Chariots (2021)

Clara Ford drove a 1914 Detroit Electric, which she by far preferred to the Model T, a gasoline engine car built by her husband Henry[1]. Detroit Electric shipped its last car in 1939 and now we are told that the race to the electric car has just started[2].

Every carmaker is planning to become carbon neutral soon, and they are telling us, constantly telling now, that the planet can only be saved by purchasing electric cars. Like anyone else, I can appreciate the advantage of eclectic cars in carbon management, but I feel that we are not given the whole story. According to some, BHP for example, there could be 125 million electric cars on the road by 2030. Each of these cars will need about 183 lbs. of copper to build their motors[3]. I am not sure that mining all of those millions of tons of copper will be very kind to Mother Earth. Will she be saved or not?

I also have a certain ‘inquiétude’, a worry that our planet can only be saved by those with money to promote the mining. How can the poor help? How can Earth be truly saved if we exclude those who are economically challenged? Is it not ‘our’ planet after all? How can the electric car be a symbol of both salvation and inequity? If there was a heartfelt desire to save Mother Earth, governments would give tax breaks to those who have forfeited car ownership, instead of helping others to buy more vehicles.

What is killing our world is the societal model of promoting constant and excessive consumption of all matter. The rest is marketing and, so far, marketing has not saved anything.

Daniel H. Dugas
February 23, 2021

Image credit: [Detroit Electric auto on a promotional tour through mountains from Seattle to Mt. Rainier] / Cress-Dale Photo Co., Crary Bldg, Seattle. https://www.loc.gov/item/2003653829/

For more on this:
A Clear Conscience and a Bright Blue Sky (2020)
http://daniel.basicbruegel.com/a-clear-conscience-and-a-bright-blue-sky-2020/

[1] Henry Ford’s Wife Wouldn’t Drive Ford Model T, Kept Her Electric Car
https://cleantechnica.com/2014/04/11/henry-fords-wife-wouldnt-drive-model-t-kept-electric-car/

[2] Our Path to an All-Electric Future
https://www.gm.com/electric-vehicles.html

[3] How Much Copper is in an Electric Vehicle?
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/how-much-copper-is-in-an-electric-vehicle/

Urban Influx / Afflux urbain (2021)

Urban Influx (Afflux urbain), une pièce composée par Robert Lemay pour le Proteus Quartet, vient de faire son apparition sur la plateforme Hearnow ! Cette pièce a utilisé un de mes textes comme point de départ (‘Au large des objets perdus’, Éditions Prise de parole, 2011). Je suis aussi content que Robert et les musiciens aient choisi une de mes photos pour la couverture. Bonne continuation !

https://robertlemay.hearnow.com/urban-influx-afflux-urbain

‘fundy’ at MSVU Art Gallery, Halifax (2021)

We (Valerie LeBlanc and Daniel H. Dugas) are stoked that our installation ‘fundy’ is going to be shown at the MSVU Art Gallery: May 29 – July 25, 2021!

For more information: https://www.msvuart.ca/exhibition/daniel-h-dugas-and-valerie-leblanc-fundy/

No 26 – Entre ciel et mer. Rencontre Est-Ouest

Deux de mes textes « Canapé » et « Sero » font partie du numéro 26 Entre ciel et mer. Rencontre Est-Ouest, un projet collaboratif entre la revue Ancrages (NB) et la revue À ciel ouvert (SK).

https://ancrages.ca/

Écrire en français, que ce soit dans l’Ouest ou dans l’Est du pays, c’est avant tout un acte de résistance contre la marée montante de la culture anglo-américaine dominante. La langue française doit avoir, pour se développer, des occasions d’être exprimée publiquement, d’être entendue et, dans ce cas présent, d’être lue.

Extrait du liminaire de Jean-Pierre Caissie

L’instinct de respirer
Gisèle Villeneuve. Bone loss / Artiste Jean-Sébastien Gauthier
Rachel Bonbon. I et II / Artiste Lou-Ann Bourdeau
Joëlle Préfontaine. Manifeste : J’parle mal pis j’aime ça / Artiste David Champagne
Marika Drolet-Ferguson. lien de sens / Artiste Estelle Bonetto
Martine L. Jacquot. Tu viens à moi / Artiste Zoé Zénon

L’horizon des possibilités
Robert Malo. Bulles nocturnes / Artiste Guillaume Lépine
Daniel H. Dugas. Canapé suivi de Sero / Artiste Maryse Arsenault
David Baudemont. Plaines aquarelles / Artiste David Baudemont
Joanie Serré. Le binaire / Artiste Mario Rhéal Landry
Alasdair Rees. Trois mois, trois tois / Artiste Michèle Mackasey
Josée Thibault. Mon arbre (La fille du facteur) / Artiste Denis Lanteigne
Paul Ruban. Jan Van Zanten / Artiste Frédéric Gayer
Caroline Bélisle. Van Gogh / Artiste Anne-Marie Sirois

Au-delà des contours et des souvenirs
Mikhu Paul. Pow-wowland du vingtième siècle / Artiste Emily Sanipass
Louise Dandeneau. Crucifix / Artiste Léopold L. Foulem
Laurent Poliquin. Ô toi souveraine souvenance / Artiste Sylvie Pilotte
Simon Brown. Basse-Croisière / Artiste Laura St. Pierre

Crédits et remerciements
Numéro conjoint des revues Ancrages et À ciel ouvert
Édition : Jean-Pierre Caissie et Marie-Diane Clarke
Commissariat en arts visuels : Anne Brochu-Lambert et Jean-Pierre Caissie
D’après une idée originale de Jean-Pierre Caissie et Sébastien Rock
Coordination du numéro : Rachel Duperreault et Jeffrey Klassen
Édition et révision : Georgette LeBlanc

Couverture : Frédéric Gayer
Œuvre de couverture : Lou-Anne Bourdeau, ciel mer, aquarelle et encre sur papier, 2018.
Mise en page du numéro pdf : Jean-Pierre Picard
Mise en ligne du numéro web : Jean-Pierre Caissie

Comité de rédaction d’Ancrages : Sonya Malaborza, Georgette LeBlanc, David Décarie, Marc Chamberlain, Jean-Pierre Caissie, Paul Bossé, Joël Boilard.

Comité de rédaction de la revue À ciel ouvert : Jeffrey Klassen, Sébastien Rock, Marie-Diane Clarke, Henri Biahé, David Baudemont, Jean-Pierre Picard

ISSN 1712-9281

La revue acadienne de création littéraire Ancrages tient à souligner la contribution financière du Conseil des arts du Canada, du gouvernement du Nouveau-Brunswick et de la Ville de Moncton à la réalisation de ses activités. Nous en sommes reconnaissant.e.s.

Musings During a Time of Pandemic (2021)

Three of my texts, Assumptions and Axioms, Communicating Vessels, and Snapshot, have been included in the Musings During a Time of Pandemic: A World Anthology of Poems on COVID-19.

About the book
For those who have gone before us, the dead, those swept away by the flapping wings of the bat, we wish them well in their travel! and, in their sojourn in the cleansing waters of purgatory, let their flawless spirits, independent of the stains of mundane effects of wrongdoing, attain purification and the rewards of the divine abode, a garden of delights; let no torture or torment be subjected upon them, oh, poor souls!, spare them, O God of mercy! since while on earth, they never offended anyone. In their departure from purgatory, let them move on in solemn silence, and acquire wings that will fly them to a watershed, a peaceful spot somewhere beyond the blue; therein, then, in their final dwelling, rest in eternal peace… and we, who are left behind, who are not any better than them, we who are immortalized in ash and dust, although stained with tears, let’s bond in a spirit of humility and kindness and strive as one human race to rock the world with our messages of hope, love and peace.

About The Compiler/Editor:
Christopher Okemwa is a literature lecturer at Kisii University, Kenya. He has a Ph.D. in performance poetry from Moi University, Kenya. He is the founder and current director of Kistrech International Poetry festival in Kenya (www.kistrechpoetry.org). His novella, Sabina and the Mystery of the Ogre, won the Canadian Burt Award for African Literature in 2015. He has written eight books of poetry and been translated to Armenian, Chinese, Greek, Norwegian, Finnish, Hungarian, Arabic, Polish, Chinese, Nepalese, Turkish, Spanish, Catalan and Serbian. He has also translated four literary works of international poets from English to Swahili. He is the editor of four poetry anthologies from around the world. He is the author of ten folktales of the Abagusii people of Kenya, three children’s storybooks, one play, two novels and four oral literature textbooks. Website: www.okemwa.co.ke

Copyright © 2020 Christopher Okemwa and all the authors herein.
All rights reserved.

This publication may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, by any means including photocopying or any information storage or retrieval system, without the specific and prior written permission of the author and publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the author’s or publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

For permission requests, email the publisher at the address below.

Published by Kistrech Theatre International (www.kistrechpoetry.org)

ISBN: 978-9966-955-95-1

First Edition: November 2020
Published by Kistrech Theatre International (www.kistrechpoetry.org)
P.O. Box 3956, Kisii, Kenya.

Printed in Kenya
Ordering information:
WhatsApp: +254-723-868167
E-mail: festival@kistrechpoetry.org
E-Mail: cokemwa08@gmail.com, chris@okemwa.co.ke
Website: www.kistrechpoetry.org
Website: www.okemwa.co.ke

This anthology has been sponsored by Dr. Christopher Okemwa

Gérald Leblanc/Le Bruit des choses 1994 (2020)

Retrouvé : cette lettre de Gérald Leblanc à propos de mon livre Le Bruit des choses.

A Clear Conscience and a Bright Blue Sky (2020)

The goal of any ad is to make us feel good about a company and its products. This ad from the Melbourne, Australia-based BHP Billiton multinational mining, metals, and petroleum company, fits the bill. According to its advertorial gospel, published in The Economist October 2020, by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the air, electric cars will save the world. But this glossy hope does not tell the whole truth. The ad states that ‘by 2030, there could be 125 million electric cars on the road.’ More cars on the roads, this is the hope for our future and these are the words of a company responsible for so much destruction. Still fresh on our environmental awareness radar is the 2015 collapse of a dam at the Samarco-BHP mine. This was Brazil’s largest environmental disaster, it killed 19 people and spilled roughly 40 million cubic metres of toxic sludge into communities, the Rio Doce river, and the Atlantic Ocean, 650 km away[1]. BHP Billiton is also responsible for the Ok Tedi environmental disaster in Papua New Guinea. Between 1984 and 2013, BHP’s mine discharged about two billion tons of untreated mining waste into the Ok Tedi river[2]. This is the same company that has violated scores of indigenous communities’ rights across the Americas. The trail of environmental, social, and public health disasters linked to BHP[3] is a long one and yet they want us to think of them as the saviour of the world, they want us to believe that they are the ‘Big Thinkers’ who leave a small carbon footprint. It is hard to take and even harder to understand why such ads could be printed. One hundred and twenty-five million electric cars will not solve the problems of pollution that will occur through their manufacturing process; the extraction of tons and tons of copper needed to build the hearts and the veins of these cars will not make our planet better. The only ones to profit are the investors and perhaps the marketers selling us on the fallacy that our conscience should be clear.[4]

[1] BHP faces first step in $6.3 billion UK claim over Brazil dam failure
[2] Ok Tedi environmental disaster
[3] Broken Hills: Six cases from BHP’s long trail of disasters (PDF)
[4] According to the Visual Capitalist website, an EV contains about 183 lbs. of copper. 125 millions cars multiplied by 183 lbs. equal twenty three billion pounds of cooper.

ARTériel podcast (2020)

Émilie Turmel nous emporte avec elle visiter deux expositions présentées dans le cadre du Volet Arts médiatiques : « Habitat » de Valerie LeBlanc et Daniel H. Dugas à la Galerie d’art Louise-et-Reuben-Cohen et «Hekas Hekas…» de Carole Deveau et Patrick McFarlane présentée à l’Atelier d’estampe Imago. Émilie offre ainsi ses impressions et réflexions au regard de ces deux projets vidéographiques. Réalisé par : Émilie Turmel, Carole Deveau et Christine Comeau Invités: Daniel H Dugas, Valerie LeBlanc et Carole Deveau Musique: Allumette

Habitat (2020)

Nous sommes (Valerie LeBlanc et Daniel H. Dugas) super contents d’exposer HABITAT à la Galerie d’art Louise-et-Reuben-Cohen dans le cadre du Festival international du cinéma francophone en Acadie. L’exposition ouvre demain (le 6 novembre) et il y aura un vernissage le 18 novembre de 16 à 18 h. Au plaisir de vous y rencontrer !

HABITAT est une trilogie de projets vidéo et audio qui ont été réalisés dans le cadre de résidences artistiques dans diverses réserves naturelles dans le sud de la Floride. « Nous avons exploré tour à tour chacune de ces régions avec nos caméras et nos enregistreuses, souvent en accompagnant les biologistes et les botanistes dans l’exercice de leurs fonctions. Nous avons tenté de comprendre la réalité de ces lieux en nous laissant envahir par l’esprit qui les habite. »

Jonathan Lamy, commissaire, explique la pratique privilégiée par les artistes dans cette exposition, soit la vidéopoésie : « Les créations présentées dans Habitat ne sont ni des films, ni du cinéma, mais de la vidéopoésie. Une pratique hybride, un genre en soi, qui efface la frontière entre la vidéo et la poésie. » Les œuvres de l’exposition se manifestent donc dans un amalgame d’images et de textes qui s’entrecroisent dans un même espace et qui font état de la place de l’humain dans la nature.

We are super happy to be showing HABITAT at the Galerie d’art Louise-et-Reuben-Cohen as part of the Festival international du cinéma francophone en Acadie. HABITAT will be presented from November 6 to December 20, 2020 and the opening will be held on November 18, from 4 to 6 PM. We hope to see you there!

HABITAT is a trilogy of video, audio and photo projects that have been produced in the context of artistic residencies in various nature reserves in South Florida. “We explored each of these areas with our cameras and audio recorders, often accompanying biologists and botanists in the performance of their duties. “ We tried to understand the reality of these places by remaining open to the spirits that inhabit them.”

Curator Jonathan Lamy explains the artists’ primary practice in this exhibition, videopoetry: “The artworks presented in HABITAT are neither film nor cinema, but videopoetry, a hybrid practice, a genre which erases the boundary between video and poetry.” The works in the exhibition thus manifest themselves in an association of images and texts that intermingle in the same space, and point to the place of human beings in nature.

De fil en anguille – 33e Instants Vidéo (2020)

Très content de faire partie de ces 33e Instants Vidéo Numériques Poétiques.

Ma vidéo De fil en anguille sera présenté le 10 novembre à la Friche la Belle de Mai (Salle Seita) / Marseille sous la thématique des coprs.

14h Esquisse 8 : Les corps
14h15 Films (42’) de Francesca Lolli (Italie), Daniel H. Dugas (Canada), Lynn Bianchi (USA), Gerard Chauvin & Daniel Nassoy (France), Magali Dougoud (Suisse)