary Co-Chair of the New Brunswick Coalition for Pay Equity.
• co-présidente honoraire de la Coalition pour l’équité salariale du Nouveau-Brunswick.
Tel: 613-947-8011
Fax: 613-947-8013

Lovelace Nicholas, Sandra M. LIB (NB)
smithc@sen.parl.gc.ca
The Senate of Canada, Ottawa, Ont. K1A 0A4
Tel: 613-943-3635
Fax: 613-943-3637

Mockler, Percy CONS (St.Leonard)
The Senate of Canada, Ottawa, Ont. K1A 0A4
Tel: 613-947-4225
Fax: 613-947-4227

Ringuette, Pierrette LIB (NB)
ringup@sen.parl.gc.ca
The Senate of Canada, Ottawa, Ont. K1A 0A4
Tel: 613-943-2248
Fax: 613-943-2245

Robichaud, Fernand LIB (NB)
The Senate of Canada, Ottawa, Ont. K1A 0A4
Tel: 613-943-0675
Fax: 613-943-0677

Wallace, John D. CONS (NB)
The Senate of Canada, Ottawa, Ont. K1A 0A4
Tel: 613-947-4240
Fax: 613-947-4252

Las Vegas Vice Squad publishes photos of "50 most prolific prostitutes"

THIS is outrageous.

Where's the top grossing pimp list? A roll call of the most frequent Johns? This stunt is not about keeping prostitution off the streets and out of the public eye, the usual goal of most criminalizing gestures like this. It is about thievery, of all things; about sex workers stealing from clients. Give me a break.

The majority of women on the list have multiple arrests in relation to exchanging sex for money, or prostitution-related theft charges, inside several Strip hotels, NOT for street prostitution. Making a photo-roster which encourages the public to look, to attempt to control these women through collective judgement, provides no real i.e. measurable outcome. It is simply a new way to brand a scarlet P on their fetishized bosoms.


Excerpt:

'...it is time to stop the revolving door of prostitution-related arrests, especially when those arrests involve "trick rolls," in which prostitutes steal from men.

"We're talking about girls who have been arrested repeatedly over the years, ones that we all know by face and by name," said Hughes, citing one woman who was arrested 18 times in a single year.

"If they get the message that Las Vegas is not going to ignore their subsequent arrests, then maybe they'll take their lifestyle to a different city."