10.09.08 kulturnatib

The encampment
It is a dark night. It is past 8pm. Because it is now officially Autumn, it is cold. Why, then, exhibit an outdoor installation art piece at this time of the year? And, why, is it open for public viewing only between 7pm and midnight?

The answers soon present themselves. There are 70 of them although one reads them better only with the help of a provided LED mini flashlight or, better, one appreciates them best when one steps inside.

They are printed in explanatory text on plastic laminated sheets in both English and French hung on the door flap, citing historical references, statistical information or more poignantly and powerfully telling personal stories.

They are contained in daily objects, in art works, in mementos, in diaries, in photographs and other things that are summarized in the explanatory or narrative text yet they provide the gestalt that says more than words in strikingly or hauntingly creative ways.

They are inside white canvass field tents that, in its militarily precise arrangement, can only be some sort of encampment, the sort that the exhibit statement suggests to be metaphorically of the archaeological kind where, “a dig for artifacts is replaced by a dig into the collective memory . . .” or, also, collective forgetting or denial.

They are at Major's Hill Park, a popular public space within walking distance from the halls of parliament, in the shadows of the spires of this institution representing the collective called Canada.

They are the installation art piece called, “The Encampment,” a work conceived by Thom Sokoloski and creative collaborators from all over the country who have responded to the call for participation in creating this piece that deals with the issue and reality of persons with intellectual disabilities through history, legislation, social attitudes and more compellingly, through personal stories of intellectually disabled individuals themselves.

They are classified by authorities as having an IQ of 70 or less. Hence, the 70 tents.

The tents are largely in the dark. Each are supplied with a camping lamp that illuminates the inside and their contents. But only so much that one really has to step in for closer inspection. From the outside, they glow dimly, making them look like floating cocoons.

On each door flap post is a small, key-chain size LED flashlight for reading accompanying text. The power switch is difficult to operate, making reading less than straight forward.

Yet one reads about the wholesale discrimination, disregard, exclusion, violence and dehumanization that visits the lives and days of the the intellectually disabled with communities often abetting it, at the very least by looking away. One also reads of the victory of some who persist and triumph though never far from the shadow of the stigma.

This exhibit, a version of which will also be installed in Toronto and New York, celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Canadian Association for Community Living, whose advocacy is assisting communities in becoming more welcoming and supportive of people with intellectual disabilities.

How better to celebrate than with art? Or, even so much better, participative, collaborative, engaging, inclusion challenging public art?