Liberia: Little Details

Little details on a ship.

Liberia: Transformation

I thought I would post some of the stories I have done as a writer/photographer/graphic designer in the past several months. This is the finished product used as a marketing tool for Mercy Ships.

This story is about Alimou, a patient that Nigel anaesthetised. Click on each image to get a bigger view.

Liberia: Mercy Fire

After a fire drill on the ship I found the fire hoses hanging out to dry in Liberia.

Liberia: Food for Life

The Food for Life program is in the Tenegar region of Liberia. Click on the story above for the full details.Marcel, an agriculturalist runs the program.The plaintain plantation.

The experimental farm.

Sprouting plants.
A lot of new product are tested in the Liberian climate and soil on the farm.
The watering jugs.
Seed beds.
Cucumber sprouts.
I loved these planters/composters. The compost gets put in the middle and watered. The plants are grown in the planters on either side and feed off the compost nutrients.

White Rabbit

I would say I was a savoury person. Yes, I like chocolate and baking, but the junk food I would buy from a store does not usually include candy. Of course there are exceptions. White Rabbit candy is one of my favourite sweet candy treats. It is a milk candy made in China wrapped in rice paper, usually only obtained in Chinese stores. You take off the outer wrapping and lop the whole thing in your mouth and as the rice paper melts you start to tasty the milky sweetness underneath. YUM! It was with disbelief that I read the BBC article last week titled, "China Stops Tainted Sweets Sales" with the picture above of my White Rabbit candy. WHAT!? It read: A Chinese sweet maker has stopped domestic sales of one of its best-known brands after it was found to contain the industrial chemical melamine. The company, Guanshengyuan, has already halted exports of the popular White Rabbit candy, made from milk. I hadn't thought the tainted milk scandal would effect me. I quickly made my way down to my favourite Chinese food store in Sheffield, UK. Sure enough, the candies were no longer on the shelves. I do hope they reappear again...minus the melamine.

Getting Things Done

This is the newest book I am reading. Nigel laughs and tells me he can't believe I am reading any book with that business guy in his full suit on the front. Hey, give me some credit! Actually it came out of a weekend camping getaway hosted by two collaborative London artists, FrenchMottershead, who offered a workshop on marketing your art and getting where you want to in your career. It was excellent as is their exhibition history and their overall enthusiasm and friendliness. They reiterated the years they spent working themselves in circles and failing to move closer to their goals before taking on a new approach. This was the book they recommended. Apparently it is the hot book in London artist circles at the moment. It outlines effective ways to stop spending 90% of your time on administration while increasing time spent on productivity, as anyone running a small business can relate to.

Wajdi Mouawad to Stephen Harper

Carl Wilson writes on his blog ZOILUS: The following "open letter" has appeared many places in French and a few in English, but among anglos it might be mainly theatre people who've read it. It is an unusually powerful evocation of the intimacy of art and politics, in a broader spirit than merely that of "protest," though of course it is that too and for good reason. Playwright-director Wajdi Mouawad is one of the more distinct voices in contemporary Canadian writing. (Thanks again, Susan, for the link) An open letter to Prime Minister Harper Monsieur le premier ministre, We are neighbours. We work across the street from one another. You are Prime Minister of the Parliament of Canada and I, across the way, am a writer, theatre director and Artistic Director of the French Theatre at the National Arts Centre (NAC). So, like you, I am an employee of the state, working for the Federal Government; in other words, we are colleagues. Let me take advantage of this unique position, as one functionary to another, to chat with you about the elimination of some federal grants in the field of culture, something that your government recently undertook. [... continues ...] The Symbolism Firstly, it seems that you might benefit by surrounding yourself with counsellors who will be attentive to the symbolic aspects of your Government's actions. I am sure you know this but there is no harm in reminding ourselves that every public action denotes not only what it is but what it symbolises. For example, a Prime Minister who chooses not attend the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, claiming his schedule does not permit it, in no way reduces the symbolism which says that his absence might signify something else. This might signify that he wishes to denote that Canada supports the claims of Tibet. Or it might serve as a sign of protest over the way in which Beijing deals with human rights. If the Prime Minister insists that his absence is really just a matter of timing, whether he likes it or not, this will take on symbolic meaning that commits the entire country. The symbolism of a public gesture will always outweigh the technical explanations. Declaration of War Last week, your government reaffirmed its manner of governing unilaterally, this time on a domestic issue, in bringing about reductions in granting programs destined for the cultural sector. A mere matter of budgeting, you say, but one which sends shock waves throughout the cultural milieu - rightly or wrongly, as we shall see - for being seen as an expression of your contempt for that sector. The confusion with which your Ministers tried to justify those reductions and their refusal to make public the reports on the eliminated programs, only served to confirm the symbolic significance of that contempt. You have just declared war on the artists. Now, as one functionary to another, this is the second thing that I wanted to tell you: no government, in showing contempt for artists, has ever been able to survive. Not one. One can, of course, ignore them, corrupt them, seduce them, buy them, censor them, kill them, send them to camps, spy on them, but hold them in contempt, no. That is akin to rupturing the strange pact, made millennia ago, between art and politics. Contempt Art and politics both hate and envy one another; since time immemorial, they detest each other and they are mutually attracted, and it's through this dynamic that many a political idea has been born; it is in this dynamic that sometimes, great works of art see the light of day. Your cultural politics, it must be said, provoke only a profound consternation. Neither hate nor detestation, not envy nor attraction, nothing but numbness before the oppressive vacuum that drives your policies. This vacuum which lies between you and the artists of Canada, from a symbolic point of view, signifies that your government, for however long it lasts, will not witness either the birth of a political idea or a masterwork, so firm is your apparent belief in the unworthiness of that for which you show contempt. Contempt is a subterranean sentiment, being a mix of unassimilated jealousy and fear towards that which we despise. Such governments have existed, but not lasted because even the most detestable of governments cannot endure if it hasn't the courage to affirm what it actually is. Why is this? What are the reasons behind these reductions, which are cut from the same cloth as those made last year on the majority of Canadian embassies, who saw their cultural programming reduced, if not eliminated? The economies that you have made are ridiculously small and the votes you might win with them have already been won. For what reason, then, are you so bent on hurting the artists by denying them some of their tools? What are you seeking to extinguish and to gain? Your silence and your actions make one fear the worst for, in the end, we are quite struck by the belief that this contempt, made eloquent by your budget cuts, is very real and that you feel nothing but disgust for these people, these artists, who spend their time by wasting it and in spending the good taxpayers money, he who, rather than doing uplifting work, can only toil. And yet, I still cannot fathom your reasoning. Plenty of politicians, for the past fifty years, have done all they could to depoliticise art, to strip it of its symbolic import. They try the impossible, to untie that knot which binds art to politics. And they almost succeed! Whereas you, in the space of one week, have undone this work of chloroforming, by awakening the cultural milieu, Francophone and Anglophone, and from coast to coast. Even if politically speaking they are marginal and negligible, one must never underestimate intellectuals, never underestimate artists; don't underestimate their ability to do you harm. A grain of sand is all-powerful I believe, my dear colleague, that you yourself have just planted the grain of sand that could derail the entire machine of your electoral campaign. Culture is, in fact, nothing but a grain of sand, but therein lays its power, in its silent front. It operates in the dark. That is its legitimate strength. It is full of people who are incomprehensible but very adept with words. They have voices. They know how to write, to paint, to dance, to sculpt, to sing, and they won't let up on you. Democratically speaking, they seek to annihilate your policies. They will not give up. How could they? You must understand them: they have not had a clear and common purpose for a very long time, for such a long time that they have no common cause to defend. In one week, by not controlling the symbolic importance of your actions, you have just given them passion, anger, rage. In the dark The resistance that will begin today, and to which my letter is added, is but a first manifestation of a movement that you yourself have set in motion: an incalculable number of texts, speeches, acts, assemblies, marches, will now be making themselves heard. They will not be exhausted. Some of these will, perhaps, following my letter, be weakened but within each word, there will be a spark of rage, re-lit, and it is precisely the addition of these tiny instances of fire that will shape the grain of sand that you will never be able to shake. This will not settle down, the pressure will not be diminished. Monsieur le premier ministre, we are neighbours. We work across the street from one another. There is nothing but the Cenotaph between our offices, and this is as it should be because politics and art have always mirrored one another, each on its own shore, each seeing itself in the other, separated by that river where life and death are weighed at every moment. We have many things in common, but an artist, contrary to a politician, has nothing to lose, because he or she does not make laws; and if it is prime ministers who change the world, it's the artist who will show this to the world. So do not attempt, through your policies, to blind us, Monsieur le premier ministre; do not ignore that reflection on the opposite shore, do not plunge us further into the dark. Do not diminish us. Wajdi Mouawad (translation by John van Burek).

Metro: A Great Cover

I couldn't resist posting this Metro cover. I am hungry now.

A Fiesty Rebutal for Harper

Given the arts cuts in both Canada and the UK I thought I would post this response (printed in the Globe & Mail) from Canadian author, Margaret Atwood, to Canadian Prime Minister, Steven Harper. Thanks Susan for the link. MARGARET ATWOOD From Thursday's Globe and Mail September 24, 2008 at 11:00 PM EDT What sort of country do we want to live in? What sort of country do we already live in? What do we like? Who are we? At present, we are a very creative country. For decades, we've been punching above our weight on the world stage - in writing, in popular music and in many other fields. Canada was once a cultural void on the world map, now it's a force. In addition, the arts are a large segment of our economy: The Conference Board estimates Canada's cultural sector generated $46-billion, or 3.8 per cent of Canada's GDP, in 2007. And, according to the Canada Council, in 2003-2004, the sector accounted for an “estimated 600,000 jobs (roughly the same as agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, oil & gas and utilities combined).” But we've just been sent a signal by Prime Minister Stephen Harper that he gives not a toss for these facts. Tuesday, he told us that some group called “ordinary people” didn't care about something called “the arts.” His idea of “the arts” is a bunch of rich people gathering at galas whining about their grants. Well, I can count the number of moderately rich writers who live in Canada on the fingers of one hand: I'm one of them, and I'm no Warren Buffett. I don't whine about my grants because I don't get any grants. I whine about other grants - grants for young people, that may help them to turn into me, and thus pay to the federal and provincial governments the kinds of taxes I pay, and cover off the salaries of such as Mr. Harper. In fact, less than 10 per cent of writers actually make a living by their writing, however modest that living may be. They have other jobs. But people write, and want to write, and pack into creative writing classes, because they love this activity – not because they think they'll be millionaires. Every single one of those people is an “ordinary person.” Mr. Harper's idea of an ordinary person is that of an envious hater without a scrap of artistic talent or creativity or curiosity, and no appreciation for anything that's attractive or beautiful. My idea of an ordinary person is quite different. Human beings are creative by nature. For millenniums we have been putting our creativity into our cultures - cultures with unique languages, architecture, religious ceremonies, dances, music, furnishings, textiles, clothing and special cuisines. “Ordinary people” pack into the cheap seats at concerts and fill theatres where operas are brought to them live. The total attendance for “the arts” in Canada in fact exceeds that for sports events. “The arts” are not a “niche interest.” They are part of being human. Moreover, “ordinary people” are participants. They form book clubs and join classes of all kinds - painting, dancing, drawing, pottery, photography - for the sheer joy of it. They sing in choirs, church and other, and play in marching bands. Kids start garage bands and make their own videos and web art, and put their music on the Net, and draw their own graphic novels. “Ordinary people” have other outlets for their creativity, as well: Knitting and quilting have made comebacks; gardening is taken very seriously; the home woodworking shop is active. Add origami, costume design, egg decorating, flower arranging, and on and on ... Canadians, it seems, like making things, and they like appreciating things that are made. They show their appreciation by contributing. Canadians of all ages volunteer in vast numbers for local and city museums, for their art galleries and for countless cultural festivals - I think immediately of the Chinese New Year and the Caribana festival in Toronto, but there are so many others. Literary festivals have sprung up all over the country - volunteers set them up and provide the food, and “ordinary people” will drag their lawn chairs into a field - as in Nova Scotia's Read by the Sea - in order to listen to writers both local and national read and discuss their work. Mr. Harper has signalled that as far as he is concerned, those millions of hours of volunteer activity are a waste of time. He holds them in contempt. I suggest that considering the huge amount of energy we spend on creative activity, to be creative is “ordinary.” It is an age-long and normal human characteristic: All children are born creative. It's the lack of any appreciation of these activities that is not ordinary. Mr. Harper has demonstrated that he has no knowledge of, or respect for, the capacities and interests of “ordinary people.” He's the “niche interest.” Not us. It's been suggested that Mr. Harper's disdain for the arts is not merely a result of ignorance or a tin ear - that it is “ideologically motivated.” Now, I wonder what could be meant by that? Mr. Harper has said quite rightly that people understand we ought to keep within a budget. But his own contribution to that budget has been to heave the Liberal-generated surplus overboard so we have nothing left for a rainy day, and now, in addition, he wants to jeopardize those 600,000 arts jobs and those billions of dollars they generate for Canadians. What's the idea here? That arts jobs should not exist because artists are naughty and might not vote for Mr. Harper? That Canadians ought not to make money from the wicked arts, but only from virtuous oil? That artists don't all live in one constituency, so who cares? Or is it that the majority of those arts jobs are located in Ontario and Quebec, and Mr. Harper is peeved at those provinces, and wants to increase his ongoing gutting of Ontario - $20-billion a year of Ontario taxpayers' money going out, a dribble grudgingly allowed back in - and spank Quebec for being so disobedient as not to appreciate his magnificence? He likes punishing, so maybe the arts-squashing is part of that: Whack the Heartland. Or is it even worse? Every budding dictatorship begins by muzzling the artists, because they're a mouthy lot and they don't line up and salute very easily. Of course, you can always get some tame artists to design the uniforms and flags and the documentary about you, and so forth - the only kind of art you might need - but individual voices must be silenced, because there shall be only One Voice: Our Master's Voice. Maybe that's why Mr. Harper began by shutting down funding for our artists abroad. He didn't like the competition for media space. The Conservative caucus has already learned that lesson. Rumour has it that Mr. Harper's idea of what sort of art you should hang on your wall was signalled by his removal of all pictures of previous Conservative prime ministers from their lobby room - including John A. and Dief the Chief - and their replacement by pictures of none other than Mr. Harper himself. History, it seems, is to begin with him. In communist countries, this used to be called the Cult of Personality. Mr. Harper is a guy who - rumour has it, again - tried to disband the student union in high school and then tried the same thing in college. Destiny is calling him, the way it called Qin Shi Huang, the Chinese emperor who burnt all records of the rulers before himself. It's an impulse that's been repeated many times since, the list is very long. Tear it down and level it flat, is the common motto. Then build a big statue of yourself. Now that would be Art! Adapted from the 2008 Hurtig Lecture, to be delivered in Edmonton on Oct. 1.

Look Alikes: Drain

Even in Morocco there are look-alikes to be found...

Bathroom drain in Marrakesh, Morocco & a retro Viewfinder reel.

Thanks to Aref-Adib for the look-alike invention.

Morocco: Our Attempt to Leave

It is our last day in Morocco before flying out and we head to the Casablanca airport from Azzemour. We arrive 3 hours ahead of departure and line up for our Air Maroc check in time. Nigel immediately says, "something is wrong". "What do you mean something is wrong? What's wrong?" "Look at our two check in counters. No one is moving in either line. There are passengers gathering around and there are 5 people hovering behind each desk staring at the computers. I don't think we are leaving today". "Hmmmm", I say as I notice he is right. News filters back through the line that the flight is already booked up. In fact, yesterdays flight was also overbooked and most of those people have been bumped to our flight today leaving us unable to get on (despite our confirmed bookings). We finally make it to the front of the queue to try our best to coerce the woman into letting us on. No such luck. There are absolutely no seats left. We are given a free voucher for the local airport hotel nearby and vouchers for meals. It looks as though we are not leaving Morocco yet. Those around us say this is normal for the airline, but having had zero trouble getting on our Air Maroc flight at 3am in Liberia, we have no idea. We are bussed to the Atlas Hotel nearby where Nigel's no-nonsense personality emerges. Somebody tries to take his bag to load it on the bus and he protests saying he has just put his own bags on and will not under any circumstances be paying out more money to someone who has done nothing. This was a common attempt in our travels. Someone would walk with you, open a drink for you, or point out a few landmarks and then charge you for all sorts of things that you would normally think you should be asked first about. Besides we thought we were leaving and have no Moroccan currency left. We figure Air Maroc owns the hotel just to deal with its scheduling problems. All the vouchers we receive in the hotel have Air Maroc stamped across them and came in large pads of papers. Hmmm. One might even think, hey, free meal, free hotel, fun times. But we are in the middle of nowhere (we know this because we wander around the area), and the meals are simple buffets that are pretty dismal if you don't get there fast enough. The seating is random and most of the tables have others food and dishes left all over them. Canteen style at its most disorganized. But it does have a large lovely pool outside and I sit by it reading and people watching. It is fascinating to see the variety of cultures milling about. There are West Africans, women in their bright, body-hugging African dresses with children on their backs. There are dessert nomads in their long flowing robes with heads and faces wrapped in turbans. There are young Slavic women posing like models, dressed in western fashion and flirting with an older Middle Eastern man. There are Muslim Moroccan families in their long flowing robes. There are Westerners in their tourist shorts and burned faces. There are French tourists in their skimpy bikinis and poised demeanour. It is all an amazing spectacle. The next day we were up early heading to the airport hours ahead of our departure time. If we beat the rush we may actually get on the flight today. Despite being given a boarding card the day before, I am not convinced we are on the flight until we are actually sitting on the plane. Tempers are high and tensions lay thickly between passengers as some barge to the front and demand to be checked in since they were already bumped from the day before. Someone shouts that we are all here from the day before and why not get in line like everyone else. But the line is in chaos. A table is set up behind us and everyone shifts to it, nervous, waiting. Then someone emerges behind the desk and the crowd runs back to the original check in desks. A Muslim woman behind me in fully covered body and head robes with 3 little kids looks at me and says, "are you going to push to the front of the line? Because if you are not I am going to." It does seem the only way that anything is going to get done. With her behind me I push to the front waving our passports and boarding cards demanding to get on the flight because I was here the day before. We shove our bags onto the weight machine and are told that we must have them searched first at the table in the back. No way! If we move we lose our place and possibly our plane. The man next to me nudges me and knowingly says, "yes, they have already searched your bags". I pick up on his queue and repeat the same thing. It doesn't seem to work. I reassess my tactic as Nigel refuses to move our bags to let the next person through. In Malawi we learned that not all cultures work in ordered lines where everyone allows whoever is first to go first. If you act like an ordered culture you will never get served in other countries. In Malawi we watch in amazement as our Malawian friend pushes to the front of a crowd and waves our passports in front of the immigration officer when we need our visas renewed. No one is upset that she has shoved past, they are all in turn just trying to get the attention of the officer. One Malawian said she was shocked that people queued so pleasantly when she visited a European country. Back to the Moroccan airport. I think fast and eye the security guard who is standing by us directing people to other queue to have bags searched. I also look at my tightly wrapped and taped bags full of art and art supplies. There is no way they will open. "Please, sir" I say "could you check our bags here so that we don't have to go to the other queue. We will take our hand luggage to be checked". He hesitates, squeezes a few of our bags, asks about content then waves at the woman at the desk to let us through. I am thrilled. We head to the other line with just our handbags. I see the Moroccan woman who had nudged me to budge in and am gleeful to see she has no bags either. I make eye contact and jump gleefully saying " we did it" to her. She laughs and shakes my hand. I congratulate her on navigating the chaos with 3 small children. We are now booked to fly on the plane. We see that the passengers arriving for the first time that day are all being bumped. I want to stay and watch the human drama unfold, but Nigel thinks it wiser to get as close to the plane as possible and head through security. People are still panicky on the other side of security and are lining up at the departure gate despite having boarding cards that say the plane doesn't even leave for another hour. After all of that, we finally board and leave on the flight. We are excited to return to the UK, but mutually agree we both love Morocco. A HUGE thank you to Keith who drove all the way down to London from Manchester to pick us up from airport, but got stuck there because we didn't arrive on our original flight.

Morocco: Azzemour

We drive up the coast taking a lesser travelled road along the ocean.

The soil is white and the distant sea is hazy as we view it down below.

The view points we stop at are breathtaking. We notice around this area a lot of new single-unit vacation homes being built. They are luxurious structures for the average Moroccan.

We finally cross a bridge and spot the small town of Azzemour sitting picturesquely on the banks of the Oum er-Rbia River.

It's a sleepy backwater with a languid charm and a sturdy Portuguese medina.

We take our time as we watch this fisherman row his boat in to shore.

We are booked at the Riad Azama, a traditional riad in an incredible old house complete with original carved woodwork and charming rooms surrounding a lovely courtyard (below). We are led into the largest room (pictured above), after being upgraded due to overbooking their smaller double rooms. It is a charming place that has not been too modernized, but maintained to standards that make it old and beautiful, yet very comfortable and homey. The carved painted ceilings here are some of the finest you'll see anywhere in the country.

The rooftop terrace has great views of the medina and the ville nouvelle.

A shot of the ville nouvelle where we wander to try to find Nigel another close shave at a barber shop. As we wander around we realize there is something going on in this small village. Some sort of art movement. We see murals on random walls or randomly painted doors like the one above. The town is completely unadorned for the tourist market and gives an authentic insight into modern Morocco. We don't run into any foreigner and are eyed curiously by some of the older locals. In fact, it is so unlike any of the tourist places we visit that we are shocked when the kids shyly say hi to us as though we are a novelty. In other places they can be hard core money earners and demand money for walking in front of us and apparently "guiding" us. It is a breath of fresh air here. It is a small village with a quiet languid charm, similar to some of the Tuscan villages in Italy I have visited. We walk along the city walls of the village along the river and are mobbed by a group of young boys who are so excited to see a blond foreign woman that one just hugs me and tries to lift me off the ground for fun. For our last days in Morocco we know we have chosen our location well. We find both the medina and the ville nouvelle relaxing as we discover a large flea market right outside city walls (much to my delight). Back at our riad we lounge around in the internal garden. There is a budgie bird cage built into the wall with new babies. Other budgies are not allowed in the cage and just fly about the garden. They stick around because they are fed there. There is a small cozy library that I settle into for hours in the evening. I make a pile of all the art and Morocco books that I want to look at on the shelves and hunker down to immerse myself. I chat with the French man who owns the place and mention I notice all the art filling the riad. When I mention I am an artist he takes us up to his private area to show us the original painted ceilings in his place. They are absolutely stunning. He is looking for a good restorer for one section of it. I like him immediately and watch as he goes to check up on his budgies several times a day. We eat dinner by candlelight in the courtyard, a wonderful tajine with great service, while we watch the fountain splash away. The sun sets and we head to bed ready to drive back to the Casablanca airport the next day.