Marker - issue 5 by Marker

ART & REVOLUTION IN EGYPT Glen Ronald | Defining Skinhead | Press Freedom in Canada SPRING/SUMMER 2014

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CONTENTS spring/summer 2014

Photo credit: Abdelrhman Zin Eldin

“We’ll always try and do what we think is the right to do even if the government oppresses us.” - Ganzeer

Editor’s Letter, Contributors

Utility

Defining Skinhead

Artist Profile - Glen Ronald

Paint & Tear Gas - Ganzeer’s Art and Egypt’s Revolution

Canada’s Declining Press Freedom

Camsell Hospital

EDITOR’S LETTER

CONTRIBUTORS Marker wouldn’t be possible without the awesome people who contribute to each issue. Here’s a few of them:

Starting a magazine during the decline of the print industry was either going to be a very dumb idea or something I would be really proud of. Luckily, I’m happy to say the latter is true. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I didn’t fully comprehend the major undertaking this would be in the beginning. Yeah I knew it would be hard, but I didn’t know how hard until I dove headfirst into this project. I’m also, believe it or not, a pretty shy person. The me of three or four years ago would have never realistically thought to do anything like this, and any discouraging voices in my ear would have deterred me from following through with my ideas. I’m not quite sure what happened these last few years, but the amount of fucks I gave went down to about 0 (well, maybe 2). The discouragement turned into self-motivation, and along the way I met some wonderful people who were willing to lend their time to make this work. Not just in getting Marker off the ground, but also in helping to maintain it. The pessimist that I am found that pretty damn inspiring.

@cbwcaswell

A fan of words, paper, and ink, Matthew Stepanic has a BA Honors in English from the University of Alberta and more books than space on his bookshelf. He is the editor of Glass Buffalo, a literary magazine in search of mythic power.

With a full year behind us, I can already see a stronger, more fleshed out sense of what Marker’s identity is. My mission in the beginning was to make this publication a platform for stories that inspire, inform and challenge convention. We’ve managed to maintain the core sense of what the magazine is about with this issue, while taking more risks in our story choices.

@mstepanic

Jenny Woo is a singer/songwriter who has played in various punk and oi! bands over the years. She is originally from Edmonton, Alberta but currently lives in Moscow, Russia.

It’ll be interesting to see where things go from here. Enjoy issue five!

Brnesh Berhe

CBWCaswell is a writer from Edmonton, Alberta. He steals most of his writing ideas from Woody Allen, Nick Hornby, and Rudyard Kipling. Featured in publications such as Avenue, Alberta Venture, Alberta Oil, and the Edmonton Journal, Caswell also moonlights as a freelance musician. He thinks definitions of art are bullshit. His opinions on the stock market are also bullshit.”

@risecreative

/JennyWooOi!Project

Special thanks to: Jason Morton, Cristian Munoz, Michal Szczur, The Bower Issue 5 | Spring/Summer 2014

Art & Editorial Director / Publisher Brnesh Berhe Copy Editor Jessica Bateman Contributing Writers CBWCaswell, Becky Hagan-Egyir, Matthew Stepanic, Kody Thompson, Jenny Woo, Contributing Photographers Shawn Baldwin, Dörthe Boxberg, Mohammad Fahmy (Ganzeer), Vic Mittal (VSM Photo), Abdelrhman Zin Eldin

MARKER IS PROUDLY INDEPENDENT AND MADE IN EDMONTON, ALBERTA.

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This issue was published in April 2014

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A story by CBWCaswell f it wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t for the winged penises hanging at eye level, the first thing to notice when entering the room would be the celebrities. There were many apprearances made at the gallery party: people from the evening news, realtors whose faces were sat on everyday while people waited for the bus, and even the recently elected mayor. I stood over by a mannequin, trying to get my bearings and rubbing my eye from a recent molestation by a plastic dong, when the mannequin started shaking me down for money. It turned out she was the door girl. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Have you paid cover yet, sir?â&#x20AC;? the hostess asked, rubbing a hand over her pink, plastic wig. She wore a dress made from a number of My Little Pony-pink crayons that had been melted into a skirt. She smelled like kindergarten, and not in a good way. SPRING/SUMMER 2014

“Does cover include taking a penis to the eye?” I asked. She gave me a smile so brief it would be up to science to decide if it had ever happened at all. “Fifty dollars,” she said. I greased her Crayola-stained palm.

“Someone here has to understand that wasn’t art. That was bullshit.”

A woman and her husband found me particularly confused about one piece, and took it upon themselves to explain that it clearly borrowed from MC Escher’s Stairs, but where one might ask if the stairs were coming or going, you would wonder which of the men were giving or receiving. They were impossible to have a conversation with. The wife referred to herself in third-person while the husband only referred to himself in feminine pronouns, so I couldn’t be sure if they were talking about one person or both, or if the husband was talking about the wife, or if the art really was a traditional portrayal of sexual ambivalence through the eyes of Zizek. It turns out they were both Pop Culture Philosophy teachers, and they thankfully cut the conversation short, needing to get home in time to continue their seven-year-long study of the “female gaze of postermodernist black culture” in Two and a Half Men. I then met a woman with an unbelievable neckline who loved fur but opposed animal cruelty, and so had adapted to wearing a pet mink around her neck. His name was Smarmy. I was as rabid for her as Smarmy seemed to be in general. “So,” she said, batting Smarmy’s head every time he bit her ear— a sign of his affection, she told me— “do you paint?” “The only painting I do is on toilet paper.” “You make me want to vomit,” she laughed. We continued to talk. I nudged closer while keeping a wary distance from her snarling scarf. Eventually she asked what I do.

I had been working on the rigs for some time, with the roughnecks who used their phones to watch porn on their breaks, and I thought I might need some culture before I “Well, I drive truck to site.” started referring to every woman I saw by her axe-wound. I had the money, but I didn’t know anything about art. I The words mystified her. “But you seem so…educated. walked around, but couldn’t be sure what was more Opinionated.” interesting: the pieces or the people. “Oh, there are plenty of opinions on the rigs, I can tell Beside a pair of scissors scissoring, I met a bald man with you.” I had her rapt attention. “You see, it’s always been a a goatee and scarf, and glasses so large he had a hard time dream of mine to drive truck. I can remember—” keeping them on his face. When they eventually dropped off his nose to the floor, someone screamed that the “Do you hear that?” she said, “The band is starting.” She grabbed my hand and we joined the crowd in the main room. skylights were falling. 8 UTILITY

The DJ unhooked his record players, laptop, iPod, discman a hold of my sleeve. He pulled me into a dark corner, and cassette player, and packed up his panflute as the band holding me there. took their positions. The leader of the band played trumpet. “This isn’t art,” he said, his hair falling into his eyes. “You get His curly haired draped over his lips as he ran his fingers over that, right? Someone here has to understand that wasn’t the trumpet spigots, playing slow, blatty notes to which the art. That was bullshit.” He looked behind him as though he crowd applauded. He said into his mic that he hadn’t started, expected to find a crayon-smelling hand to wrap around and the crowd applauded for that too. He introduced the his mouth and drag him away to a place of unclear nonband, member by member, each wearing a black turtleneck. existence. “There was no training involved. They aren’t The drummer was actually a dancer. The singer was well- artists.” He looked down at the floor. “Or maybe that is known in the city’s Tibetan circuit. Then came the piano the art. No, it can’t be. This was masturbatory—it was selfplayer. He seemed visibly uncomfortable. He played with seeking and completely irreferential…but maybe that was his glasses, ran his hands over his shirt like he consistently the point, that all art exists in a vacuum.” He pinned me needed to dry his fingers, and had a smile that quickly and by my shoulders against the wall. “But this wasn’t good, it consistently waned into what looked like a panic. didn’t have any technique…But should the validity of art be based entirely on technique? That would close it off The band leader made sure everyone was ready. “This song to people who are uneducated… whose untarnished view is called— calls itself, really— From the Reality to the Real.” might bring new ideas into a dying medium.” He stopped As he started playing, I kept watching the piano player. Every talking and looked me in the eye, looked for the spark of song offered some new challenge he wasn’t really willing to sense he needed. “Do you listen to jazz?” he said. accept. The first was the vocalist. If poetry was her vehicle, she was continually crashing it into the reinforced, brick “You’re insane,” I said, “Insane!” and ripped my arm away, walls of language. “Bowark the heathens in their floating escaping into the crowd. I fled into a nearby closet as I glass castles,” went one line, “for I am not a principled offer heard the pianist looking for me, screaming, “The duality of that can be forgotten in the shores of pedantic languidness. the self can’t be experienced through self-perception, only You, the ever munchkin patriarchal harlot!” external mediums!” Smarmy leaned over to me, off his mistress’s shoulder. “This is very bop,” he said. The piano player continued to sweat. The song transitioned to being led more by the drums. And it wasn’t so much how the drummer hit the drums than when the drummer hit anything. There was a lot of stick twirling involved. The piano player even stopped playing at one point and watched in very obvious disgust. During the third song the piano player didn’t play anything. He just stared at his sheet music, less stressed, but now very confused. When the song ended with what one older gentleman beside me called “a rampaging melody born from the open casket of Tchaikovsky’s grave”, the bandleader approached the piano player. “Why didn’t you play anything?” I could hear the leader ask. “There was nothing on the chart,” the pianist said, holding it in front of the leader’s face. It was blank. “It says to keep a ‘respectful somberness’.” The leader shook his head. “The point was to overcome the chart. That was the art of it.” And he walked away. In the midst of my clapping, the piano player made eye contact with me and ran over. I tried to dodge him, but he grabbed

When the screaming stopped and the party died down, I left the closet. I took the time to walk around the room once more, taking in what pieces were left, hoping that one might speak to me, might offer clear insight into art. I was afraid if I didn’t, I would eventually start dropping all grammatical articles until everything I said was, “I drive truck,” or “I work at site,” or “I read book but it too hard.”

Then, something stopped me. On the wall

hung one piece that hadn’t been sold. It had a small plaque above it with a single word: Utility. Below was the work itself. From a hook hung a plunger. Its red mouth gaped towards the ceiling, its wooden handle rough from use. I considered how a plunger is what pushes shit through the pipes. It overpowers blockages, like how art helps people exorcise their issues. Like a clap from heaven, I suddenly understood. The point of art was not the form it took, but what the art pushed through, no matter the byproduct— whether poisonous waste or something beautiful. And the plunger, or the art, is all that remains in remembrance of our cultural defecation. I meditated on this until a man in a janitor outfit walked in front of me, took the plunger off the wall, and walked toward the ladies washroom. SPRING/SUMMER 2014

DEFINING SKINHEAD T

here are many different facets and interpretations of what the skinhead movement is and what it means. The very concept of “skinhead” seems paradoxical. Skinhead is a subculture born out of multiculturalism (the adoption of Caribbean music and style by white British youth in the 1960s) and then later connected to right-wing extremism. Today the subculture is associated with everything from first wave Jamaican ska to melodic oi!, to politically motivated anarcho-communist and also to racist hardcore music. It’s not difficult to see how those outside of the skinhead scene, let alone those who are involved in it, come up with a million different interpretations and ideas of what it is and what it could be. When I was first asked to write a short article on what the subculture is about, it became immediately apparent to me that there was only one way I could speak about it honestly. There are a million definitions of the term, but I can only speak the truth about it by writing about what it means to me.

10 D E F I N I N G S K I N H E A D

By Jenny Woo

I first started out in the punk scene at the tender age of 13. I was always a rebel at heart– I never felt like I fit into the definition of “normal”, and I always had the urge to push the limits of both myself and others. Punk music, for me, was a road to freedom. It gave me the opportunity to break the expectations about what teenage girls were allowed to wear, were allowed to say, and were allowed to be. My adherence to the values of “live for today” and “rebellion” were the foundation of my self-esteem and guided me towards playing in bands, spiking a mohawk and speaking out in class. In short, it gave me the courage to try out different ways of living and of being myself. However, a few years down the road I came to the conclusion that I no longer needed coloured hair or a studded jacket to stand out in a crowd. I felt like I had enough inside me to set me apart, and although I loved the music and the sentiment behind the punk scene, I no longer wanted to live just for today– I wanted to believe in a bright tomorrow too. I was looking for a philosophy or a way of life that allowed me to take strength in my differences, but that brought home the importance of using these strengths for a purpose. When I ran into a few skinheads at a local punk show, I knew then that I had found what I was looking for. Skinhead is a movement that was born from the energy of working class youth in impoverished areas of Britain during the 1960s. These individuals found solace in the music and style of the Caribbean immigrants in England at that time, and decided to express their soul and their rebellion by crossing the racial/cultural line and embracing elements of Carib-

bean culture. The start of the skinhead scene was born from the idea that even though you are working class, the perceived low socio-economic status of this class did not determine your value as a person. Each person should be proud of who they are, and working to put food on the table is not a shame, but an accomplishment. This identification with other marginalized groups (i.e. Caribbean immigrants) created a whole new subculture devoted to cropped hair, Sta-Prest pants and an appreciation for “black” music. Eventually the skinhead scene merged with the punk scene that was erupting in Britain. This was due to the fact that both subcultures deviated from the norm and were developed for and by the youth. Oi! music was born out of this merge— a collision of skinhead values and punk sound.

me who believed in the same things and who stood behind me. Skinhead, for me, was punk without “rebellionfor-the-sake-of-rebellion.” It’s not only about standing out from the crowd, but standing up for something. Through it I became passionate about music and community, and I learned that I had something inside me to give. In addition to the values behind the subculture, I love the idea of supporting a tradition that is both stable and fluid. I love listening to first-wave music from the ‘60s and feeling the same thing that generations before me have also felt. I love the connection between different times and different people all over the world. Since becoming skinhead I have travelled to Mexico, Indonesia and Eastern Europe, and met people at all stages in life who felt the same way I feel and who share a community and a purpose. I love the idea that traditions change and adapt by means of the hands of those who adopt them. Due to the fact that “skinhead” has been developed and defined in so many ways, those who participate in it are free to adopt it in ways meaningful to themselves. By each doing it in our own way, each person in his or her own way contributes to this tradition and therefore the tradition grows and becomes even richer. The roots and history of the skinhead subculture have defined, but not determined, its future.

I do believe that it’s a shame that “skinhead” has been labelled as a racist phenomenon, when it certainly does more to bring people of different races and backgrounds together.

Throughout the years, certain groups— most notably far-right political groups— have attempted to utilize the energy and anger of the marginalized working class in England for their own causes. During the 1980s, “skinhead” was often linked synonymously with racism due to this connection, and the concept’s original roots were forgotten. However, in recent years many groups have reinstated “skinhead” as a concept firmly rooted in the traditions of Caribbean/British ‘60s culture, and others have reacted by creating antiracist factions such as “Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice” (SHARP), and even far left-wing factions such as “Red Anarcho-Communist Skinheads” (RASH). The skinhead movement, largely due to the internet and other means of globalization, has spread all over the world and is now prominent in many developing countries where the struggle of the working class is even more apparent than in the West.

Given all this confusion, misconception and taboo, why did the skinhead culture appeal to me? I immediately identified and felt fortified by the values behind it. The idea of being proud of who you are for the person you are as opposed to what you have completely liberated me from the pressure of modern adolescence. The idea of being proud of what you work for instead of what you have gave me guidance during my hardest struggles. The values of loyalty and community ensured that I had friends with

I do believe that it’s a shame that “skinhead” has been labelled as a racist phenomenon, when it certainly does more to bring people of different races and backgrounds together. I also resent the fact that it’s often dismissed as being a rebellious subculture for the young and aggressive– because it is, and can be, so much more. That being said, it would be a shame to define skinhead as strictly anything. I suppose that with any concept in the world, “skinhead” only has truth insofar as what it means to our own selves. For me, skinhead is about a long-standing multicultural multi-generational tradition based on values, community and heart. It has both defined me and allowed me to define it, and I am I proud to grow up with something that has given me the power to find both myself and something worth fighting for. Photo credit: Igor

SPRING/SUMMER 2014

ARTIST PROFILE

Glen Ronald Interview by Matthew Stepanic

12 By The Light of a Dying Star

What moment in your life sparked your creative career? Probably when I was a little kid, we went to a church where you had to sit for a really long time quietly, and either read your bible or draw or just be quiet and sit there. So I would draw for hours and hours because you know you’re going to be sitting there—you’re captive. You go into that mode where you’re reflective, just thinking and drawing, so I was doing that from the time I was four or five years old.

I always had this—one of my little weird rules in my head is that it has to be meaningful. I think that goes back to your world view or your beliefs: do you believe life is meaningful or do you believe it’s meaningless? ’Cause that would come out in whatever art you would create from that. So if I looked at a blotch, I’m looking at it in the same way a kid looks at some clouds. Looking at this, you know, is this a dragon’s head? Or is this the tail and the head of a wolf? I’m going to look for opportunities in that chaos and if a wolf starts to present itself, then I’ll go with that, but I’ll go with it in the way that it’s naturally headed. I want to bring that thing out—and then you pull it out of the shapes, the textures that are there. If I make some chaos...I’ll look at that and say that’s beautiful and that’s got a lot of potential and that’s where I would want to work with something that if I made one, and if it looks ugly and it looked like a dead end, I’d probably just chuck it out and start over.

Once I started getting a little bit of aptitude, people started pointing it out at school and mentioning, “You’re good at drawing!” So I’d do some more. I remember when I was about fifteen—fourteen—I started experimenting with drawing chaotic shapes and chaotic textures just with a pen. I drew some pictures and entered them into art competitions. And I actually ended up winning competitions, which I was really shocked at because I had no art training—we didn’t even have an art class in the school where I went because it was a really There’s a sense in small town.

How many drawings do you have to go through to find something of value? post-modernism that Where did you grow up? Sometimes you might have everything’s been In Russell, Manitoba. And there to do fifty to get a good one done, everything’s was no art. Zero. [Laughs.] Well, or to get an exact one. It debeen recycled, not zero, but very close to zero pends how exact you want it there’s nothing new. art. There was nothing in high to go. For example, in some school or junior high. So I was of mine I’m experimenting But I honestly don’t totally on my own, which is funny with textures, and if I wanted believe that. because although I was operatto generate a fur texture for a ing in a vacuum, in a sense, I found lion, I’ll play with it. Some of these that that worked in my favour. I could methods that I’ve created are ones do anything that I wanted, and I didn’t feel that are a little bit secret. I get a lot of like I was necessarily accountable to anyone or people on Instagram asking, “How do you following a trend or part of a group or anything. I felt do this?” I don’t show all of it. Also, I will use social just super alone with it. [Laughs.] Not in a bad way neces- media to make it interactive. So in some cases, I’ll post a sarily, just, “Hey, I’m on my own here.” So if I was going to chaotic image and say, “What do you see?” And if a whole do something, it was whatever I could do. bunch of people say, “I’m seeing a horse.” I’ll say, “Okay, if I’m seeing that, if I’m feeling it too, okay, we’re doing a horse.” Can you explain your process for your chaos drawings? When I first started, I was trying to do automatic drawing— You talked about the influence social media has on your drawing from my subconscious and creating chaotic shapes work, and I’ve noticed that you have over 166,000 followmanually. And then it branched out into experimenting ers on Instagram. What’s the most interesting feedback with trying to create chaos—chaotic patterns—just in a you’ve gotten? more truly chaotic way. Instead of me drawing something If you’re to go with what’s the most interesting to me at that I think looks like chaos, which I was really drawn to a human level, at an emotional level—certain people will for some reason, I was like, “I’m going to start using actual put into the comments the impact that this art has on them chaos and forcing myself to work with what’s really there.” personally, and that is very powerful. That stuff blows me And that could involve pouring of liquids, pouring of inks, away. ’Cause I don’t even understand it, but somebody experimenting with stamping inks onto a surface—what- from wherever—I have people buying my art from around ever you have to do to get wild-looking textures. And then the world and even the United Arab Emirates and different I’d do that searching and reflecting on that chaos, looking countries, and it’s so interesting to see it crossing all the at it and trying to see what’s in there that’s meaningful and cultures and all the languages. The comments underneath SPRING/SUMMER 2014

are in different languages, which I don’t really understand but I will Google translate some of them just because I’m curious what these guys are saying in Russian and all these languages. It’s funny how art—visual art—can cross all those cultures.... It’s funny because some people put comments and say, “Aw, that looks really realistic.” And I’m sort of thinking it’s not really realistic in the sense of photographic—like it doesn’t look like a photograph to me. It’s realistic in the sense of it’s got flaws, it’s got strangeness, it’s got beauty, it’s got flowing forms, it’s got a naturalness to it. One thing that did come out of the social media—and it’s funny—it turned into my art style has sort of become an official style on Instagram. Now if someone copies one of my styles on Instagram people put underneath, “That’s in Glen Ronald style” or “He’s doing the Glen Ronald thing.” They’ll put comments down underneath. So it’s kind of interesting that it’s turned into an actual, recognizable thing that’s an official style on Instagram. Does that affect your ego at all? It could, but I just find it interesting to show that it can be distinctive enough to be a specific style. Because I think that’s a real problem now in art that there’s a sense in postmodernism that everything’s been done, everything’s been recycled, there’s nothing new. But I honestly don’t believe that. I think you can still do something new. You could have a new writer or you could have a new type of musician or a new creative force. And you’d be like, “Okay, that’s the next Van Gogh.” It’s possible. Is there anything besides the chaos that’s a creative influence for you? Yah, nature. I think nature and animals is half of it, and that comes from my science background. I have a background in science and studying microbiology at university, and the science part of it I always found fascinating—even when I got out of science, it wasn’t like I got out of it because of boredom. I found my sense of wonder [in] nature and all types of animals and plants and micro-organisms, and that sense of wonder has never decreased. If anything, it keeps increasing the more I learn about it. Because the more I learn, the more I realize how incredibly complex and connected all of life is on the planet—it’s just nuts. You could study that stuff all day and not even be scratching the surface. I noticed you’re involved with Arts on the Ave. What sort of things are you hoping to accomplish? I got forced into being the treasurer on the board because nobody else would do it and it was a small board. So they basically announced that I was the treasurer, and I had to go 14 G L E N R O N A L D

Chaos Lupus Wolf Pack

SPRING/SUMMER 2014

Chaos Mona (After Da Vinci)

Rogue Wave

along with it. [Laughs.] I help out with branding and marketing, and I have my studio right down there on 94th Street, so it’s right beside the Carrot. We have board meetings in my studio, and I have shows and try to generate some interest around art in that community. And that’s part of the mandate is to use arts to create more of a sense of community in that area. Do you hold workshops for people? We’ve done a few little fundraisers. A girl will come in and do a painting night as a fundraiser for Arts on the Ave, and we’ve done a few different events. We let the public come in and paint in the studio, so I set up canvases with drawings on them and I let everyone come up and paint—kids or whatever—all on the same canvas. And it’s really fun, very interactive. People really get a kick out of it, so we do that during Kaleido [Family Arts Festival] and even sometimes during Deep Freeze [Winter Festival] in January when there’s a public event. The atmosphere is really low-key and relaxed, and you’re just wandering around doing artsy stuff. How do you create a balance for your business, art, and family? Or is that the point—that you don’t, and there’s just an element of chaos to it? [Laughs.] There’s definitely true chaos in there. What I’ve done is built a business that’s big enough to support me and to have all the departments running smoothly without

me there physically in the building. And that was my goal, so I’ve got it up there now pretty well running where I can go away for weeks at a time or I cannot show up for work on any given day and the machine just keeps going. So I can spend more time on family and more time on art. And then, I wasn’t exactly planning this, but I found that when I started doing more art, it actually started opening up all other kinds of connections—even business stuff though I wasn’t thinking along those lines. Now a whole bunch of business people have started buying my paintings and putting them up in offices. And I wasn’t intending it to go that way, but it’s actually good. Art opens up a lot of doors—certain people are just really into art; they just love it. It connects on a real heart level with people. Where do you hope your work will take you? What are the next steps for this? Honestly, I don’t know. But I would be open to doing some collaborations with other artists around town and getting some exposure for them and for me. And it’s fun. Usually when you go with someone else, it’s like jamming with a different type of musician. It’s like you see what they’re doing and you see their strength, and you think, “Okay, I could do some of that.” It’s inspiring.

@glenronald SPRING/SUMMER 2014

PAINT TEAR GAS AND

Ganzeer’s Art and Egypt’s Revolution

By Becky Hagan-Egyir

It was the most thrilling and exhilarating time of my life. Seeing people band together and sacrifice themselves in the face of armed troops with nothing else but their voices, and all for what? For other people, people they didn’t even know, future generations they would never meet… It was such a glorious thing to experience. The closest thing I’ve ever experienced to seeing God.

SPRING/SUMMER 2014

p a t g

On January 25, 2011 one of the greatest days in Egypt’s history took place. Inspired by what he was seeing, a 29-year-old man decided to record the Revolution the best way he knew how– through his art. He was born Mohammad Fahmy, but today he’s recognized by another name: Ganzeer, inspired by the Arabic word for “chain”.

Ganzeer’s first work for the Revolution was unplanned because he didn’t expect to be in the crowd of revolutionaries. He describes the elated feeling he experienced that day in Tahrir Square as “the most thrilling and exhilarating time” of his life. Armed with spray paint, he climbed to the top of a billboard— his canvas. On it he wrote simple, yet powerful words over the face staring back at him. The crowd of protesters below him responded with loud, enthusiastic cheers. Down with Mubarak! The freshly painted words glistened atop the face of Hosni Mubarak, former president of Egypt. It was on February 2 that Ganzeer created his first visual reaction to Mubarak’s continued refusal to resign: a stencil of symbols that read, “Mubarak doesn’t equal Egypt”. Eight days later, Mubarak decided to confront protesters with a defiant and pleading speech: “I am addressing you today with a speech…of a father to his sons and daughters,” he began. “Those who have committed crimes against our youth will be out on trial according to the courts and the laws. They will get severe punishments.” The next day, Vice President Omar Suleiman briefly addressed Egypt, and the world, with important news; Mubarak was no longer president. Egyptian flags waved 20 P A I N T A N D T E A R G A S

throughout Tahrir Square while protesters sang, cheered, prayed, and cried under the thunder of fireworks exploding above them; protesters like Ganzeer who’d been fighting for three weeks for this moment of freedom. Ganzeer was raised in a “semi-quiet residential neighbourhood with many stray dogs [that he and other kids his age] befriended” in Ard El-Golf, Heliopolis, “City of the Sun”. There, in the northwest corner of Cairo, he admired his older brother’s Nintendo games and copied the figures from their superhero comics; influences that led him to become a graphic design artist, writer and painter years later. In college it allowed him to connect to the hub of Cairo, a source of inspiration for his work. “I am fascinated by cities and megacities and how they function,” he explains.

*** While Ganzeer was experiencing life in Heliopolis, a neighbourhood with a mix of low- to high-income families, Mubarak was often at work nearby in one of his presidential palaces. During his three decades of control, Mubarak ruled Egypt, unjustly imprisoning citizens and restricting freedom of speech and expression.

On Mubarak’s last day in power, February 11, 2011, the army kept watch over thousands of protesters as they waited outside Heliopolis Palace for Mubarak to leave. In the vice president’s address, he gave another piece of important news. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF)– a group of senior military men headed by General Tantawi at the time– would protect Egypt until elections took place. Protesters turned to them for help with ongoing changes. Removing emergency law was one of the many demands of change from the start. After Mubarak’s resignation, the army had promised to remove the law, but failed to do so. The hopeful relationship between protesters and the military on February 11 was soon dividing Egyptians in their loyalties and making them doubt the Revolution. Chants of “Down with the army!” would soon replace the chants of “Down with Mubarak!” that had filled Tahrir Square earlier in the year. People began to march against the army’s rule. Tensions between the military, the police and the people had reached a dangerous point by November 19, 2011. Lining Mohamed Mahmoud Street for five days, the riot police, or Central Security Forces (CSF), stood and blocked the advancement of unarmed protesters. The police threw teargas onto the road and continued to act as a human barricade, blocking the path towards Tahrir Square and the site of the Interior Ministry while the heavy haze of gas stung protesters’ eyes. Many died during those five days. Doctors who treated the injured said that protesters suffered serious side effects from the use of teargas; either coughing up blood or suffering damage to their nervous systems. Others lost their eyes as a result of snipers’ shots to their heads. Soon Mohamed Mahmoud Street in Cairo would be

known as “The Eyes of Freedom Street”. From north to south, art covered the walls of this street and told stories of loss beside stories of continued hope. Ganzeer also used these walls to help tell these stories and reflect the conscience of the Revolution. Working with other artists, he was determined to paint faces of martyrs of the Revolution. Ganzeer wrote about the project on his blog: “On one hand, the goal is to honour the martyrs, and on another hand provide passers-by with a reminder of Egypt’s struggle for freedom, democracy and equality.” Many times work like this would be whitewashed under the SCAF’s time in power, but the images would always reappear no matter how many times they were cleared.

*** It’s not like doing graffiti was a totally safe game up to this point. By the time Morsi had won the elections on June 30, 2012, and the SCAF had relinquished its power to the new president, many felt that the Revolution was coming to an end. In exhibits like “The Virus is Spreading” in October 2012, Ganzeer encouraged people to continue fighting for civil liberties and human rights. He also looked at political, social, cultural and artistic establishments and their misuse of power. Giving individual willpower over to the will of establishments is something Ganzeer critiques as being the cause of changing opinions about the Revolution, saying, “We are in an obvious phase of pretend-adoption, void of any traces of true change, but just enough of a pretense to put revolutionary fervor to sleep.” It wouldn’t be long until Morsi’s face appeared next to those of Mubarak and other government and military SPRING/SUMMER 2014

p a t g

22 P A I N T A N D T E A R G A S

leaders on the walls of Mohamed Mahmoud Street. Since July 2013, a counter-revolution between pro- and antiMorsi protesters has continued. Brotherhood supporters have been rounded up in mass arrests by the SCAF under General el-Sisi– in power once again until the next election. On May 26, 2011, Ganzeer was a target of the authorities for his art activism. He was arrested for leading Mad Graffiti Weekend– a movement to get artists worldwide to use their art as peaceful protest against injustice by SCAF and other authorities. “When I was detained,” he begins, “I was welcomed into the office of a high-ranking military officer who offered me a soda and then a Nescafé. They were all eerily nice and I was released on the very same day.” This is the opposite of recent targeting by the SCAF and authorities of the media, Morsi supporters, and anyone who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Supporters of Morsi have tried to use graffiti as a tool to fight back against what they believe was a coup on July 5, 2013, but they may have another battle to face in the near future. A proposed law wants to make graffiti illegal, where anyone caught doing it will either be fined 100,000 Egyptian pounds (15 967.40 Canadian dollars) or face up to four years in jail. Regardless of the situation, Ganzeer and other artists continue to use their art as a weapon to fight for change. “One could have easily been charged with plotting against the state with the type of graffiti we’ve been doing, [but] we’ll always try and do what we think is the right thing, even if the government oppresses us.” Photo credits: Dörthe Boxberg, Mohammad Fahmy (Ganzeer)

@ganzeer

BEHIND THE COVER with photojournalist Shawn Baldwin

Exclusively on markermagazine.com SPRING/SUMMER 2014

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.â&#x20AC;? -Article 19, Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Canada’s Declining

PRESS FREEDOM

By Brnesh Berhe Photos by VSM Photo Model: Kyandra - Mode Model Managaement

When it comes to Canada’s current state of press freedom, well, we aren’t doing so well. Canada started 2012 at number 10 on the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index, and dropped a hard 10 spots the following year, falling behind Namibia (19th), Costa Rica (16th) and Jamaica (13th). Now in 2014, we sit at a marginally higher number 18, with the top spot dominated once again by Finland. So the question is: What must have happened for one of the largest democratic nations in the world to tarnish its international press reputation so fast? SPRING/SUMMER 2014

Well, there are a few reasons, and if they continue on at this current rate it won’t be a surprise if things get worse before they get better. When Alberta’s Bill-45 came into effect in December 2013, it allowed for an increase in fines for union workers who strike “illegally”, and for parties who play a part in instigating said strike. Section 4 of Bill 45 reads: Prohibitions (1) No employee and no trade union or officer or representative of a trade union shall cause or consent to a strike. (2) No employee and no officer or representative of a trade union shall engage in or continue to engage in any conduct that constitutes a strike threat or a strike. (3) No trade union shall engage in or continue to engage in any conduct that constitutes a strike threat. (4) No person shall counsel a person to contravene subsection (1) or (2) or impede or prevent a person from refusing to contravene subsection (1) or (2).

Part of the controversy for journalists here lies in what would be classified as “instigating”. Writers now have to deal with the overlying cloud of potentially getting in trouble for reporting on stories relating to labour laws and working conditions in unionized companies. “We’re now self-censoring,” says Miki Andrejovic, a board member of PEN Canada and founder of Edmonton’s LitFest. He adds, “We don’t do investigative journalism [anymore]; we’re doing celebrity stuff because it sells and journalists [still] have to earn a living.” There’s also the issue of protecting confidential sources. In a case against former National Post reporter, Andrew McIntosh, the Supreme Court ruled that the editors at the Post were required to hand over documents McIntosh received from his confidential source regarding former prime minister Jean Chretien. While a similar case was overturned a few months later, the Court essentially decided to go on a case-by-case basis deciding whether or not it was in everyone’s best interest to reveal a source. So essentially, confidential informants do not have anonymity in the eyes of our judicial system. Andrejovic adds, “There’s no confidentiality, so people are very reluctant to [talk to journalists].” For some living in Canada, however, it’s a matter of perspective. Exiled journalist Aaron Berhane fled his native Eritrea — a country ranked last on the Press Freedom Index 26 C A N A D A ’ S D E C L I N I N G P R E S S F R E E D O M

“There’s no confidentiality so people are very reluctant to talk to journalists.” - Miki Andrejovic

— for Toronto, where he runs the independent Eritrean-Canadian paper, Meftih. In his home country he would receive threats of intimidation and death on a regular basis, and would be brought to the local police station once or twice a week for mundane questioning. While he may appreciate his newfound freedom as a writer and publisher, the current state of press freedom in Canada is not lost on the award-winning journalist. He, like many others, expects more. “As a journalist, I like to have access to information freely,” says Berhane. “For example, I don’t want to be restricted from interviewing scientists of federal research facilities, but since Harper came to power that access is controlled tightly.” Part of that power lies in the hands of the Communications Security Establishment of Canada (CSEC)— Canada’s spy ring. Much like the current battle our neighbours to the south are having with the NSA, CSEC also operates with a heavy layer of secrecy, spying on average Canadians and breaching basic codes of ethics and privacy laws. 2014

PRESS FREEDOM INDEX Source: Reporters Without Borders

#1 Finland #2 Netherlands #3 Norway #18 Canada

#46 United States

#178 Turmekistan #179 North Korea (DPRK) #180 Eritrea

“We know that CSEC is working closely with their counterpart in the U.S., the NSA,” says David Christopher, the communications manager for OpenMedia.ca (Vancouver), a community-based organization devoted to promoting open Internet and educating people about censorship and their online rights. He adds, “In fact, the information that’s being gathered from spying on law abiding Canadians is being shared with the [NSA] as well. I certainly think that if I was a journalist, that would be something at the back of my mind.” Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any signs of CSEC loosening their grip, as they have been approved for a new multi-billion dollar headquarters in Ottawa, making it the most expensive government building in the country’s history. To put it simply, we deserve better. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be higher on the Press Freedom Index, and there’s no reason why investigative journalism in this country should be muffled under the moniker of democracy. Canada has produced strong, articulate minds in the world of journalism— and still is. So in spite of secret spy agencies and bureaucratic red tape, journalists will continue to do what’s right, regardless of the rules that tell them otherwise. pencanada.com openmedia.ca SPRING/SUMMER 2014

CAMSELL HOSPITAL By Kody Thompson

I don’t know what’s worse, living in a house built on an ancient Indian burial ground, or in a modern townhouse built upon an abandoned aboriginal tuberculosis sanatorium.

Actually, all things being equal, the latter is a far better option; and it also happens to be the official plan for the infamous Charles Camsell Hospital. The main building of the hospital will soon be retrofitted into condominium units. These plans are a marked improvement considering the alternative is a pigeon- and ghost-infested monument sitting as a vacant, static reminder of Edmonton’s relationship to the dark national imperatives of institutionalized eugenics and residential school programs. Architect Gene Dub is spearheading these much anticipated developments. Inglewood property owners have had to watch and wait patiently while the hulking monstrosity has been tied up in limbo and their property values continued to plummet. If you ask around it seems like everyone has a story about the Charles Camsell Hospital. For years the vacant building has become something of a prominent “anti-landmark”, attracting everything from homeless vagrants seeking refuge during the winter months, to coming-of-age teens braving black mold-related lung infections in the hopes of communing with spirits from the necroverse. Like many young people who may or may not have ventured into the bowels of the decaying beast at some point, I can say without question how the site will be missed by urban explorers, occultists and stupid people in general. With all due respect to the passing of Harold Ramis, among the many buildings in Edmonton needing a good ghost busting, this one surely makes the top of the list. Over the years the hospital has earned a reputation as one of the city’s most haunted structures, contributing to numerous stories of the “as seen by a friend of a friend of mine” variety. Among them are eyewitness accounts of spectral orbs, shadowy figures, phantasmal screams and even rumours of bodies buried in the garden. On occasion, clairvoyants have even been employed to determine the exact nature or “energy level” of the spiritual activity…whatever that means. Regardless of the ghastly history concerning the Camsell’s reputation, the building is now set for the promise of a new beginning. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes— or more adequately put, a condo unit for retirees sprouting from soil tainted by asbestos and ectoplasm— the redevelopment of the Camsell marks the start of a new age. It will allow us to leave the morbidity of the past behind and make way for the birth of hope through much a needed renewal. At the very least, I suppose things could have been much worse. It’s far better to use the shell of a haunted sanatorium to craft modernized, retrofitted housing than to use it for a liquor store or a Chucky Cheese.

SPRING/SUMMER 2014

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