We all want the same thing: to leave our children and our children’s children a better community. (2017)

We all want the same thing: to leave our children and our children’s children a better community: Environment/ City of Moncton: Reducing our environmental footprint [1]

The City of Moncton can do great things. The new Rabbit Brook Trail that goes from Mapleton Road to Reade Street Park is a perfect example of this desire to create a better community.[2] Moncton even has a plan to reduce our environmental footprint. The page on the City of Moncton’s website states that ‘Moncton is a city whose residents believe in sustainability, creativity, and leadership …’ and ‘that fewer cars on the roads mean cleaner air.’ The obvious question is how we are going to achieve this lofty goal with events glorifying vehicles that are notorious for polluting the atmosphere? The cars in the Atlantic National, which is happening right now, are known polluters with extremely high emissions. What is the toxic legacy that is left by the 2000 + cars coming into town every year for this event? Is this part of the ‘children’s children’s better community’? As a pedestrian in the city, I can attest to the difficulty of walking in noxious fumes during this celebration.

And it is not just the Atlantic Nationals filling the air with this rich fuel mixture. Moncton is also home of the Greater Moncton Corvette Club Show & Shine; the Annual Mustang Club Car Show and, of course, the Atlanticade Motorcycle Festival. How many motors will it take for our city to be truly green?

I understand the importance of commerce and having a place where everyone can live their lives, but if we continue to host such damaging environmental events, we should be conscious of our actions. First, we should cross out the line on the City’s website that states ‘… fewer cars on the roads mean cleaner air’, as this is a misleading statement in view of these featured auto events. The second thing that we could do is to perhaps invite one of the Volkswagen executives who ‘pleaded guilty to conspiracy and obstruction of justice charges to get around US pollution rules on nearly 600,000 diesel vehicles by using software to suppress emissions of nitrogen oxide during tests’[3] to be the grand marshal of one of the car exhaust festivals.

Daniel H. Dugas
7 July 2017

[1] ‘We all want the same thing: to leave our children and our children’s children a better community.’ from:  Environment/ City of Moncton: Reducing our environmental footprint
https://www.moncton.ca/Residents/Environment.htm

[2] Google Maps

[3] Volkswagen pleads guilty to all criminal charges in emissions cheating scandal, The Guardian, 10 March 2017.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/mar/10/volkswagen-vw-pleads-guilty-criminal-charges-emissions-cheating

Text/Image

Text(e)/Image: Herménégide Chiasson and Daniel H. Dugas are two Canadian authors and visual artists. Both studied in the US, both are francophone, both have published books and participated in numerous exhibitions and art projects. In this improvised performance, they will explore dimensions of words and images to bridge informal and unusual dialogue about the written word, visual statements and spoken word.

Burlington Book Festival 2017
September 15-17
Three days of authorized activity

Output-Input/EMMEDIA (2017)

Our (Valerie LeBlanc and Daniel H. Dugas) collaborative videos Illumination (2016) and Work and Love (1990 – part of Slices of Life) have been selected for the Output-Input exhibition. EMMEDIA Member’s Retrospective Exhibition runs: July 14 – August 26, 2017.

EMMEDIA has been a place where media arts lives for almost 40 years! Having recently moved into our new location with two new presentation spaces, we will be featuring work by past and current members and artists, showcasing the rich history of media arts at EMMEDIA. A group exhibition will be featuring established media artists who have laid the groundwork and foundation, alongside emerging media artists that will be shaping the future of EMMEDIA. A formal screening will be presented during the opening reception featuring works from the 1980s – present, with some produced right here at EMMEDIA. We end the night with live performances by prominent audio artists in our community. The exhibition runs until August 26 with the screening available for viewing on the digital screens at EMMEDIA. Come celebrate the media arts community in our new location!

Opening Reception Schedule:
Doors @ 7PM
Screening @ 7:30PM
Artist Q&A @ 8:30PM
Live Performances @ 9:30PM

Peformances by:
Chris Dadge + TBA
Whitney Ota + TBA

Installations by:
Tom Andriuk
Noel Bégin
faxingmyfriends (Teresa Tam, Jadda Tsui, and Sandrine Weltzin)
Lowell Smith
Sandra Vida

Screenings by:
Daniel Dugas & Valerie LeBlanc
Colleen Kerr
Greg Marshall
Lon Parker
Aran Wilkinson-Blanc

http://emmedia.ca/2017/07/output-input-2017/

Illumination / MIX conference (2017)

Our collaborative (Valerie LeBlanc and Daniel H. Dugas) video Illumination has been selected for screening at the MIX Conference, Bath, UK.
Date: 10th -12th July 2017

Poetry Film Screenings at Mix

This selection has been curated by Lucy English, Reader in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, co- founder of Liberated Words which creates, curates and screens poetry films and Zata Banks, founder of PoetryFilm, an influential research arts project and film screening series.

The selected films reveal the energy and commitment to the poetry film genre by its practitioners, and explore the different approaches to combining words with moving image. Some of our filmmakers are well known and have received many accolades; others are new to the field.

Rendez-vous vidéopoésie (2017)

Mon vidéopoème Sablier a été sélectionné aux Rendez-vous vidéopoésie 2017. Les oeuvres sélectionnées seront projetées le jeudi 1er juin, à 19h, au O Patro Vys à Montréal !

Plus d’information >>>

Deering Spring Contemporary (2017)

“Platform 450,” a transdisciplinary initiative hosted on the 450 acres of the Deering Estate, will draw together varied practices that converge on the exploration of scientific data and new technologies as they relate to our natural and historic site.

Works on display demonstrate artistic practices that use virtual reality, microscopic imagery, sea level rise modeling, and social media with artists that include: Priscilla Aleman, Archival Feedback- Thom Wheeler Castillo & Emile Milgrim, Dan Alvarez, Willie Avendano, John William Bailly, Frida Baranek, O’Neal Bardin III, Xavier Cortada, Mark Diamond, Ediel Dominguez, Maxwell Hartley, Valerie LeBlanc & Daniel H. Dugas, Home Eleven -Nelly Bonilla & Oscar Luna, Ian Honore, Peter Hosfeld, Carol Jazzar, Charles Lindsay, Richard Medlock, Luciano Rabuske, Gretchen Scharnagl, Skip Snow, Kyle Trowbridge, Freda Tschumy, Keith Waddington.

“Platform 450” Deering Spring Contemporary
Exhibit and Event Schedule for Saturday, April 22, 2017

Exhibition on view daily through June 26

More info >>>>

Versogramas (2017)

My video ‘Insomnia’ was selected to be part of “Versogramas”, the first documentary on the international videopoetry scene. An emotional journey, with the voice of videopoets and researchers from all over the world. A kaleidoscope of image and sound.

Schedule of the project

Shooting: May 2017
Editing and post-production: June-August 2017
Copies: September 2017
Delivery of rewards: October – December 2017

More info >>>

There’s no place like home (2017)

Finally, a feel-good story from the East! Moncton is “the place to be,” [1] says Canadian travel blogger Andrew Gunadie – Hurray! Down here, we all know that we live in a special place and I recently heard it said that ‘There’s the good times, the bad times and the Maritimes!”

But let’s start with a bit of background information. The first and the most famous travel writer was Herodotus, the Greek historian who lived in the fifth century BC. The role of any travel writer, he said, “is to be the tourist’s perfect companion: to be articulate, well informed, a skilled raconteur; to include in what he tells [sic] a fair share of the unusual with a dash of the exotic; to tell it all with infinite zest.” [2] Gunadie has many of those qualities, he is articulate, engaging, charming, and I want to believe him. But there is something in his travel truth that made me pause. To say that the City of Moncton is the ‘place to be’ or not, is not the aim of my commentary. I am curious about the tone, the coverage of his story and ultimately what it says about us.

When I first saw Gunadie’s video, I was delighted. Imagine, my hometown was the best place to be! Joy! My second impression was more nuanced. There is something steering the clip that reads like an advertisement. Maybe the ‘place to be’ reminded me of the infamous New Brunswick licence plate tagline, the “Be … in this place”.[3] I understand the necessity of naming things (cafés, pubs and restaurants), of speaking in clichés or memes (beach for oneself, beautiful sunset), but I believe that it is possible to write about a place without sounding like an ad.

A lot of travel writing is about selling something to someone, but it does not have to be like that. Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and Ernesto Che Guevara’s The Motorcycle Diaries are examples of two great works based on actual travel adventures. The genre continues to reinvent itself. In December 2016, Canadian Art Magazine awarded its Art Writing Prize to Calgary Art Critic, Ginger Carlson for her travel essay describing “a journey with artist Nicole Kelly Westman to former mining town Wayne, Alberta, to produce a new work.”[4]

The script of Our Country: Gunnarolla on why Moncton is his favourite place could have been lifted from a Tourism New Brunswick brochure. It is all niceties, product-oriented and we heard it before:

The East Coast is where the friendliest people live
Does anyone do seafood like the East Coast of Canada?
Moncton is perfect for road trips
Having a beach for oneself
Amazing sunsets
Walking ‘on the ocean floor’

This ‘walk on the ocean floor’ has been repeated like a mantra by the operators of the Hopewell Rocks as well as by the New Brunswick Department of Tourism.[5] It is probably something that everybody in New Brunswick does in his or her sleep, but to talk about Hopewell Rocks without mentioning the recent collapse of the Elephant Rock, one of the more popular of the Flowerpot formations, is puzzling. Gunardie surely wants to focus solely on the positive.[6]

The suspension of my belief came in a two-pronged realization. The first prong happened last month when the New Brunswick Department of Tourism announced that it was investing $1.1M for travel writers to promote tourism over the next 4 years[7]. Could this Canadian Geographic feature be part of that program? The second prong came a few days ago, when CBC New Brunswick published an article about Gunardie’s video. When I saw the video on Facebook, I thought that it walked like an advertorial and it talked like an advertorial, so I thought that it was an advertorial, but it did not trouble me, as after all, it was on Facebook. But to see it on CBC News was like seeing a little red flag on the horizon. The question is, why would CBC News would cover an ad? It is important to distinguish between the genuine article and the advertorial. Otherwise, we should have news stories about Leon’s couches.

How we see ourselves is important to consider, how other people see us might be more crucial. Our enthusiastic reaction to the Gunardie’s story is natural, but our social identity and the positive emotions we experience from belonging to any social group, or place, must not be shaped by marketers alone. The book has already been written, it’s called: Tourism Marketing for Cities and Towns and chapter 3: Analyzing the City or Town as a Tourism Product offers food for thought.[8]

Daniel H. Dugas
Moncton, NB

[1] “Travel blogger says Moncton is ‘the place to be’,” last modified Feb 24, 2017, http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/blog-travel-gunnarolla-moncton-nb-favourite-1.4008283

For an interactive map of « Our Country » see Canadian Geographic, last modified Feb 24, 2017, http://maps.canadiangeographic.ca/our-country/map.asp

[2] Lionel Casson, Travel in the Ancient World, (Hakkert, Totonto, 1974), 111

[3] “N.B. dumps licence plate slogan”, last modified Feb 24, 2017, http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/n-b-dumps-licence-plate-slogan-1.1089931

[4] “Calgary Critic Wins Canadian Art Writing Prize”, last modified Feb 24, 2017, http://canadianart.ca/news/canadian-art-writing-prize-winner-announced/

[5] Tourism New Brunswick, Walk on the ocean floor, last modified Feb 24, 2017, http://www.tourismnewbrunswick.ca/Products/ECs/WalktheOceanFloor-The-Hopewell-Rocks-EC.aspx

[6] “New Brunswick’ s famed Elephant Rock collapses in a pile of rubble”, last modified Feb 24, 2017, https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/03/15/new-brunswick-s-famed-elephant-rock-collapses-in-a-pile-of-rubble.html

[7] “Province pays $1.1M for travel writers to promote tourism over 4 years”, last modified Feb 24, 2017, http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/cash-coverage-tourism-vacation-1.3991776

[8] Bonita Kolb, Tourism Marketing for Cities and Towns: Using Branding and Events to Attract Tourists, (Routledge, 2017). https://www.routledge.com/Tourism-Marketing-for-Cities-and-Towns-Using-Social-Media-and-Branding/Kolb/p/book/9781138685192

For Analyzing the City or Town as a Tourism Product, see Chapter 3 in Google Books, last modified Feb 24, 2017, http://bit.ly/2n6NjDm

269th anniversary of Jeremy Bentham’s birth (2017)

Today is the 269^th anniversary of Jeremy Bentham’s birth. And I wonder why Google did not create a Google-Doodle for the founder of modern utilitarianism.

In his studies of English law, he realized early on that it was not “what it was said to be; neither was it what it ought to be.” In the 1770s he described his despair and resolution:

“… I entered upon the task. I had been taught to believe both in print and in conversation that it is in [its] . . . several parts as beneficial to the people as the whole together is profitable to those who study it as a profession: that it is as near to perfection as any thing can be that is human; that if it has any imperfections, they are like spots in the sun, absorbed in the splendour of superior beauties. As I advanced every page I read seemed to furnish an exception to those general rules; till at last I began to be almost at a loss to conjecture upon what particular observations could have given occasion to these magnificent positions.

… I saw crimes of the most pernicious nature pass unheeded by the law: acts of no importance put in point of punishment upon a level with the most baneful crimes: punishments inflicted without measure and without choice: satisfaction denied for the most crying injuries: the doors of justice barred against a great majority of the people by the weight of wanton and unnecessary expense: false conclusions ensured in most questions of fact by hasty and inconsistent rules of evidence: light shut out from every question of fact by fantastic and ill consider’d rules of evidence: the business of hours spun out into years: impunity extended to acknowledged guilt and compensation snatched out of the hands of injured innocence by . . . impertinent & inscrutable exemption: the measure of decision in many cases unformed: in others locked up and made the object of a monopoly: the various rights and duties of the various classes of mankind jumbled together into one immense and unsorted heap: men ruined for not knowing what they are neither enabled nor permitted even to learn: and the whole fabric of jurisprudence a labyrinth without a clew. These were some of the abominations which presented themselves to my view . . . From the view … I confess resulted a passionate desire of seeing them done away.”

Jeremy Bentham : an odyssey of ideas
by Mack, Mary Peter
Published 1963

New Brunswick Art Bank acquisitions exhibition (2017)

The Moncton Times and Transcript
Entertainment, Saturday, January 28, 2017, p. E4

New Brunswick Art Bank acquisitions exhibition on until Feb. 6
Margaret Patricia Eaton

Every two years, the New Brunswick Art Bank presents a touring exhibition of its recent purchases. It opened at the Dieppe Arts & Culture Centre on Jan. 12 and will remain until Feb. 6, after which it moves on to Fredericton, Florenceville, Edmundston, St. Andrew’s, Saint John and Campbellton, wrapping up in October in Miramichi.

When the tour ends the 18 acquired works will become part of the permanent collection of the Province of New Brunswick, which was established in 1968 to celebrate and promote outstanding contemporary art. As such, they’ll be displayed in government offices, boardrooms and public spaces in provincial government buildings. Some of the works may also be included in the VanGo Program, a series of exhibitions which tours public schools throughout the province.

This biannual exhibition is one I enjoying as it provides an opportunity to see the work of artists from across the province. More than half of the artists represented ­ 11 of 18 ­ are from southeast New Brunswick, suggesting there is something special going on in the art scene in our region. Out of the five selection collection members only one is from Moncton, Jean­Dénis Boudreau.

The evening presented an opportunity for me to get caught up with some of the artists I’ve profiled in the past, including Dominik Robichaud, who’s completing her degree in art therapy and will be mounting a major exhibition at the Dieppe Arts & Culture Centre on Feb. 11. It was also an opportunity to meet other local artists that I knew of, but hadn’t met. As a result I was able to speak briefly with internationally acclaimed fibre artist Anna Torma and the multidisciplinary team of Valerie LeBlanc and Daniel Dugas, who told me about a recent journey to Kenya where they were invited to read poetry. I’m hoping that within the next few months I’ll have an opportunity to get to know them better and feature them here.

The Artists
Marjolaine Bourgeois, Moncton, fibre arts, printmaking;
Marsha Clark, Fredericton, paint and mixed media on Mylar;
Daniel H. Dugas, Moncton, literary arts, media arts, digital technology;
Alexandrya Eaton, Sackville, painting;
Paul Griffin, Sackville, sculpture/photography;
Denis Lanteigne, Caraquet, installations, photography;
André LaPointe, Moncton, sculpture/ land art, photography;
Valerie LeBlanc, Moncton, visual, film and digital arts;
Mario LeBlanc, Moncton, sculpture; Mathieu Léger, Moncton, photography, video and installation work; Ann Manuel, Fredericton/St. Andrew’s, multidisciplinary;
Paul Mathieson, Saint John, painting;
Shane Perley­Dutcher, Nekootkook (Tobique) First Nation, weaving, wood carving, silver work; Dominik Robichaud, Moncton, painting;
Neil Rough, New Brunswick born, Toronto­based, photography;
Karen Stentaford, Sackville, photography;
Anna Torma, Baie Verte, fibre arts;
Jennifer Lee Weibe, Fredericton, painter.

The Selection Committee

Ned Bear, Fredericton. During his 35­year career as an Aboriginal artist, Bear has focused on contemporary interpretations of traditional spiritual beliefs as expressed through masks and sculptures. He is a graduate of the New Brunswick College of Craft & Design, NSCADU and UNB. He is also the recipient of a 2006 fellowship from the Smithsonian Institute.

Jean­Denis Boudreau, Moncton. After studying animation before graduating with a visual arts degree from l’Université de Moncton, Boudreau was the Atlantic region finalist for the 2007 Sobey Art Award and has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions.

Élisabeth Marier, Caraquet. Marier holds a degree in graphic arts, worked for over 20 years in glassmaking in Montreal at Éspace Verre and is a founding member of Caraquet’s Constellation bleu, an artist­run centre.

Michael McEwing, Carlton County. McEwing holds fine arts, multimedia and education degrees and is co­founder of the River Valley Arts Alliance and Woodstock’s annual DoorYard Arts Festival.

Jean Rooney, Fredericton. Rooney achieved a Master of Arts in Ireland, has exhibited internationally and in addition to her studio practice is an instructor at the New Brunswick College of Craft & Design.

Margaret Patricia Eaton Margareteaton16@gmail.com A freelance writer, photographer and poet, Margaret’s weekly column focuses on artists, galleries and art issues in southeast New Brunswick.