BEHIND THE SCENES

Fold Interviews
— First Impressions

An interview with Iman Bukhari, Alec Carton, Garrett Cooper and Jared Tailfeathers.

As part of the 2019 Write On series, a critical writing workshop for emerging writers in Alberta, three live sessions were held to engage participating writers with figures in the community over topics related to urban form. This reflection piece centres around the first session whose theme was first impressions and listening. Listening is integral to the writing process and to critical thinking. How can we know what we don’t know if we’re unable to observe and listen? The intent of the crit sessions was to emphasize to participating writers the importance of seeking out various viewpoints prior to sharing their own through their writing. In this piece, we recount and expand upon the ideas posed during the session through discourse with the three presenting artists—Iman Bukhari, Alec Carton, and Garrett Cooper—as well as the session’s curator, Jared Tailfeathers. 

Based on the act of listening, “first impressions” emerged as a grounding tenet for Jared’s selection process. He describes a means of creating space through exploration. By “gather[ing] people from different ethnocultural/cultural backgrounds and practices together,” his aim was to eliminate context that might cloud an impression, to have a discussion about the work “without much context about the work beforehand, letting the art speak for itself.” Avoiding context, the conversation between the public and the presenting artists was opened up, allowing first impressions to be parsed and explored through discussion.

Iman Bukhari is a Pakistani-Canadian immigrant whose work encompasses creative writing and digital media. She presented her multimedia project, “WOC: A Sisterhood” (where WOC stands for Women of Colour). The short film was produced during a brief artist residency and features the experiences of nine women as they share stories about their identity. Following the film, Bukhari led a discussion responding to the viewer’s feedback and questions. We learned a little more.

How did the idea for this project come about?

IB: The idea came from lived experience. I wanted to create a piece about something that I have experienced, without that being the main focus. Growing up here, I found that girls and women of colour had similar experiences of racism, and it brought them together through a sisterhood.

What do you see different types of viewers taking away from this project?

IB: I see this project impacting those with similar experiences to feel connected and not alone. As for those with different lived experiences, I hope they can empathize and, if they see discrimination happening, make sure to step up. Furthermore, I'm sure others can relate with their own experiences. It may not be the same, but we've all felt discrimination in different ways. We can understand how hurtful it is; therefore it can help us empathize. 

Iman’s words remind us that initiatives that highlight one type of lived experience can benefit all types by broadening perspectives and shedding light on our shared humanity. Therefore, as change-makers in the urban realm—whether we’re artists, designers, planners, or writers—we are encouraged to seek out varying viewpoints, to find the commonalities in them, and to highlight those commonalities in the content we produce. It is in this way that people can connect with one another despite apparent differences. 

Alec Carton identifies as a mixed Indigenous person with a passion for economic development for First Nations and a love of music and story. During the Listening session, he shared a story/song, first with some participation from the audience.

AC: I asked for a number of people to write down what they thought I might do. Because of the dress shirt with a collar and the way I looked, they assumed that I would have a “refined” performance. I performed something that was vastly different from what they expected, and I removed some clothing to display my Indigenous beads and wear. I then asked for feedback from the audience based on their initial assumptions versus what they then experienced.

How did you come up with the idea for this performance?

AC: I was considering avenues involving music and story that would allow me to show a group what subconscious expectations and biases are. Today we live in a world that is based systemically on the power of money and the colour of one’s skin as the greatest dividers between human to human. Observing how these biases come into play can be interesting to observe (though emotionally draining to endure).

In choosing to perform this particular piece to professional and aspiring writers, Alec opened up his own lived experience to interpretation so that the attendees’ embedded preconceptions could rise to the surface. He made it a powerful exercise in self-reflection. As creators within the urban context, reflecting upon our own biases before releasing that next journal article or community project, for example, could mean that we are able to identify and mend what may have otherwise excluded or misrepresented certain groups of people. Reflection could be a powerful tool contributing to advancing us as a connected human race. 

Garrett Cooper, a local graphic designer and painter who has explored various media, presented two pieces he describes as high-chromatic, abstract, geometric, landscapes. He walked us through the intentions behind his creative work.

How do your paintings touch upon the concept of lived experience?

GC: I tend to stay away from painting any form of representation (i.e., depictions of real-world things) because I want the viewer to be able to bring in their own history with their own associated iconography and viewpoint to the works. Their viewing experience is then specific and special to them.

How can your work be used to encourage open-mindedness and listening? 

GC: I try to emulate the experience of watching clouds pass: A group of people could all be looking at the same cloud and see something different. When someone genuinely engages with the painting and tells me what they see, I get to journey with them through their reading of the piece; I get to see things that I would never have otherwise seen.

The lesson from Garrett’s approach is a valuable one if we want our work to resonate on a wide scale: to abandon any right-versus-wrong viewpoints we can then welcome responses to our work that are different from how we had envisioned it, enriching the creative process.

Jared Tailfeathers is a facilitator, artist, community connector, and member of the Indigenous Placemaking Initiative at the Calgary Public Library. The piece he presented during the First Impressions session was a chapter from his upcoming novel He Was Dead, due for publication this summer. He described the two main characters for us. 

JT: Mr. Trip is a biracial Indigenous-Caucasian who is at the moment of his death and is bargaining with a trickster-type character for a chance to sort through his own trauma and inner demons that have stopped him from living his life to its fullest. Old Nick Switch is the other character; he is the trickster who bargains with the protagonist for his soul and freedom. 

How do these characters embody the concepts of lived experience and identity? 

JT: Mr. Trip is a parallel version of myself. He is the only character in all of my narratives that is based on my own lived experience: racial/ethnocultural expectations, racism, social/familial expectations, politics, eco-politics, accountability, personal expectations…. Though disguised as an adventure story, He Was Dead is most importantly about dealing with personal and intergenerational trauma and where you fit in—that is, if you're in between the cracks of social and political norms, who you are to yourself, to your family and friends, and to your community.

What is it like to write something so deeply inspired by your own life?

JT: Previously, I had hardly written anything that directly references my life. So this process was weird, cathartic. When I started writing, my sister had just passed away. I found that I had to focus that negative energy somewhere. Some traumas I couldn’t quite put my finger on, like why my family would act a certain way in certain situations. Writing this down helped me understand it in a way, helped me grow in appreciation for both sides of my culture. Some things just popped into my head, without having a framework for the story. I would question myself: Is this really important? Why is this in here? But ultimately I made sure that everything that was in my head made its way into the story, even really personal things. Like relieving myself after a long car ride—that’s how it felt. And now I’m writing a sequel, so that says a lot.

Tell us about your interconnected multimedia practice. You’ve done everything from making musical instruments to building installations to illustrating. Why write? 

JT: I’ve been a visual artist and musician (multi-instrumentalist) throughout my entire life. I have a strong love for all arts, so I try my best to make those things link together. Most of my musical work had narrative-like themes, which naturally led into narrative-type work—short fiction, poetry, comic books. Writing this novel was a fairly simple next step for me. 

I’ve also had the chance to try my hand at research. Last year I received a Calgary Arts Development grant to research traditional Blackfoot methods of making musical instruments. It was a fairly comprehensive project. At first I thought I was going to learn solely how these instruments are made, but in Blackfoot, everything is tied together—politics, religion, spirituality, territory. I’m from the Blood Reserve in southern Alberta. Going back home, standing in the places where my ancestors have been for thousands of years and talking with elders about things mostly forgotten, was a really great experience. It’s helped shape my focus as a Blackfoot artist to a more cultural one.

FOLD asked a few more questions to each artist individually, as a way for them to reflect upon the work they presented and its impact.

Tell us about how language plays a role in your work. In general, how does language influence the way a piece is interpreted?

IB: I'm hoping for my next project to be in my native tongue, Urdu. I realized a while back that living in a Canadian society, I was losing my language because I never spoke it, so I try very hard now to keep it alive. I think language is so incredibly important. Language comes with different ways of seeing the world, as it's immersed in the culture. People who can speak more than one language think differently and have more ways of understanding than people with just one language. That's my opinion. 

AC: I presented my piece in English. I believe it did not affect the audience a great deal—with the mass majority being native English speakers, I believe that their subconscious expectation was to hear a piece in English, and when this came to fruition, it was deemed normal. If I had incorporated more words of my People (for instance, in Stoney, “tataga” means buffalo, “howawan” means coyote, and “bithbithan” means mouse), this would have engaged the audience in a different manner. The language of the story is sacred; certain words and feelings in Stoney stories cannot be translated into English. To translate certain stories into English would also open up the rights to a story being shared, distributed, and changed by others than the keepers of the language. 

GC: I am always interested in language: how we share meanings and connotations by the things we say, and how we say it. I enjoy playing with alternative meanings through the deconstruction of words into syllables, creating homophones that then change the meaning of the saying altogether. I have a piece named “Rows Courts/Rose Quartz.” I feel that the language we use will always change how we view the world around us. If we are attributing a particular dialect or language to a work, it changes whom the work is for and how it is seen.

JT: Language and communication is a big part of what I do, in both my professional and my personal practice. Music is a universal language, interpreted by hearing it and feeling it. In my comic books and novels, language appears a lot: the different languages I’ve become familiar with, the communities I’ve engaged with because of my work has enabled that. I’ve been able to learn my own traditional language, a bit of which appears in He Was Dead. And it’s not just language that I emphasize, but more generally communication: I encourage learning through doing and voicing questions that might be hard to ask or answer.

Sometimes one’s work can be misunderstood or perceived as contentious by those who don’t come from the same lived experience. Resulting questions might come from a place of naivety and be painful to answer. Why, then, is it important to keep doing this kind of work? 

IB: I think it's incredibly important to have uncomfortable conversations. People often hide from them. Whether the person asking is privileged or not in any way, if it's coming from an honest place where they want to understand and not hate, then it's important to have those conversations without getting upset. Not everyone can do this, so I hope that everyone who enters the space, and who actually wants to have these types of projects, understand that they should also be open to discussions of all sorts. 

AC: We need to consider this when seeking knowledge sharing: for a person who is considered part of a minority group to share their knowledge that is based on personal experiences, that person must relive their experiences in a micro sense for the benefit of the person asking. While this person is typically an ally or supporter, the privilege and exemption from discrimination is the same, so it can be frustrating to the person of whom the question is asked. Therefore, we must try to use phrases that highlight not a lack of knowledge or a desire to understand, but rather a respect for the lived experience of the person being asked. For instance, start the conversation with: “Are you comfortable right now to share your knowledge with me?” Similarly, if someone is using a term that is incorrect or derogatory, and it does not feel like the right social setting to say something or it may sound “mean” to correct the person—say it. We cannot let politeness stand in the way of progressing us forward as a race and healing our People. 

JT: As a biracial person (though I can’t speak for all biracial people), my existence comes from bridging the gap. My parents—my dad from the reserve and my mom from a little town nearby—fell in love and had kids. Things like that are important to talk about. We can’t blame everyone alive today for the systemic oppression of Indigenous people, but we need to inform people so that we don’t repeat the mishaps of the past. We can’t learn the hard truths (for example, cultural appropriation) without hearing or talking about them. That’s why I encourage discussions like this.

How do you see your creative work building community and contributing to the acknowledgement of differences among people in our city?

IB: Art is not just a form of entertainment, but also a way of communicating. It's a great way in building understanding. It is an excellent avenue for discussions! 

AC: We as a people cannot let our culture, our decolonization, or our spirituality act as a badge to decorate our own ego. It can be easy to feel “enlightened” by our understanding and work in social change, but we must remain humble. Emotional lateral violence can occur when we act superior because we know language, social insights, culture, or traditions. I personally relate to this statement on both sides, so I must strongly insist on its understanding as I move forward. 

GC: I hope my work can serve as a bridge between people. Whether someone likes or dislikes what I’ve created, talking about it allows them to open up to others’ opinions and find like-minded people around them. I hope my art can communicate across cultures and communities, breaking down barriers and giving a peephole view into another person’s existence. 

JT: Canada’s history—and Calgary’s too—might not be fully clean, but that doesn’t mean everything is terrible. There are things I appreciate having now because of the mixing, things I had the chance to learn in new ways. I try to share that through my work. Trying to navigate the politics of that is not fun and definitely not comfortable, but it’s where most of the growth happens. Some people have traumas they don’t want to talk about, and that’s fine. But bottling things up or holding lasting grudges is also not good. It’s up to community members—myself included—to help one another out, to see and speak to one another as equals. 

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This interview was produced and edited by Christina Amaral-Kim, an emerging writer with an interest in design's human experience who is based in Calgary.

The 2019 Write On Workshop Series was produced by d.talks between July 2019 and February 2020. We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Rozsa Foundation for making this series possible. You can find more details at: dtalks.org.