Belong: A TV journalist's search for urban culture: From Beirut to Bamako, from Havana to Ho Chi Minh City

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COPYRIGHT@ 2004 BY JENNIFER MORTON

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reporduced stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any from or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic comying, a license from Access copyright, I yonge street, Suite 1900, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, MES IES

Story editor kisha ferguson Edited by Autienne Weiss Book Design by Bill Douglus at The Bang Library and Archives canada Catatoguling in Publication

Morton Jennifer, 1962Beling: search for urban culture: from Beirut to Banaki, from Havan to Ho chi Minh City Jennifer Morton. Includes index.

ISBN 1-894663-78-0 1. Arts and revolition. 2. Arts and the poor. 3. Urban violence. 4. Urban warfeare. I Title NX180.S6M67 2004 700'1'03 c2004-909344-X The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the canada Council the Ontario arts Council and the department of Canadian Heritage through the Book Publishing Industry Development progea. We acknowledge the support of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corportation's Ontario Book Initiatiove. Printed and bound in canada Insoomniac Proess

192 Spadina Avenue, Suite 403 Tojronto Ontario Canada M5T 2C2 www.insomnicapress.com

THE CANADA COUNCIL LE CONSEIL DES ARTS FOR THE ARTS DI CANADA SINC 1957 DEPUTS 1957

ONTARIO ARTS COUNCI CONSEIL DES ARTS DE LONTARIO

BELONG A TV JOURNALIST'S SEARCH FOR URBAN CULTURE. FROM BEIRUT TO BAMAKO, FROM HAVANA TO HO CHI MINH CITY.

STORIES AND PHOTOS

INSOMNIAC PRESS

JENNIFER MOTRON

ART WILL FIND A WAY p. 18

INTRODUCTION

ART WILL FIND A WAY. THAT WAS TAKEN FROM A WALL IN MELBOURNE. IT SUMS UP WHAT I HAVE EXPERIENCED TRAVELLING AROUND THE WORLD. ART WILL ALWAYS BE CREATED NO MATTER WHERE YOU ARE. BELONG WAS SPRAY-PAINTED ON A WALL IN MADRID. IT MADE ME FEEL A SENSE OF BELONGING TO AN ARTISTIC URBAN WORLD. IT IS NOT ABOUTGLOBALIZATION,BUTRATHERCOMMUNICATION.

IT IS NOT ABOUT EXCLUSION, BUT A SEARCH FOR A COMMON BOND. IT'S ABOUT IDENTITY. I TRAVELLED THE WORLD TRYING TO FIT INTO A GLOBAL COMMUNITY. HOME IS WHERE I AM CERTAIN I BELONG, BUT I HAVE CONNECTED TO OTHER CITIES. MY KNAPSACK OF CAMERAS ALLOWED ME TO PARTICIPATE. I THINK THE

BEST WAY TO DISCOVER A CITY IS THROUGH THE EYES OF ITS ARTISTS. —JENNIFER MORTON

P.19

FORWARD

BY MOSES ZNAIMER

IN MY EARLY CAREER as a roving, troubleshooting Producer/Reporter for CBC network television's Take 30 and The Way It Is, I was every so often sent off on a story in a hurry, armed with a thin file and a single contact in it. Soon it became my favourite thing to do: hit a strange airport in a foreign

quickly you can construct and fall into that new life. Start on day one with a single name and number and by week's end your diary is bursting with tips and references and new acquaintances. Stay a little while longer and your personal and social calander is as loaded as your business agenda, and then, you vanish! I guess that's why I was so primed and open to Jennifer Morton's pitch for tvfmmes when it came. It seemed to me she was proposing to do as I had done. But where I had improvised on occasion, she was going to do it time and time again for a TV show in which she would play not only producer, director and host, but photographer as well. This played to another of my hobby horses; namely, that today's new, compact video technology, allows for complete TV craftsmanship on the part of a new kind of individual—an artist who could conceive, organize, shoot, interview, edit and present—something that not too long

BOTH THE TV SHOW AND THE BOOK REFUSE TO RECOGNIZE THE NORDERS AND NICETIES ASSOCIATED WITH MAINSTREAM TOURISM. land, sometimes in the dead of night, and by dint of tenacity and chutzpah—and not a little luck—make my way to the facts and personalities in question. As I think about it now I realize that those experiences crystallized for me the powerful allure of travel: real travel, not packaged tourism. I loved the sense of dislocation, of freedom and of anonymity. I loved the promise of travel, which, however briefly, is of a different life! It's amazing how P. 20

ago used to require an entire team. In short, Jennifer was a new kind of modern-day communicator, who I called a Videographer. However, among the cliche program formats of early television that I had sworn never to emulate at Citytv was the Travel Show (along with the Game Show, the Cooking Show, the Bowling Show...). So, if I was going to break that vow it could only be in support of a very different kind of "travel show" indeed! Jennifer told me that her shooting would be multicamera, (five different cameras, four of them hers) and

mixed media, from the hip, and without anything predetermined or set up in advance. And her portrait of the City or Country in question would be composed not of the usual Attractions and Officials, but of the music, art, fashion and media being created in that place, delivered in documentary-style and featuring video-verite technique, (Start with pictures, or rock and roll, and pretty soon you're talking politics anyways!) Such an approach resonated perfectly with Citytv's perspective on life, so I said, "OK!" Armed with a knapsack of cameras and an abundance of chutzpah, Jennifer then chased the global urban art, music and culture scene: from Havana to Ho Chi Minh City, from Bamako to Beirut. As Producer, Shooter and Presenter of tvframes, her travels took her to forty-one countries and hundreds of encounters. Over the years Jennifer and her cameramen have been dragged out of a club by riot police in Milan; tracked down and questioned in Belfast; and told to "spread "em" in Istanbul. They've witnessed spirit possession in Senegal, been left on the side of the road by more than one driver, and were actually stranded in the air and rerouted as the Twin Towers burned and fell. Now, Belong brings her unique approach to cultural reportage to print. From the dirt roads of Bamako to the people-littered streets of Mumbai, it is also a look at how culture survives in places the rest of the world associates with war, poverty and civil strife...like the Bob Marle

tourism. They're a guide mostly to the lesstravelled parts of the world or to the less travelled parts of the well-travelled parts, Jennifer likes to learn things first-hand. She brings you into the cafes and bars for smoky conversations and late night insights. She avoids the obvious. Her beat is more underground, closer to the street and dependent only on her own stamina, courage and charm to get around. There are no governments or big companies opening institutional doors; just a gutsy gal moving from contact to contact and before you know it, local music, wall-art, and new media have revealed more than any folkloric travelogue or government communique ever could, Jennifer Morton is adventurous, avantgarde and idealistic. Her fifteen-year Quest has by its sizeable output become a body of work to be noted and applauded. In the end, her message is: I went, you go too! Be inquisitive. Keep an open mind. Above all, be available to the happy accidents of travel,

MOSES ZANAIMER IS THE

cover band in beirtu, or the architect in Tel Aviv who wants

to incorporate destruction into his new buildings. in Otner words, Belong IS not a conventional travel guide and Jennifer Morton is not a conventional travel 0 writer. Herein, no tips about cheap rooms Or meals, but a

new way of understanding people and places and the great truth to that old adage, "travel is broadening." Both the TV Show and the Book refuse to recognize the borders and niceties associated with mainstream

CO-FOUNDER AND FORMER PRESIDENT/EXECUTIVE PRODUCER OF SOME TWO DOZEN STATIONS AND CHANNELS INCLUDINE: CITYTV

MUCHMUS.C, MUSIQUEPLUS, BRAVOI, AND SPACE. HE is PRESENTL

CHAIRMAN/EXECUTIVE PRODICER OF ACCESS MEDIA GROUP. ACCESS

CANADIAN LEARNING TELEVISION, BOOKTELEVISION, COURTTV CANADA, THE LEARNING ANNEX, AND IDEACITY. MOSES'TELEVISION CONCEPT HAVE BEEN LICENSED IN ARGENTINA, FINLAND, COLOMBIA AND SPAIN

AND HIS PROGRAMMES ARE SEEN AROUND THE WORLD. HE i CURRENTLY A SENIOR RESIDENT FELLOW AT MASSEY COLLEGE IN

THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO.

P. 21

I HAVE MANAGED TO KEEP ALL FORTY-ONE FO MY NOTEBOOKS. EACH CITY HAS ITS OWN. THEY ARE MY BIBLES. I BUY BAGS WITH THE REQUIREMENT THAT IT MUST SUIT MY NOTEBOOK. PARTWAY THROUGH A TRIP I SATRT TO WORRY ABOUT LOSING THEM. EVERY NAME AND NUBMER, SET OF DIRESTIONS, THEY ONLY MARK SENSE EXPENSE IS JOTTED DOWN IN SOME FORM OR ANOTHER. LOCATION, FACT, TIP AND TO ME. THEY HAVE NO STRUCTURE. I HAVE NO SYSTEM. AT LEAST ONE PANIC ATTACK ON EACH TRIP LEADS ME TO UNLOAD THE CONTENTS OF MY BAG. I WORRY THAT SOMEHOW THEY WILL EVEN BE TAKEN FROM THE HOTEL. I HAVE EVEN MANAGED TO TRANSFER THIS FEAR TO OTHERS.

HAVANA (DAYS, HAVANA NIGHTS)

THE BAND, THEAARTIST AND THE POET I HAVE SEEN THE WORLD AND I HAVE KEPT AN IMAGE OF IT, A CONFUSED MULTITUED, ALWAYS WATCHING.

KNOWING CERTAIN PEOPLE HAS MADE ME SUSPECT, THAT BEING DIFFERENT IS YET ANOTHER ADAPTATION. THE COMPLICATED WORLD SIMPLIFIED MY LIFE. SIMPLE PEOPLE COMPLICATED MY WORLD. FROM THE POEM "TANKA IDENTITY" BY PEOT/NOVELIST PABLO ARMANDO FERNANDEZ, HAVANA, CUBA

THE BAND The first day in Havana, we were walking down the street and hoard ihis incrcdihl) loud rock music blaring from an open window. We'd been looking for a rock band to profile and since we hadn't had any luck, we discovered the apiirlmcnt whore the music was coming from and knocked on ihe door. When the guy opened il. wo stood there with our huge Betacam video camera and smiles smacked on our laces. Manuel Trujillo. who lias toured Europe with ihe Piicho Lope/ hand, was ihe one blasting Guns N' Roses into the street. He invited us in. He spoke English lluontly so we started talking ] L1 tiild us about a hand named Horns that we could go to cheek oiu, and the next thing we knew, one of the members was meeting us at our hotel and whisking us off to their practice space, hi their minimalist apartment, with a huge poster of Che in ihe halkvay. was a room covered with egg cartons. We sal down and listened to I lorus play a few song!.. "You know, we lose electricity at least two weeks of the month because we use up all of our ration at the beginning." I lorus was made up of four long-haired nickers, playing a Cuban version uf heavy-lhrash-melal. They explained how hard it was to he men

witn long hair in Havana. One ol them had to cut his hair off because there was no shampoo to wash it. They'd performed on stage only twice in the last five years and because their music was no! sanctioned or promoted by the state, they had to buy their equipment on the black markei: secondhand and super expensive. There we were having a pretty open conversation, when they asked us to go hack into the egg-faiton room to tell us what they really wanted to do: get out. It was the only time we had heard anyone being critical of t'uhan society. Although there was no need, we still spoke in whispers. Cameraman Basil Young and I met up with the boys again, to give them soap and shampoo from our hotel and hang out on the Malecott. Havana's seaside boardwalk, talking about music. About a year later two guys from the eggcanon room showed up ai Citytv where I was working as a reporter producer for Tin1 XwMitsic.

P. 25

AND ASKED

THEN THEY US TO GO

BACK INTO THE

EGG-CARTON ROOM TO TELL US

WHAT THEY REALLY

WANTED TO DO: GET OUT.

HAVANA (DAYS, HAVANA NIGHTS)

They were on the run and wanted my help. I could tell they were '< street, nailing them up along a wall so we could pumped, full of adrenaline and scared about their future. They were stand back and experience his pieces outside. It staying at a safe house somewhere in Toronto. I didn't know what to was just perfect. do. They came to me for some kind of advice or assistance but I was Afterwards he invited us back in to smoke young, single, living alone and I didn't know how to help them. cigars and drink a little rum. Later, he took us out After they took off, I never heard from them again. to La Tropical, the place where Cubans go to party.

AGUSTIN SAW THE ANGEL AS BEING A MAN AND A WOMAN AT THE SAME TIME, WITH THE STRENGTH OF A I MAN AND THE SENSUALITY OF A WOMAN. To find people like Horus I took a risk. I knocked on a stranger's door and went into his apartment, not knowing where it would lead. When the band turned up at my work and knocked on my door, it was like the whole trip came full circle.

THE ARTIST Not everybody wants to leave Cuba. And of those who are allowed to leave, many choose to return, like artist Agustin Bejarano. In his early forties with a small build, I remember that he painted his canvasses stretched out on the floor, slowly revealing the image, like a sculptor carving it out of a surface. When we met him, he was working on a series of paintings of angels called Angelotes, which may sound corny but they were anything but. Agustin saw the angel as having the strength of a man and sensuality of a woman. On a canvas painted black, a muscularwinged white angel with bubbles surrounding its head shot an arrow at its target. For Agustin, it was a study of not just the body, but the soul. When we went to his house, instead of showing us his work inside his studio, he pulled his enormous canvasses out onto the

The club offered the kind of outrageous out-ofcontrol chaotic fun that could only happen in Cuba. It would never happen in Toronto. No one would let it happen. The place was packed, people stood on fences, danced on top of railings, wore almost no clothes and drank huge amounts of alcohol—and everybody, every single person there, danced. As the hours passed it went from crazy to crazed; there were no rules at La Tropical which made it such a great evening, Agustin shows his work all over the world and is one of the few Cubans who comes and goes freely. He truly believes it is important for him to stay in Havana and live in his neighbourhood with his people and be influenced by the street. For him it's pretty real. He has no desire to cut himself off by leaving. Most of the artists I met around the world wanted to stay where they were. As part of the community, they felt that was where they belonged. They had a pride of place and, without that, didn't know what kind of art they could do.

P. 29

HAVANA

HOTEL HABANA LIBRE TRYP

MENSAJE

HAVANA (DAYS, HAVANA NIGHTS)

THE POET In Cuba, Pablo Armando Fernandez is simply known as "El Poeta," the poet. We were invited over to his house, one of those old Cuban mini-mansions. We could tell that it was once a house that had had lots of parties, a house full of life. Like so many houses in Havana, it looked a bit rundown. We marched up the path to be greeted by Pablo's wife at the door. She was friendly, as if pleased to see us. We were led upstairs to Pablo's study. He read "Tanka Identity" to me in English as we sat in his study. It was a room full of books jammed in shelves and stacked on any available surface. On the walls were pictures of Che Guevara and Fidel Castro. His great disappointment is that while he met the Queen of England, Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot, he never shook the hand or looked into the eyes of his hero, Che Guevara. Pablo looks like a poet, with long, thick white hair and a beard, a little like Mark Twain, and smiling blue eyes. He speaks and writes in English but none of his three novels have ever been published in English because he was not permitted to sign a contract with an American publisher. When he was fourteen, Pablo left Cuba for New York City, where he studied English literature. Three years later he wrote his first poem. In 1959, when he was thirty, at the height of the Revolution, he returned to Cuba with his wife. After that he served as a diplomat in Europe and then Soviet Union for several years. But he always returned. Pablo chose to stay and live in Cuba even when his work fell out of favour and was not allowed to be published. Pablo, then and now, wants to be a part of

P. 33

HAVANA (DAYS, HAVANA NIGHTS)

trying to make a nation out of the island, to help it create an identity. "I belong to that immense humanity that is trying to belong," he said to me. Poets and revolutions always seem to go hand in hand. Pablo truly believes in Cuba and in the good things that it brings to its people. "I think of the revolution as a metaphor of

"I THINK OF THE REVOLUTION AS A

METAPHOR OF CUBA, I THINK THAT THE ONLY GESTURE OF LOVE IN THIS

CONTINENT HAS BEEN THE CUBAN REVOLUTION." Cuba. I think that the only gesture of love in this continent has been the Cuban Revolution, the last one, not the very first one in 1868. Because it is the only cause that has been willing to make people learn. And if I have to give my life for that and only for that—to think that every child has the opportunity of learning, not just read or write, but learning—I think that is beautiful."

P. 36

THE BLUE ONE-WAYTICKETTORIDE

"WANT TO GET OUT, GOT TO GET OUT, GOT OUT, ESCAPE FROM THE CITY OF ANGELS FIVE DAYS LATER, WHAT HAVE I GOT? I'M IN ANOTHER PLACE WHICH IS SUNNY AND HOT, THE DIFFERENCE HERE IS THAT I'M FREE AS A BIRD. NO GUN TO MY HEAD, NO BLOOD ON THE CURB." —"ESCAPE FROM THE CITY OF ANGELS" FROM THE CD, ITHAKA: FLOWERS AND THE COLOR OF PAINT BY DARIN PAPPAS

SURFER DARIN PAPPAS WAS THE BLUE SURFER. He was a real, hardcore L.A. street dude who moved to Lisbon to start his life again. He said the waves brought him. Darin only wore blue. Never any other colour. The same shade of blue, all over. It was a whole body thing. His apartment: all blue. Walls, ceilings, fridge: all the same blue. His artwork... same tone of blue. He had a huge "cross" in the kitchen made from two blue surfboards. Shoes painted blue, some with fins, sat at his front door. Blue photos of belly buttons covered the walls. Blue, he said, was the colour of his blood. And a little bit of his blood hangs on my wall. With no contacts on the ground Darin bought a oneway ticket for his twenty-sixth birthday and just sort of showed up. I loved his bravery. There he was, this total L.A. surfer who chose to pack up and leave to live in Portugal with a whole new language to deal with and a whole new posse to find. He wasn't a blond-haired, blue-eyed, pretty-boy stereotype. He was inner city. Real street. He hung out on the streets of Lisbon with his boys. He spoke slowly. He wore hoodies and baseball caps. His dark brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail and he sported a goatee. With

charisma and a kind of street cool, he projected pure confidence. Darin totally infiltrated the Lisbon art community. He had his art exhibited and managed to get General D and Cool Hipnoise to contribute to his CD Ithaka: Flowers and the Color of Paint. The sound is smooth vocals with nice background groove, and a little Portuguese rap dropped in. It's good. Darin was so out there, doing his own thing. People liked him. He speaks his lyrics and has some great lines: "I've been poor and I've been rich, I've sat behind a desk and I've dug a ditch. Rode on a skateboard and in a private plane, I've been nobody and I've had a little fame. I've got a lot of thanks for the ocean blue, because she helped me out more than a lot, keeping my mind off the have and have-nots, my loyalty don't lie in street commotion, I give my praise to the motion of the ocean, she kept me out of trouble she kept me alive, she kept me off the street away from kniiiiiiiives."

I wouldn't say it was an impulse buy. Something about owning a surfboard (even though I don't surf) appealed to me. I had to buy one of his pieces from the series The Reincarnation of the Surfboard. Darin took old surfboards with broken backs and then made them into sculptures. Of course they were blue and this one was covered in blue fake fur. It was about six feet tall with shapes P. 39

THE BLUE SURFER

cut out from the middle that made it look like the wing of a furry blue fly. He told me I could comb it anyway I wanted but it would need a serious amount of Johnson's "no more tears" before I attempted that. More important, I had to get it home in one piece. So there I was, walking down the narrow cobblestone streets of Barrio Alto with a furry blue surfboard that was taller than me. Laughing all the way, my cameraman, Steve Gelder, helped to carry it until we saw a cab. This was the start of an interesting journey home. Without a fuss the cabbie allowed us to stick it in the trunk with the fin part shooting out the back. I guess he was used to this, being a driver in Lisbon. We made it to the hotel, surprisingly without a scratch. Next we had to tackle the airport. At the check-in I was handed a couple of long clear plastic bags and some tape. I marked it FRAGILE and crossed my fingers. (Didn't even get charged for extra baggage!) At that point it had become my new friend and it would have been a disaster if it didn't survive. The Reincarnation made it across the ocean, the same ocean Darin crossed, and now hangs proudly in my house. It never fails to make me smile.

p.40

HE WASN'T A BLOND-HAIRED, BLUE-

EYED, PRETTY-BOY STEREOTYPE. HE WAS INNER CITY. REAL STREET. HE HUNG OUT ON THE STREETS OF LISBON WITH HIS BOYS.

THE REVEREND AND THE LIMO DRIVER BEING AN INSIDER / OUTSIDER IN HARLEM

"WE SAY UPTOWN. WE ARE UPTOWN. BUT WE ARE NOT UPTIGHT. YOU HAVEN'T DONE NEW YORK UNTIL YOU COME THROUGH HARLEM." —REVEREND REGGIE WILLIAMS, NYC

I HAD BEEN IN NEW YORK shooting a show for tvfmmes two months after September 11, 2001. The show wasn't about "Where were you when...?" but more about what artists were doing post 9-11 and how the terrorist attacks influenced their work. For a lot of New York artists, documentation of the city is part of their work—like Robert Berry, a photographer whose work focused on the splitting, doubling and mirroring of faces, buildings, landscapes and other objects. He'd spent years studying the Twin Towers and all of a sudden, they were gone. The show we were doing was focused on Manhattan, not the boroughs, and while it was fascinating to be there, I didn't get anything out of the art. Most likely it was too soon. The whole time we were shooting I became more interested in Harlem because of its history and the fact that even now it's going through a "renaissance." At the end of the show I decided to check out Harlem and the first place I went to was the Lenox Lounge.

Harlem's famous Lenox Lounge still packs in a crowd. It's long and narrow, but not a shoebox. Billie Holiday, Miles Davis and John Coltrane played there. Malcolm X was said to be a regular. More recently it was featured in the remake of the movie Shaft with Samuel L. Jackson. The Lenox Lounge, and its Zebra Room, has been around since 1939, and was frequented by,Harlem writers James Baldwin and Langston Hughes. Even early on a Friday night, every table was taken so we squeezed past the band and shuffled through the crowd all the way down to the end of the stand-up bar, which ran the length of the place. The original art deco styling hasn't changed, nor some of the clientele. We stayed for a drink, listened to some blues and after getting a tip from one of the lounge's regulars, we head off to a place called Perk's for dinner. Located at 123rd and Manhattan, Perk's is named after Hank Perkins. Perkins is old school Harlem. A ladies man, dressed in a sharp suit, holding a glass of champagne, he oozed charm. And the crowd around him seemed to be channelling his spirit. It was even smaller than the Lenox Lounge, but with no one from downtown checking out the scene uptown. The joint was hopping. A soul band, Eric Harris and the Extra Rich in Class, whose lead singer had a voice like Marvin Gaye, performed in a space barely big enough to hold him and the band. He was about ten feet tall and three hundred pounds and was movin' and groovin'! P. 43

THE REVEREND AND THE LIMO DRIVER

At Perk's everyone was dressed in their finery; the men in suits and hats, the women in "gomg-out-for-lhe-cvening-tohave-fun" clothes. Everybody danced, though there was no dance floor. People danced wherever Ihey happened to be standing. Standing at the bar drinking a scotch was a man wearing a grey casual suit with a black turtleneek and great smile. Not to mention a huge gold cross, gold watch and lots of gold rings. He introduced himself as the .Reverend Reggie Williams, then bumped two guys from iheir bar seats and offered them to us. We ordered catfish from the bartender and talked about Harlem. At the end of the night, he gave me his phone number and told me to call him if I was ever going to do a show on Harlem. I asked him if he would be able to hook me up with a driver who could get me around the neighbourhood, and he said no problem. So six months later, 1 came back and did a show on Harlem. Arriving at our hotel was the divine Ms. Marilyn Vine from DeVines Limo Service. She had nails "out to here," and that kind of perfect, over-thc-top makeup that takes hours to put on. Her long, thick brownish-red hair changed styles everyday, just like her nail colour. On the first day. she wore a standard issue limo uniform. On day two she showed up in a purple, faux alligator skin pantsuit. She was opinionated about men and everything else. She instantly became part of P. 46

PEOPLE DID NOT LIKE CAMERAS. IT WAS EASIER FOR ME TO SHOOT. WHEN I DID, I HAD ABUSE HURLED AT ME LIKE YOU WOULD NOT BELEIVE. PEOPLE SHOUTED THREATS AND TERRIBLE OBSCENITIES. I HAD NEVER ENCOUNTERED ANYTHING QUITE THAT BAD. IT MADE LYRICS TO THE MOST HARDCORE GANGSTA RAP SEEM TAME.

THE REVEREND AND THE LIMO DRIVER

our crew whether we liked it or not; if we went out to lunch, so did she, if we out to dinner so did she. On the flip side Harlem was not an easy place to shoot. Even the cameraman who was African-American felt uncomfortable shooting on the street. People did not like cameras. It was easier for me to shoot. When I did, I had abuse hurled at me like you would not believe. People shouted threats and terrible obscenities. I had never encountered anything quite that bad. It made lyrics to the most hardcore gangsta rap seem tame. At times Marilyn would tell me to jump in the car and we'd quickly speed away. Most of the time when I shot in the street my heart was in my mouth. I wasn't shooting anything illegal, just wide street shots with people walking through. I needed to show Harlem. Sometimes it is easier to be a woman with a camera, less chance of getting beaten up. People were tired of their faces and neighbourhoods being used to illustrate news reports on homelessness or poverty, stories on crack cocaine, or "Poor Black America." When we met up with the Reverend Reggie Williams again, it was at his day job. He worked at the Addicts Rehabilitation Center, a residence for over four hundred people. It also housed the ARC Gospel Choir made up of thirty-two singers, all ex-addicts of whom over half are still being treated. The Choir travels around the country and is invited to sing around the world. They performed the "Hour of Power" once at week at the Mount Moriah Baptist Church in the heart of Harlem. When I heard them sing, "Praise God I'm Free..." it felt like the songs they were singing had saved them. A few days after seeing the choir, we went back to Perk's and had a great night of shooting there. And we also went to the "Apollo Theater Amateur Night" which was a bit on the cheeseball side, like a bad version of Tiny Talent Time

complete with rapping grandmas, terrible rock bands, and a guy who "hooked" performers off the stage when the audience booed loud enough. Being in Harlem was a kind of insider / outsider experience. Out on the street, I was regularly threatened for taking pictures. But when we went inside—into places like clubs or artists studios—we weren't seen as media who were out to misrepresent them. No one had their backs up. The artists and musicians wanted the exposure, so they put up with us. But at the end of the night, when the cameras were turned off and put away, everyone was relieved. Then we danced.

P. 49

SHAMANS, BAIANAS AND

OH MY... BEARS,

BAIANAS DE SALVADOR DA BAHIA: TO SERVE (FOOD) AND PROTECT

Once you have a Baiana, she's yours for life. She'll protect you and in return you will eat only her acaraje and no other. The Baianas dress in white, the colour of lansa, goddess of the wind. Found throughout the streets of Salvador da Bahia, in Northern Brazil, they're believed to be highly spiritual and untouchable. Baianas don't need a permit to sell their food and are free to plop their stands anywhere they like. People bring them gifts, sometimes everyday, in return for advice and protection. Once you commit to her, she's the only one you visit. We would see Baianas de acaraje P. 50

everywhere. An acaraje is a kind of deep-fried bread made from mashed black-eyed peas and cooked in palm oil. They're usually eaten with small shrimp, a hot pepper sauce and a paste made from sundried shrimp, peanuts, cashews and coconut milk, and served with okra and diced tomatoes. It was amazing to see how much these women belonged to the current of daily, cultural life. Treated with enormous respect, Baiana represent the part of African culture that is in turn an essential part of Brazilian culture. The ancient traditions have been continued mostly through the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomble. Each person has an Orixa (god) that provides protection throughout their life. On our first night, my cameraman, Mike McArthur, and I were walking through the streets on our own. We'd gone to a traditional restaurant for dinner and were heading back to the hotel. Next thing we knew, an elderly lady dressed all in white was walking beside us. Through sign language she explained that she would accompany us back to the hotel to ensure our safety. We were shocked. Here we were, North Americans, and Mike at least six feet tall and fit, but it was a woman—a small older woman—who acted as our bodyguard back to the hotel.

TREATED WITH ENORMOUS RESPECT, BAIANA REPRESENT THE PART OF AFRICAN CULTURE THAT IS IN TURN AN ESSENTIAL

PART OF BRAZILIAN CULTURE.

BAMAKO SHAMAN SLAM: NOT LEAVING ANY TRACE OF YOURSELF BEHIND

It was our last day in Bamako, Mali and the last thing I wanted to do was see the shaman. We didn't need to go, we had enough for our show, but we had some time to kill. Close to the end of a trip, I always get that guilty feeling that I might miss something. The shaman's place was spooky because it felt like the real thing. It was a thousand degrees in this tiny, windowless room buzzing with flies and full of freaky objects meant to scare off bad spirits. And this shaman was nasty. He started making strange bird-like sounds—pretending it wasn't coming from him—and kept tapping on the wall between angry rants to our guide. He wanted money. He thought that we had paid the guy who took us there and was in a rage. I remember thinking, Don't leave any of yourself behind. No stray hairs, no pens, no hat, nothing. When we were in Mali I always had that lingering feeling that things were happening out of earshot and out of our control. Even when we got back to Toronto this guy called and left me a cryptic message. He said, "You don't know me but if I haven't heard from you in a day or so I'm going to call you back." And I thought to myself, what is going on here? So I called him back. Turned out he was a photographer from Montreal who did a lot of work with chimpanzees. For some reason, he went back and forth to Mali a lot. He'd become a kind of de facto ambassador to Canadians travelling there. He told me how he'd always give back passports to people who'd had them stolen. He seemed to be plugged in in a way that could only happen in a place like Africa. Somehow, someone gave him my luggage tag and he was calling to check up and make sure we were all okay. "You know I saw you guys as you were getting off the plane," he told me. "Your luggage was going one way and

SHAMANS, BAIANAS AND BEARS, OH MY...

you were going the other, and I thought, Oh boy, that's not good. Anyway I was calling to make sure you guys got back okay." TAIPEI TRIPPING: THE STORY OF A MADMAN, A MINI-VAN AND A COUPLE OF MONKS

In Taipei we had a madman as a guide. Always laughing and cursing, he was political and radical in a place that didn't tolerate either of those two qualities. For one of our day trips, we headed out to the Shangri-La Hotel in the middle of nowhere. On the way there, we saw an old abandoned gold mine, so he stopped the car, jumped out and screamed, "Let's climb!" We climbed all the way through it. We met up with other journalists who were jealous of our guide. Clearly, Mr. Kuo, whose title was Protocol Officer, was not the norm. He was assigned to us by the government. Basically he was there to keep an eye on us and make sure we got what we needed. He was to show us some of the different sides of Taiwanese culture. At night, he usually bowed out and let cameraman Arthur Pressick and I do our own thing. The next day we wanted to go for a walk, sans cameras. Mr. Kuo thought a nice five-minute walk around a tourist trap would satisfy us. We did it and then I decided to take us on another trail. When we were driving earlier, we could see little pagodas dotting the mountains that people could hike to and once there, stop and have a rest. So off we went, with no food and only tiny bottles of water. On this trip we brought an Aboriginal artist named Rosalie Favell from B.C., who happened to be having a show in Taipei. We walked and walked and in no time were totally lost. Soon it was midday, and the sun beat down on us. Our guide huffed and puffed; Arthur huffed and puffed; as did the artist. First we went up the mountain, then down the mountain, without getting anywhere. We were so screwed

up we didn't know where the hell we were. Five hours...we'd been walking for five hours. I started to get the giggles. At one point our lovable lunatic of a guide turned to me, his head shaking. He was not okay. He looked like he was having a heart attack. But there I was, peeling with laughter, not knowing I looked like the one whose head was going to blow off. Turned out my face was beet beet red and I was probably suffering from a combination of dehydration and frustration. We ended up at a Taoist temple built into the side of the mountain. As soon as the monks saw us, they fetched water and forced it on us. We soon realized that our hapless wanderings meant we were going to miss our train back to Taipei. No problem, the monks said, as they proceeded to herd us into their mini-van, race us back to the hotel to get our luggage and drop us at the train station. I had these great orange Gucci glasses which I left in the van. I thought it was fate that I left them behind because the colour perfectly matched the monks' robes. So I have this image now of a Taipei monk bombing up and down the mountains in square-framed, fiery orange Gucci glasses.

P. 53

WALL

ART

ANONYMOUS

AND DISPOSABLE THE DISTRACTED EYE . . . DISTRACTED MIND —PAINTED ON A WALL IN MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA, ARTIST UNKNOWN

THE THING THAT MAKES WALL ART UNIQUE is that it's in a public space. It's largely anonymous and while it's not quite disposable it's definitely not permanent. It's something that has taken time to create. Wall art themes ranged from politics in Beirut, to religion in Mumbai and Dakar, to plain old funky street style in Madrid. There are places where it's legal and others where it's not. Wall art is not "tagging," which refers to crazy, almost unreadable signatures that marks a person's territory. Milan is covered with tags and it's sad. Wall art is illegal in Milan and out of control. Almost every building has been defaced. I'm interested in paintings. I've looked at a lot of wall art and can now guess where it is from. It definitely reflects each place and what is going on there in people's minds. In Salvador da Bahia, the drum is such an important part of the culture that it shows up in a lot of wall art. In Africa, the colours are always vibrantly intense. In Panama City, it seemed every other painting was of the canal. Some were so basic looking and yet worked so well. Recently in New York City I saw a lot of wall art tributes to the Twin Towers. In Mumbai the wall art was of various gods. People had their favourite god-wall, which they would visit to engage in a qui.ck prayer. I would see people touching or kissing them. Or they would stop in front of one to pray to on their way to work. In Dakar, I don't know why, but they had so many murals of animals—big tigers and lions. Cape Verde had educational murals:

one of a woman passing a condom to her man. The everyday was celebrated—like the painting of a woman walking down the street holding a plastic yellow bowl full of fish on her head. One of my favourite pieces of wall art was in Sao Paulo. It was a picture of a man's face to which another artist had applied lipstick in red paint. I loved that. Another favourite was the Rabin Memorial in Tel Aviv. Over a painted image of Yitzhak Rabin were hundreds of comments people had written about what a fantastic man he was, along with hearts and peace signs. That kind of layering is fascinating. Other pictures that I thought were pretty wild were stencils of politicians that had been spraypainted on the sides of buildings in Beirut. I love stencils and I do consider them wall art. Some were painted on old stone buildings that weathered away. Many of them were political and had been there for years, becoming visual landmarks. Wall art is also about the texture of what it has been painted on. If it's a door or a handle or a pipe, the artist has to somehow work that in. In Harlem, one of my favourite murals is a profile of Martin Luther King, Jr. and he's crying. It's on the

P. 55

LISBON

TEL AVIV

SAO PAULO

AUSTIN

PANAMA

LIBON

SALVADOR DA BAHIA

NEW YORK

SALVADOR DA BAHIA

CAPE TOWN

PRAGUE

DAKAR

WALL ART

side of a metal shop grate. You'd think there'd be a lot of wall art like that in Harlem, but there's not. It's incredibly moving. Think of the effort of someone painting over a ridged metal grate like that in the middle of the night. My interest in wall art started out as a Polaroid project. I wanted to build a show of Polaroids, and bring in different mediums. I thought, How can I make the Polaroid distinct? and this was the way to do it: photographing wall art. What's great about Polaroids is that they give the image a frame. Also, Polaroids are disposable, they're instant, they've got the same vibe as wall art. They're fast and you can watch the image happening, developing, just like a mural. For me, documenting wall art takes it to a whole other level. It's public art but it's not in its context anymore because I've framed it. I'm not giving it a wide shot. In that way I'm endorsing it, or even legitimizing it as an art form. It's almost like putting it on canvas. I have about four hundred images from twenty-five countries in my collection and now I can't stop. I see wall art everywhere. Every time I'm in a car driving anywhere, finding good wall art is my focus and if I see one, I get all worried that I'm never going to get back to that same spot again, so I have to jump out of the car, run and get my gear or else madly take notes so I can retrace my steps. I don't always get a second chance. I regret the places I went before my wall art days, not having documented what was there—like in Belfast. The city had some political wall art pieces that I didn't do any close-ups on because I wasn't into it then. Lisbon was the first place I started documenting wall art. We followed these young artists to a wall backing onto an empty field and they each spray-painted a piece. My favourite, however, was by an artist I didn't meet. It was a simple line drawing of a man and bird.

P. 62

TOKYO

CAPE VERDE

BEIRUT

SALVADOR DA BAHIA

TEL AVIV

TORONTO

MADRID

NEW YORK

SAO PAULO

QICBEC CITY

CAPE TOWN

VIENNA

DAKAR

WALL ART

There was no wall art in Helsinki or Stockholm. I think it must have been against the law. No matter where in the world, wall art shows how people treat public space. Tel Aviv had political wall art as well as hip, urban murals. In South America, Salvador and Sao Paulo, there was great wall art. Cape Town, great wall art. Vienna, one might think, hipper than hip. Not much wall art. Great wall art in Austin, Texas. Seoul, no wall art. People don't have time or space. There's no opportunity. It's too policed. I could feel the military presence there. In a place like that, if a person's going to break the law for something, why do it for wall art? There was little wall art in Japan. I saw one piece in Tokyo and it wasn't great. They're not into it. There's no time and it's more fun to hang out in the street in some crazy outfit. The cover title for this book, Belong, came from Madrid. The only good thing about Melbourne was the wall art. That's where I photographed "The Distracted Eye ... Distracted Mind" and "Art Will Find A Way." Some places had nothing. Bali? No. Bamako had no wall art, no advertising, nothing. Zero. Zip. Not even a mural of hairstyles painted on the side of a barbershop. Over the years I've watched people do wall art around the world and I think the idea of not doing it for the fame is what is interesting. These artists either perform a function or do it strictly for enjoyment. Wall art is urban. No money is involved. You can't buy it. It's a true document of the time you were there because it doesn't last forever. Wall art is not the Bible on each city. It's similar to the way I approached going to these cities in the sense that cities are always changing, are always in flux. The stories I tell here are a documentation of what happened when I was there, who happened to be in town and what the political, cultural and artistic mood was at that time.

TAIPEI

P. 69

^Hm MOMMOM,, TPHB MORESQUE, •^m

THE CHINA STORY We missed the plane. I read the tickets wrong. I felt like I was going to be sick. So sick. I couldn't cope. The tickets were sponsored, and free. Foreign Affairs was with us the whole time. And still I read the tickets wrong. It was a bad scene. We were so ready to go home. It was time to go home. What lies could I tell? That we got stuck during the May Day parades? Who could I blame? P. 70

No one. If we missed the plane, we were stuck for another week. I couldn't stay in Shanghai another day. I was ready to go three days before I left. So we chased the plane to Beijing. The gear travelled first class. Foreign Affairs called Beijing. Did they have the power to fix things? Could they get us out of here? Oh my God, it was high stress. We arrived on the tarmac. We could see the plane. The gear had to pass through customs first. So we dragged the gear to customs. So slow. Then back out on the tarmac again, up the stairs and onto the plane. I'm shaking. I made the plane wait.. .in China! For forty-five minutes. Half a day later we touch down in Vancouver. Turns out there were four defectors on board. And I made them wait for forty-five minutes on the tarmac. It was so sad. P. 71

YEAH, YEAH, YEAH AND THE BEAT OF THE DRUM DOLLINDA AND THE GREAT GREEN FISH

"In every painting 1 want to save something that comes from the garbage and transform it into something artistic," said Dollinda. a rap artist and painter from Salvador da Bahia. In one of his "constructions" he used a white baby doll mounted on a canvas painted in a crib to demonstrate who is lying in the arms of the government. Sometimes I think of Brazil as cheesy and overdone—the idea being that a girl in a bikini will make everyone happy. Not in R 72

Salvador. Pelourinho is the Old City, the heart of Salvador. It's filled with beautiful Portuguese colonial buildings and winding cobblestone streets. Pelourinho has become the centre for the A fro-Brazilian social movement. A movement that is trying to reclaim its African heritage through music, art, drums and dance. UNESCO has declared it a World Heritage Site. We discovered Dollinda early on after seeing his work hanging in a little cafe in Pelourinho. We tracked him down and he invited us to spend an afternoon at his place. He was living in an old house just off the town square thai was once where African captives and slaves were publicly punished.

In his small room, a half-painted canvas was propped

off to the beach, I'll see you later." Ten days after I said, "Hey make me a painting," he hands me my piece. It's a fish made out of everything he found at the beach that day. The "canvas" was a purple towel, covered with a green towel painted with gold stripes to form the body of the fish. A plastic swimming flipper was the tail and the glass from a pair of sunglasses was the eye. He signed the painting using a piece from a computer circuit board and computer keys to date it. I loved it. I absolutely loved it. Thank God I didn't rush him. THE RHYTHM IN THE STREETS REVITALIZED THE STREETS

beside his single bed. A mess of paints and brushes sat on a I had t owalk in through a small, walled-off chari next to a ghetto blaster that had seen better days. As entrance to get to Ghetto Square. In th we watched him paint, nothing was procious. He wasn't middle was a stage where thirty or forty worried about paint on the floor or what he looked like or us people feverishly beat drums and sang. In the

THE "CANVAS" WAS A PURPLE TOWEL, COVERED WITH A GREEN TOWEL PAINTED WITH GOLD STRIPES TO FORM THE BODY OF THE FISH. being in the room. It was like watching a performance. He went with the music, singing and moving along to hip hop, bent over the canvas with a big smile on his face. I thought it was the best way to make a painting. So I asked him to make me one. He sauntered around town in dark sunglasses, a hat and long dreads. Time for a guy like him is flexible. He didn't seem to have a day job. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, tomorrow man," he'd say every time I saw him. "Tomorrow. I'm going

crowd were dancers; their bodies, like those of every member of Timbalada were covered with white paint in African tribal designs, The beat was unrelenting. The dancers and the crowd moved in a counter-clockwise wave around the stage. The beat never dropped. The circle moved faster and faster, and everybody danced and sweated. It got more frantic as people ran around with P. 73

hardly any clothes on. I watched this sea of white from above. Everyone wore synthetic cowboy hats—the Brazilian equivalent of a team jersey. I saw the sinewy muscles of the dancers and felt the heat coming from the crowd as hundreds of people danced for hours. Carlinhos Brown created Timbalada over a decade ago to give street youth in his neighbourhood a chance to learn music. Brown continues to live in the Candeal Favela and continues to donate money, construct schools and assist street musicians. Every Sunday Timbalada perform in Ghetto Square, smack in the middle of Candeal. Candeal was a favela or shantytown situated on a hillside on the outskirts of Salvador. It was filled with narrow and muddy streets, terrible housing, unsafe electrical connections, and limited access to clean water. Today with the help of "IT IS A PROCESS OF INCLUSION AND NOT ABOUT Brown the community is changing BEING A SECOND-RATE HUMAN. IT IS TIME TO into a . working-class ASSUME THE AFRICAN CULTURE AS AN ESSENTIAL neighbourhood. PART OF THE BRAZILIAN CULTURE." ' They say everyone is a drummer in Brazil. Carlhinos —GILBERTO GIL, SINGER, SALVADOR DA BAHIA, BRAZIL Brown is one of the most famous. He began drumming as a child— during the day he would sell bottles of water on the street and play them as drums. Today he is internationally renown for his unique way of mixing traditional drumming with electric guitars and horns. When we saw him perform, he was so high energy, his dreads poured with sweat. He was completely lost in the music. And so were we. P. 74

THIS IS MEXICO CITY. PHILOSOPHIZED OVER A BOTTLE OF TEQUILA BY IAN DRYDEN, A BRITISH EX-PAT PHOTOJOURNALIST WHO FEELS HE IS A REFUGEE FROM HIS PAST. HE'S NOW A CONCEPTUAL ARTIST.

p. 76

"WE ARE LIVING IN THE LAST BOHEMIA. BOHEMIA IMPLIES LIVING OUTSIDE THE LAWS OF SOCIETY, LIVING WITHOUT MONEY, LIVING AS YOU WANT IN DEFIANCE OF SOCIETY."

A SERIES OF MISADVENTURES IN

MALI ALMOST LOSING IT IN WEST AFRICA PICKING UP THE PHONE

Bamako, the capital of Mali, is said to be one of the poorest cities in the world. It's bordered by countries that read like a list of hellish hotspots: Algeria, Burkina Faso and Niger among others. Synonymous with war and civil strife, it has the kind of unrest that keeps many away. Yet I knew that the music and culture were strong and that there was more to this place than people knew. I'd done thirty-eight episodes of tvframes by this point and had already been to Senegal but I was still afraid to go to Mali. To add to that, I had next to no communication before getting on a plane. I'd P. 78

phone and couldn't connect. I'd connect, but no one would answer. And when I'd finally get someone on the phone, they'd say "yeah, yeah, yeah, no problem" and hang up. I had to trust my instincts that the whole thing was going to work out. To add to the pressure, the trip was going to cost a fortune. GOING WITH THE FLOW

No matter where I happen to be in the world, I always go through a bit of an ordeal about which hotel to stay at. I always want to be in the best location for going out at night; I want to be close to where people are and feel safe. It seemed as if there were only three decent hotels to pick from so I'd finally decided on the Grand Hotel and sent them a credit card to reserve our rooms.

A SERIES OF MISADVENTURES IN MALI

The minute we stepped off the plane I felt like we'd lost control. The airport was chaotic with people competing to snatch our bags and carry them and us off into their particular brand of taxi. It was high stress from minute one. We arrived at one o'clock in the morning and went directly to the hotel. They'd given away our rooms. People beat us from the airport and so the hotel just gave

stay at our driver's place. It was not by choice, We were well-treated, but corruption was everywhere, One day we were shooting out of the car window and police on motorcycles came up behind us, their sirens howling and lights flashing. With us was a guide from the tourism bureau and a driver. The police started screaming and shouting at us and then made us follow them to a street side police station, Once there, twelve policemen got out and surrounded the car, and there was even more shouting and screaming. Arthur (my cameraman) and Ingrid Moe (my editor), both got out of

"IN THE FUTURE I HOPE THAT THERE IS A BIT MORE JUSTICE. THAT THERE IS MORE JUSTICE BETWEEN MALIANS, BECAUSE THERE IS NO JUSTICE. THAT MALIANS LIKE ALL OTHER PEOPLE ARE ABLE TO LIVE AND NOT DIE OF HUNGER. THAT EACH PERSON FINDS A WAY TO MAKE A LIVING. I THINK THAT IS POSSIBLE IF WE ARE A BIT MORE FAIR." —ISMAEL DIABATE, ARTIST, BAMAKO, MALI away our rooms, end of story. Leaving the hotel in a taxi to find a place to sleep meant hours of riding around on dirt roads, littered with potholes and in some cases, ten-feet deep pits in the middle of the road. We had to manoeuvre around people sleeping next to their goats in the street. And we had to do this in the pitch black because there were no street lights. The mosquitoes were thick and buzzed in our ears. None of us had repellent on and it we were exposed during prime time—the feeding hour that malaria-carrying mosquitoes love. Eight hotels and who knows how many hours later we found ourselves leaving the city centre and being driven to the suburbs to P. 80

the car with cameras in their hands and right after, a policeman wrenched the camera out of Arthur's hand, I was scared. We had the Betacam camera and all our stock in the trunk of the car. I'd brought everything with us on the first day. Five cameras in total. I panicked, ran over and grabbed the camera from the cop, ran back and locked myself in the car. Then this whole negotiating drama went on and I ended up having to pay $300 American to get the crew back in the car and to be allowed to leave. As we pulled away the policemen were banging on the trunk of the car. I guess that's just the way things were done. I was thrilled I had money in my pocket. Later in the trip, we drove out to the largest mud structure in the world, the Djenne mosque, which had to be repaired after every rainy season. It's incredible. The whole journey to get there was crazy. The borrowed truck our driver showed up in continuously broke down. In the end, the

A SERIES OF MISADVENTURES IN MALI

journey was half the story. It was supposed to be a threehour drive and it turned into a twelve-hour drive. At one point after the truck broke down for the umpteenth time, we were put in a taxi. It was late, dark, and the guy went off the highway and cut through the desert at about a thousand miles an hour. And we were just trying to hold on, because during the day we'd seen nomads in the desert with cattle and we were petrified we'd hit something. We finally get to the ferry, which will take us to the mosque. And who should we see but our driver laughing. His truck got fixed and he managed to pick up a hitchhiker along the way and still beat us. I had to let it roll off my back or else I would have strangled the guy. STREET PEOPLE

In Bamako, everything happened in the street. Women with giant mortars grind their grain on the street, people walked their goats to market right through the downtown core. Making drums, fixing bikes and cars, selling fish, trading animals and doing laundry—everything to do with everyday life was done right out on the sidewalk. Everybody walked everywhere. Of course we stood out. There were hardly any tourists in Bamako and none like us who were carrying around armloads of cameras. There was an underlying tension in the city. Malians are poor and feel like they have nothing to gain from foreigners coming and taking their pictures. It made shooting tough, but ultimately the people that we met were friendly and soon we were plugged into a community of artists. SURVIVAL OF THE POOREST

People wanted to show us a different face of Africa—one that wasn't about poverty, AIDS or violence. They felt that

they were starting to gain a voice and didn't want to depend on North American or Western methods to build their country. They felt that they could develop Bamako and Mali in a way that would unite them with the rest of Africa. For them as Africans, to always be thought of as ignorant, backward and corrupt was horrible. The artists we met were not isolated or out of the loop. They were knowledgeable about what was going on in the world and were influenced by it. Mali only gained independence from France in 1960 and French is still the official language. While 80% of the people speak Bambara, many use French to communicate with the rest of the world. All the artists in Bamako knew each other and all felt that they could present something that was truly African, as opposed to pumping out wooden sculptures for tourists to buy as soon as they get off the bus. They wanted to make art for Africans, and let their individual voices come across. They didn't want to do art based solely on tradition. Without throwing the past away, they wanted their art to combine traditional aspects of their culture with the realities of modern, urban life. An artist of example is Awa Meite, a fashion designer and painter who collected beautiful painted leather cushions from the market and then cut them up to make pockets for the front of a skirt. The cushions could be found in many people's homes. Artist Ismael Diabate used traditional dyed fabrics from across the country and then wove them P. 83

A SERIES OF MISADVENTURES IN MALI

together to represent the different parts of society joining forces. Mali is known for its music and its mythical city, Timbuktu. Singers like Issa Bagayogo (Techno Issa), Salif Keita, Ali Farka Toure, and Habib Koite have helped put Mali on the map. And despite gaining an international following and reputation, they chose to stay and live in Mali because they knew they could do something for the country. Most of the musicians we met were successful enough that they could afford to live in France, but chose not to. Most felt they could have a better life in Mali, where they could live with neighbours and friends, celebrate their culture and not suffer from racism. This is surprising in a country that is considered one of the poorest in Africa, and where the average life expectancy is forty-five years. It's always shocking to see that artists can survive in places that are so poor. But I have found that the poorest places in the world are sometimes the ones that respect their artists the most. The musicians and artists in Bamako were some of the most successful people in society.

tourism office. He would get us through the airport smoothly. Staying close to the car with our bags in it wasn't an option. Our departure was like our arrival: it was pitch black and I again had the feeling this was not a good thing. Then the car with all of our baggage starts to drive off .. .without us. Ingrid and I had a fit. A good oldfashioned "North-American-In-A-ForeigriCountry-Fit" (albeit in French), which was unpleasant but totally necessary. We managed to pull up beside the car and our driver told them to follow behind us. Luckily at the airport our baggage was there in the car but the mysterious passengers and driver were nowhere to be seen. C'est la vie.

AS IT BEGAN, SO SHALL IT END. BUT IN THE MEANTIME...

Like all things that come full circle, we found that our last few hours in Bamako were pretty much like the first. The whole time we were there, our driver took us around in his big truck. When it came time to leave for the airport, he showed up in a tiny car and told us we'd ride with him while his buddy took our luggage and all the camera gear in another car. I had just gone through an ordeal about having to pay our whole hotel bill in cash. Turns out they took Visa. I came out to see our bags had already been put into another car...with two strangers sitting in it! Before we got to the airport, we had to drive out to the middle-of-nowhere and pick up our guide from the P. 85

WHERE WERE YOU WHEN...? THE CAPTAIN CAME ON AND DELIVERED THE BAD NEWS. THE PLANE ON THE TINY SCREEN WENT PAST OUR DESTINATION. I THOUGHT OF HOME AND WANTED TO GET OFF. WE'D BEEN ON THE PLANE for fifteen hours. Bali to Hong Kong. Hong Kong to Anchorage. Anchorage to Toronto. Brutal. I watched the mini screen in front of me; watched as the tiny plane moved slowly across the map. Four movies, three TV shows and three meals later, we were almost at Anchorage. There we'd have a break; we could finally get off this plane, stretch our legs and look at all the stuffed animals in glass boxes displayed in the airport. The last time I flew from Hong Kong to Anchorage I was sick most of the way. Never have shiatsu on your feet before a flight. All of a sudden the captain came on and said, "Terrorist attack in the United States. We're being sent back...." What? No more information came after that. Around me, everyone was sound asleep except my cameraman, Samir Rehem. I looked around, Had anyone else heard what the captain just said? This couldn't be true. We were jammed in the back of the plane. I wanted to get off. Samir and I put on headsets and tuned into Channel One. BBC radio cut in and out but I caught snippets: "Trade Towers are down.. .Pentagon hit." Then the radio cut out all together. P. 86

The next thing we knew the plane was turning around on the little screen. Then the captain came on and announced that we were going to Japan, to Tokyo. "Don't worry, we have enough fuel," he said. At this point we had been on the plane for twenty hours. I couldn't take my eyes off the map. We watched as the plane went past Tokyo. Fuel or no fuel this wasn't good. They ended up landing us in Osaka. The first night we were shipped off to a suburban hotel where CNN was dubbed in Japanese. The next day we were moved downtown and our only English information was a one-paragraph update from the airline. On the second day I managed to get my mother on the phone. Tim, my husband, was in Washington. His hotel was across from the White House and that meant it was immediately evacuated. He ended up hiring a driver to get him as far as the Peace Bridge. He then walked, pulling his suitcase into Canada where he was picked up by his brother. At the end of all my trips I always feel a sense of relief—of okay, it's over, I can relax now, there's nothing more to worry about, it is in the can. The closer you are to home, it's almost like you start doing a countdown. Now the countdown clock was delayed/on hold. I've never had that fear of not being able to get home, But suddenly that was the only place I wanted, no, needed to be. I think everybody around the world felt it that day.

NEW TERRITORY A CAPE-WEARING SUPERHERO, A POP SINGER DRESSED IN SEAL FUR AND ARTISTS WHO DO MORE THAN CARVE POLAR BEARS FROM STONE.

"FOR ME TO FLY down to Ottawa, is the equivalent cost of you flying from Toronto to Tokyo." That was out of the mouth of sixteen-year-old James Attwood, the lead singer for the band Nothing, based in Iqaluit, Nunavut. It's 1,600 air miles north of Ottawa. You can't run away from home if you live in Iqaluit. You can't even drive out of town to another town. You're stuck. All the planes that fly up there are combi cargo planes, with removable passenger seats. On tiie way up the cargo can be anything from food to trucks, medicine, furniture or construction supplies. On the way back it's arctic char, carved sculptures and the occasional medical emergency. Once I was there and checked into one of the city's three small hotels, it didn't take long to get a handle on things. After two weeks, we'd walked every street, ate in every possible place and knew everyone in town. POLARMAN Polarman believed he was a superhero. Hell, he could be. lie shovelled out people's snow-buried paths and helped kids out on the playground. He did good deeds for people, As Polarman said, "I am not super strong in the sense of smashing a building to pieces or lifting a car. I have enough skill that I can take on an ice-covered window without scratching it with my shovel." He grew up as Polarboy and when he turned eighteen he became Polarman. He wore white pants tucked in black cowboy boots, a black ski vest and a white belt, a white sweatshirt underneath that, black gloves and a black balaclava with an eye mask. Another thing he liked to do was wear little speakers on his belt that blasted out Superman's theme song. If there was an art opening in town, Polarman would be there. If there was a concert, he'd make an appearance on stage. If there was a political rally he would make it out. He was a fixture in community life. Polarman had issues. He truly believed he was a superhero. But, instead of ridiculing him, the whole

town accepted him. They didn't laugh and point and make fun of him. We wondered if we would find him and one day, looking out the window at breakfast, there he was—in his full uniform. He later met up with us in the local supermarket. An Inuit woman let him pick up her child and pose for the camera. It was a pleasure to meet him. MAKE YOUR OWN RUNWAY Jimmy Onalik had a single-engine Cessna 180 equipped with wheels and skis. It's a well-known "bush plane." He was just starting his new tour business, so in exchange for a little publicity he took us up on some flights. It was fantastic to see Iqaluit from the air. The water looked so blue and the tundra so vast. In this completely remote community we could take off, fly around, then circle till we found a flat enough spot to land on the tundra, anywhere. We made our own runway. While we walked around, or when Arthur put the camera down to go fishing, Jimmy would be on the lookout, rifle at the ready in case a polar bear popped around the corner. Polar bears are the only animal that actively hunts humans. I became completely fascinated by polar bear stories, The pilots all had one. One night a polar bear tried to break into a cabin while the guys were sleeping. Helicopter pilots told me about having their chopper surrounded by these huge bears and having to fire guns off into the air to scare them away. Then there was the story about the guy in his kayak P. 89

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being chased in the water by a polar bear. These animals are huge, fast and vicious. From the air, we could see trails that cut through the snow. Some paths went on for days; people used them to get to other communities. The trails were dotted with huts and cabins, used by hunters or by people as an escape from the cold. BANNED FOR LIFE

The Tulugaq Bar, more commonly known as the "Zoo," had rules. Before we entered the bar, we were in a kind of holding area and on the walls were the rules. It was the only good bar in town—actually, the only real bar in Iqaluit, and all of Baffin Island, basically in all of the Eastern Artie, as I was told by the manager, Erie Dschene. The bar had a system down. If you were drunk you got kicked out and you had to leave immediately. If you didn't leave immediately you were banned or barred, as Erie said, for life. If they told you to take a taxi home and you didn't turn over your keys, you were banned for life. If you harassed the waitress, you were banned for life. Everything was about being banned for life. It was how things were kept under control. Everybody wanted to belong. Nobody wanted to be banned from the Zoo. ROAD TO NOWHERE

We met this architect and singer, Robert Billard, who was married to an Inuit woman P. 90

I WISH I HAD A ROAD TO NOWHERE IN MY CITY.

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called OO. He wrote this song about a road that went nowhere. It went out to the tundra and then just ended. They all referred to it as "the road to nowhere." It was even marked on the map. It looked like a building project someone got tired of working on. I wish I had a road to nowhere in my city. LUC1E The first person we tried to hook up with was Lucie Idlout. A young rock singer, she had broken out of Iqaluit and toured down south in Canada. Recently her song "Birthday" from her album E5770 My Mother's Name had been licenced for use in Crime Spree, a film starring Harvey Keitel. Lucie's mother, like many Inuit up until the '70s, had their names replaced by numbers. She was political and really radical. Lucie wore dyed purple sea-pelt pants designed by Aaju Peters for her concerts in the south. She wanted to tell people how the ban on sealskins damaged the Inuit's subsistence. All of the seal was used for food and protection from the elements. It was about survival. In every house there was a meat tray at the door and fresh skins hung up to dry. Lucie and her friend, Madeleine Allakariallak, performed traditional throat-singing for us. It was created as a game for women to play when the men went away hunting for several days. The women imitated animals and birds in a rhythm and whoever laughed first was the loser. Lucie lost. She loved the mix of tradition and urban life in Iqaluit. She said the only thing missing was fresh fruit.

got the impression it's pretty close to impossible for contemporary artists to make a go of it outside their towns unless there's government funding or it's an Aboriginal or Inuit convention of some kind. The more traditional art-and-crafts economy in Nunavut is estimated at 20 million dollars a year. One art student we spoke to told us that carving has always been an easy way to make money. "Out of sugar dear, okay, I'll make a carving and sell it to the co-op." For someone trying to do other art, I think it must be one of the hardest places in the world to be successful.

F.XTRO

Many of the artists in Iqaluit didn't want to leave. Due to the cost, the reality of leaving, just to be able to see another part of the world—or even another part of Canada—was not an option for most. It was not like they had any extra money. I P. 93

THIS IS BUENOS AIRES. AS UNDERSTOOD BY DANIEL

MELERO, AN ARTIST AND MUSICIAN WHOSE STUDIO IS IN A TURRET AND WHO DOES ART FOR ART'S SAKE.

"THE MARKET IS UNPREDICTABLE AND THAT IS TORTURE. BUT IT IS GOOD FOR ART. IN OTHER PLACES EVERY IDEA IS MEASURED IN RELATION TO THE MARKET. HERE, NOBODY KNOWS WHAT THE MARKET IS BECAUSE EVERYTHING CAN GO DOWN TOMORROW AND NOBODY KNOWS WHO WILL HAVE MONEY TOMORROW. WHAT KIND OF PRODUCT WILL YOU PUT ON THE STREET? THE ONE YOU WANT."

SOME DAYS IT'S LIKE WATCHING A FILM BACKWARDS IN TEL AVIV AND BEIRUT, A GENERATION OF ARTISTS AND MUSICIANS IS TIRED OF WAR.

"I WOULD HAVE LIKED TO KEEP A FEW TRACES OF THE WAR. IT'S ONE OTHER LAYER OF OUR HISTORY. I FEAR THAT MOST PEOPLE IN BEIRUT IN FACT WANT TO ERASE THAT FROM THEIR MEMORY, WHICH IS A PITY. WE HAVE TO ASSUME ALL OF OUR HISTORY AND THE WAR IS PART OF IT." —VICTOR BALADI, ARCHITECT, BIERUT, LEBANON

WE WERE OUT ON THE STREET shooting and we saw this guy bombing along on a scooter. He saw us with a camera and instantly started talking, "You've got to meet my friend...." So we followed him to an apartment building, went up the stairs and knocked on the door. A tall skinny man with short hair opened it. The apartment was tiny and full of records. This man, Monir Khouli, was hanging out with a friend listening to a song he had recently recorded, The song was funny because he used a friend with a deadly smoker's hack to punctuate the end of each verse. We squeezed into the apartment and listened. Monir was a singer/songwriter who stayed in Beirut, squirrelled away in his apartment writing songs about the war. He said that during the war people were not interested in music, they cared more about how to put food on their table. Lebanon's civil war lasted from 1975 to 1990. Fighting still continues in the south along the border with Israel. Monir lived through the civil war while buildings were coming down around him, whereas most people his age found any opportunity they could to get out of the country. He chose

to stay. He performed a song for us at Blues Alley that he had written during the war: "Bombs and explosions, booze and drugs, poverty and downtroddeness. What a situation." What was so interesting about Beirut was that so many Lebanese were returning t the city. They felt there was a real opportunity to become a part of the new Beirut. They were starting clubs, restaurants, shops, video production studios and record companies. Then there were those who had stayed. Another guy we met, Roger Saade, opened The Alternative Shop, which sold things like hemp bags, recycled paper goo and natural soap. He was into purification of the water system and "being aware." He wanted to try to redevelop the city and have a voice in that development. "It's up to our P. 97

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generation," he told me. "It's time for our generation to take control over what happens to the rebuilding of the country. We want peace, we've lived through this...our whole lives have been experienced through war." This from a thirty-year-old man telling me he is part of a generation that grew up during war. Out of the more than forty countries I've been to, I can count on my hand the number of places I was scared to go. I was scared to go to Tel Aviv; I was scared to go to P. 98

Dakar; and I was scared to go to Moscow. Beirut was another place I was nervous about. But once I arrived and saw the culture and felt the people's attitude toward life, my fear dissipated. In Beirut a scooter guy introduced us to a musician guy who in turn introduced us to a whole other group of people. For me, it was important to be flexible, to be brave enough to say to myself, I'll take that risk of talking to strangers. I think it's exhausting for artists and residents in places like Beirut to always be defined by war. Unfortunately, as a journalist, I don't always want to do a

TEL AVIV

story on was, I want the art to be political or at least frustrating thing -;•