Warriors Against Violence is based out of Vancouver
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Friday, February 6, 2009
The Struggle for ones Indenity in the Urban Setting
http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/exhibitions/cmc/urbannativelife/urbannativelife05e.shtml
"The Struggle for Identity in Urban Centres
Maintaining one’s language, culture, traditional knowledge, values and spirituality is not an easy task in many Aboriginal communities today, whether they are rural or urban. The questions of interest for this project is: “How do Aboriginal people, living in urban centres, maintain their language, culture, Aboriginal knowledge, art, values, spirituality, their relationship to the land, home communities and their elders or ceremonialists? How does contemporary art reflect traditional values and knowledge of Aboriginal people struggling in urban centres?
For those who arrive in urban centres, with all or some of these values in place, life is difficult. After several generations of urban living, these values are quite often in jeopardy. The nature of the urban movement is that there are always new people moving to the city arriving with varying degrees of their culture, language and knowledge base intact. Quite often, these people are very happy to share what they have with those who are interested in learning.
Some of the most successful programs in drug and alcohol recovery programs in urban centres for Aboriginal adults and youth have been those centered around the arts – traditional and contemporary art, singing, drumming, theatre, dance, language instruction, as well as programs which take place on the land, such as camping, hunting, trapping, hide tanning, snowshoe construction, and story telling.
For many urban Aboriginal people, the connection to their culture and identity is supported through Aboriginal theatre, music, film, video production, dance, social and religious gatherings. In some cases cultural centres and art centres offer courses in dance, traditional dance clothing (regalia), carving, basket weaving, bead work, language, drum making, and wilderness survival, to name but a few activities.
This project will present a selection of multi-discipline art forms which address urban Aboriginal interest and issues of culture, identity and social issues affecting their lives today."
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I believe the calling has come for my 'Urban Life' project. I have contacted the local friendship centre for contact numbers of elders and those in the first nations community. I am intrigued who a group of peoples who have inhabited this Continent are struggling to keep their identity. We only ever hear of those who immigrated here and have cultural issues, what about those who have always been here?
"The Struggle for Identity in Urban Centres
Maintaining one’s language, culture, traditional knowledge, values and spirituality is not an easy task in many Aboriginal communities today, whether they are rural or urban. The questions of interest for this project is: “How do Aboriginal people, living in urban centres, maintain their language, culture, Aboriginal knowledge, art, values, spirituality, their relationship to the land, home communities and their elders or ceremonialists? How does contemporary art reflect traditional values and knowledge of Aboriginal people struggling in urban centres?
For those who arrive in urban centres, with all or some of these values in place, life is difficult. After several generations of urban living, these values are quite often in jeopardy. The nature of the urban movement is that there are always new people moving to the city arriving with varying degrees of their culture, language and knowledge base intact. Quite often, these people are very happy to share what they have with those who are interested in learning.
Some of the most successful programs in drug and alcohol recovery programs in urban centres for Aboriginal adults and youth have been those centered around the arts – traditional and contemporary art, singing, drumming, theatre, dance, language instruction, as well as programs which take place on the land, such as camping, hunting, trapping, hide tanning, snowshoe construction, and story telling.
For many urban Aboriginal people, the connection to their culture and identity is supported through Aboriginal theatre, music, film, video production, dance, social and religious gatherings. In some cases cultural centres and art centres offer courses in dance, traditional dance clothing (regalia), carving, basket weaving, bead work, language, drum making, and wilderness survival, to name but a few activities.
This project will present a selection of multi-discipline art forms which address urban Aboriginal interest and issues of culture, identity and social issues affecting their lives today."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I believe the calling has come for my 'Urban Life' project. I have contacted the local friendship centre for contact numbers of elders and those in the first nations community. I am intrigued who a group of peoples who have inhabited this Continent are struggling to keep their identity. We only ever hear of those who immigrated here and have cultural issues, what about those who have always been here?
Monday, February 2, 2009
World (urban) Views
http://www.theplaceswelive.com/
The year 2008 had witnessed a major shift in the way people across the world live: for the first time in human history more people live in cities than in rural areas. This triumph of the urban, however, does not entirely represent progress, as the number of people living in urban slums—often in abject conditions—will soon exceed one billion. From 2005 to 2007 Jonas Bendiksen documented life in the slums of four different cities: Nairobi, Kenya; Mumbai, India; Jakarta, Indonesia; and Caracas, Venezuela. His lyrical images capture the diversity of personal histories and outlooks found in these dense neighborhoods that, despite commonly held assumptions, are not simply places of poverty and misery. Yet, slum residents continuously face enormous challenges, such as the lack of health care, sanitation, and electricity.The Places We Live brings the modern-day Dickensian reality of these individuals into sharp focus.
The year 2008 had witnessed a major shift in the way people across the world live: for the first time in human history more people live in cities than in rural areas. This triumph of the urban, however, does not entirely represent progress, as the number of people living in urban slums—often in abject conditions—will soon exceed one billion. From 2005 to 2007 Jonas Bendiksen documented life in the slums of four different cities: Nairobi, Kenya; Mumbai, India; Jakarta, Indonesia; and Caracas, Venezuela. His lyrical images capture the diversity of personal histories and outlooks found in these dense neighborhoods that, despite commonly held assumptions, are not simply places of poverty and misery. Yet, slum residents continuously face enormous challenges, such as the lack of health care, sanitation, and electricity.The Places We Live brings the modern-day Dickensian reality of these individuals into sharp focus.
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