Feminist Artists and Popular Education

Abstract

As I wrote the words quoted above, spoken so passionately during the 2003 World Social Forum—where another world was seen to be possible—by Indian feminist and novelist Arundhati Roy, I could feel their fecundity, creativity, and energy. I am cognizant, however, of the overwhelming neoliberal ethos of contemporary Canada reflected in a recent political federal victory. The ultra-Right conservative party just won a majority, and with fixed elections in place we have four years of continued social cuts and a paradoxical climate of crisis and lethargy to look forward to. This chapter begins at the confluence of what could be called two competing narratives: the first, persistent neoliberal practices and beliefs that create inequities and divisions across the country; the second is, as Canadian poet-musician Leonard Cohen sings, the “cracks in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” One light through the neoliberal malaise is the work of feminist artist-educators who engage the human aesthetic dimension in political and activist-oriented popular pedagogies of change.

Our strategy should be not only to confront the empire but to mock it‖ with our art… our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness and our ability to tell our own stories; stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe.

—Arundhati Roy