Shaking Our Artistic Hands with the Devil

Written by Alumni SFU Inter-disciplinary Indigenous Métis Artist: Donald Morin, BA

Re: SFU Visual Arts & Goldcorp: "Framing Cultural Capital

Attention: Jeff Derksen, Ian Angus, Alexandra Henao, Cecily Nicholson, Irwin Oostindie, Jayce Salloum, Carole Taylor, and all other interested individuals and colleagues

Dear Associated Colleagues of SFU and Salish Territory now know as the lower mainland of British Columbia
As a SFU graduate and artist who has studied two semesters of visual arts along with my performing arts and the SFU film program, I raise my hands up to all of you who help create this upcoming dialogue forum regarding Goldcorps 10 mil donation. Miigweech.
 

I personally find it deplorable that SFU has accepted this buy off donation from Godcorps.

What is more incredulous is the trilateral position already taken by the university:
 

• the immediate designation of naming the SFU downtown campus to the Goldcorps Centre for the Arts.

• half of the funds going towards the capital costs of running the facilities

• and the endowment created to support programs aimed at community engagement in the DTES

Without even asking the downtown eastside community for some input in how such a donation can help the community before accepting the money.

Considering, the whole notion of Goldcorps past history in its mining developments, I am ashamed of being part of SFU's history for their immediate acceptance of this sellout donation without proper consideration of the more urgent needs of the residents of the Downtown East, the lack of cultural protocol with respect to the first people of Salish Territory, and the lack on including a Salish First Nations Artist to this important dialogue event.

As a first nations man who spent close to thirty years on Salish Territory and many years in the downtown eastside as an activist/artist and community member, I learned much about cultural respect and my self worth as an "Indian" man who moved to Vancouver 1980 from Edmonton to realize my potential in life. Where at that time, society's expectation of native people then were only seeing us as drunks, in jail or dead. Moving back to Edmonton Dec 2009, it is sad to still see the judicial system still stereotyping native people in the same light, and certain members of Canadian society still have systemic racist views of Canada's first people.

It is good to see that people are concerned about this donation, but are they the right concerns? Will this dialogue event be seen as a lame afterthought, when it comes to the lateness of the press release, because suddenly people hear about this donation are of concern, and SFU organizers realize they do not have proper community discussions and involvement when Goldcorps first put the money on the table?
And then there is the issue of cultural protocol. Considering the sad and sordid history of the Downtown Eastside Missing women and the strong percentage of aboriginal people in the area, where do these people fit in with this donation?

An artist paints a picture of a missing woman, a dying native on the street, and we all done our part in helping less fortunate people through our work as artists?

I see this late release as a case of poor insight and planning to be sending this press release out now considering the date of this event. I can only assume that there may be a limited crowd of people involved due to this later publication of this event.

What will the result of this event be? Considering the language of the press release, I see it as a rather pretentious event of artists, moderators, and intellectuals complaining about the ethics of such a donation to real people with real concerns, but still the money has been taken, plans have been initiated and discussed, and we can all go away thinking that we are doing some good for the community talking about it.

Meanwhile the residents of the DTES are struggling to survive, eat, maintain a roof and wean themselves of the substances some have fallen into, while the old timers in the area area sit in their rooms they have and will never see the benefits of this sellout donation.

My critics will say, well, there are already many social agencies out there helping these people, and I am missing the point of this donation and discussion. But I would refute that argument, by saying that the university can go against the status quo of community relations, and use that money in a context that will take all your departmental disciplines in consideration, and use that capital to build and improve the current housing conditions for the residents, create all types of employment for the residents, invest in improving the health, body and mind of the residents, and use that endowment fund to help all the people of the DTES instead of just the artists and their subjects.

Any further real concrete action for the university and this discussion panel to do is to tell the university to give back that money to Goldcorps and instruct the corporation to go into the downtown eastside community, and create real change for the residents without any sort of public acknowledgment or recognition.

Does the university have to be involved at all? No, I see this as a public relations ploy by this corporation and my former university, and now with all you colleagues being involved, everyone is grandstanding themselves around this donation because, it is a news worthy item and we can all get something out of this fiasco, and the residents get nothing but what is offered later, much later, once the money is implemented in the system and the infra structure develops and everyone gets their piece of the pie, and the status quo remains the same.

In closing, while I accept and give credit to the organizers of this event for creating dialogue in [demanding] " a more active role in shaping [their] position at the university and [their] relationship to the community, nothing is really going to change for the residents of the community outside of the artists who will utilize the downtown SFU Centre for the Arts.

I apologize of I have offended anyone in this dialogue, but what is our role as artists in contemporary society if we do not address immediate basic issues of survival for our fellow humans accepting nothing in return. Miigweech, Gila Kesla, O’Siem, Hy hy, all my relations
Miigweech Donald Morin, BA

http://www.isuma.tv/dammedia http://myspace.com/donaldmorin
http://www.google.com/profiles/donaldmorin http://www.youtube.com/Willy2Frencheater