Upon entering the gallery, one is greeted by a young woman who stands in a fountain, sharing the water with a slew of flamingos and flower bushes. The large painting nearly spans from the floor to the ceiling in height. Naked, except for a pair of bright magenta lace underwear, the girl wears a nonchalant expression on her face – eyes dimmed, accompanied by dark circles underneath. Her arms are folded across her stomach, and in one hand, a cigarette is perched between two fingers. Carelessly smoking and making bold eye contact with the viewer, she exemplifies what it means for a woman to own her body without shame.

The girl in this painting is unfazed by her own nudity, her nonchalance a rebellion against these gendered double standards of sexual autonomy.

Yet another layer to this painting is the question of sexualization and objectification of women’s bodies. A girl who is simply standing naked in a fountain is not necessarily doing so sexually. But the fact that her chest is bare would likely be perceived as such and deemed inappropriate by many audiences. Women’s bodies are endlessly sexualized by society and in turn by the media, making topless women universally taboo, sexual objects, while topless men are not. The girl in this painting is unfazed by her own nudity, her nonchalance a rebellion against these gendered double standards of sexual autonomy.

Many other works, of various smaller sizes, echo similar themes. In one painting, a young girl straddles a gymnastics vault, wearing a pink and white leotard with a pink bow in her hair to match. Between her legs, protruding out of her vagina, is a yellow rose, symbolic of popular perceptions of virginity and ‘sexual innocence.’ Flowers are frequently associated with the so-called loss (or taking) of sexual innocence, as reflected by the term ‘de-flowering.’ Virginity is often accepted in Western society as the only barrier between childhood and womanhood, despite the heteronormative implications. The flower protruding from the young girl’s open legs in a particularly suggestive manner is jarring; it vividly criticizes the pressure to maintain a flower-like delicacy and a ‘youthful innocence’ while also feeling pressure to gain sexual experience.

The scariest part about the harmful beauty standards that these Barbie dolls promote is that they are directed at young girls.

Beyond treading this supposed line between girlhood and womanhood, Lajoie-Bergeron also questions the beauty standards placed on women of all ages. A rectangular poster is depicted within one painting, creating a ‘picture-within-a-picture’ effect. The poster within the painting presents an intricate drawing of two statuesque women casually leaning against a wall. Their faces and bodies are drawn ornately – with high cheekbones, piercing eyes, large breasts, and very long, thin legs – and represent the arbitrary and harmful beauty standards that box in women and girls. In the same painting, a girl who is drawn to appear less ornate and less conventionally ‘attractive’ looks at the poster girls, suggesting the powerful role the media plays in perpetuating standards of beauty and femininity. The girl and her gaze exemplify the dichotomy between the arbitrary standards of beauty to which women are compared, and the diverse reality of women’s figures.

A nearby painting expands on this theme, depicting eight blonde Barbie dolls in identical striped bathing suits. They each wear high ponytails and similar makeup – pink cheeks painted on fair white skin, dark eyeshadow, and red lipstick. The scariest part about the harmful beauty standards that these Barbie dolls promote is that they are directed at young girls.

Through every piece in the exhibit, Lajoie-Bergeron puts forward her own stance on sexuality and female autonomy. She critiques these socially normative definitions of beauty and femininity by playing on experience, showing viewers what it feels like to be trapped within the dichotomy of girl and woman, and in doing so, empowers audiences to break free.

 
“LOVE ME, Love My Doll” runs until April 10 at La Centrale Galerie Powerhouse.

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Upcycling is the process of repurposing used materials and waste, giving them a second life by turning them into new products. The term ‘upcycling’ was coined to indicate the intention of turning old materials into products of greater value or quality. Unlike recycling, in which the consumer sends their waste off to a plant, upcycling is a first-hand process. Painting and converting a used glass bottle into a vase, for example, creates a creative connection between the user and their trash, in contrast to just throwing the bottle into a recycling bin. Participants in the upcycling movement reduce their carbon footprint by limiting the amount of brand new goods they purchase, while simultaneously limiting the amount of old items they send to landfills.

“[Humans] are the only creatures on this planet that produce useless output. […] We would like to be a part of the movement that changes that.”

AOW founders Abrahamian and Partlow are part of this growing movement, using art to reconsider the role of trash in their lives. Both have strong backgrounds in the arts: Abrahamian earned her Bachelor’s degree in Cinema and Political Science from Concordia, then went on to earn a Masters in Expressive Art Therapy with a focus on digital media and film; Partlow has worked on the production of a film called Fishing Without Nets, a winner at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, and she also has an extensive portfolio of published photography.

“[Humans] are the only creatures on this planet that produce useless output,” Abrahamian tells The Daily. “We would like to be a part of the movement that changes that.” Abrahamian explains that she is “interested in producing work that allows participants to walk away feeling inspired to build on the upcycling perspective, and to find ways to integrate it into their lives.” Basically, Abrahamian adds, all upcycling folks are “trying to make trash cool.”

In order to make trash cool, it represents familiar artistic imagery in unconventional ways. The art in AOW utilizes trash in novel ways that stretch the limits of normative creation and consumption. One of the project’s pieces, a featurette entitled TerraCycle Bathtub, does this by turning a bathroom into a waste-playground. The featurette stars New York-based cabaret performer Dangrrr Doll who lays in a large tub filled with thin scraps of paper and hair adorned with soda can-curlers, laughing and playing. It makes bathing with scraps of discarded trash look fun and relaxing, nudging the audience to rethink the endless possibilities of using waste.

TerraCycle Bathtub is the second installation in the project’s ALL IS FOUND film series. The series is still in a work in progress and is open to submissions. “Our submission call out is meant to attract creatives who have an idea for a short film that would feature character(s) who upcycle, such as artists, musicians, designers, [and] builders,” said Abrahamian. With ALL IS FOUND still in production, the series’s trajectory has been far from lacklustre. The first installation of the film series is an official finalist in the 2014 Yosemite International Film Festival.

Film is just one of the project’s many mediums. According to Abrahamian, the two founders are “constantly coming up with ways to produce different iterations of AOW.” Many of these iterations are particularly focused on encouraging public participation, such as the ALL IS FOUND submission call, and the project’s upcycling workshops , which are meant to teach attendees how to incorporate principles of upcycling into their regular lives. Most recently, Abrahamian and Partlow conducted a soldering and circuit-bending event in Los Angeles, California. Circuit-bending is the creative practice of customizing the circuits within electronic devices to create unique sound generators. Workshop participants were asked to bring their own supplies, such as electronic kid’s toys and keyboards, to re-circuit and create brand new instruments.

“Waste is the medium. It’s a material that can be manipulated and repurposed.”

Originally, workshops and video installations were not entirely what Abrahamian had in mind. “The project has developed quite a bit since we started. Mostly in the way that it is constantly taking different shapes,” said Abrahamian. “It started off as an idea for […] a big, high production, immersive show that only used upcycled materials as its set and scenography.” However, Abrahamian soon discovered the reality of doing large independent projects: funding is key. “We don’t want to just sit around and wait for funding. We also don’t want to resort to crowd-funding,” Abrahamian explained. The two creators have learned to take a different approach. “Now when we have an idea, we work on developing it first before we think of ways to fund it.”

The upcycling movement has gained support and momentum over the years, as made abundantly clear by just one visit to the AOW Tumblr. The blog showcases the work of many other upcyclers and dumpster divers turning trash into treasure, art, and useful tools. Still, the logic behind upcycling continues to be considered fairly radical by many. Trash has a bad rap in our Western consumer society, one that attaches great importance to purchasing new items – the most recent iPhone, the most current fashion. Once an item has been replaced in the market, it is considered “waste,” devoid of value.

Yet from Abrahamian’s perspective, in the world of art, upcycling is a form of its own. “Waste is the medium. It’s a material that can be manipulated and repurposed,” Abrahamian said. “It doesn’t have to just be thrown away into a bag that goes on our driveways then disappears magically into an imaginary island full of recycling fairies that no one thinks about.”

Once an item is thrown out, consumers can easily forget about it and forget about where it is going: more often than not, to a landfill. Though recycling propaganda can be effective, Abrahamian takes a different approach to inspiring waste-consciousness. “We want to engage people through the arts, in a way that empowers them instead of making them feel guilty,” Abrahamian said. “Personally, I don’t think shoving sad images of birds with plastic in their stomachs is going to make a long-lasting change. It shocks us, makes us aware of the problem, but leaves us walking away feeling really bad about the state of our being in the world and the environment.”

Alchemy of Waste is intended to inspire rather than shame audiences into becoming more eco-friendly and conscious of the waste they produce. Operating on the idea that positivity is more powerful than pessimism, the project is an artistic endeavour that not only presents an alternative way of seeing the world, but also an alternative way to live it.

Details on Alchemy of Waste can be found on their website at alchemyofwaste.com

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Or a millennial in the eyes of Western society, at least. Countless published criticisms of today’s young adult population accuse our generation of falling victim to the digital era – resulting in the lazy, distracted, self-absorbed, and entitled “millennials.” I have heard these accusations, among others, thrown at my age group more times than I can count.

Statistic Canada’s 2011 Census determined that 9.1 million people (that is, 27 per cent of the population in 2011) fall into the “Generation Y” age range. Aside from how difficult it is to name any single characteristic that unifies all millennials, the boundaries of this age range are fuzzy, making it unclear to whom exactly these generational criticisms are directed. Stamping generic labels upon every individual around this age treats “Generation Y” as one cohesive unit. To ignore individual variations in race, gender and sexual identity, class, personal history, and other key aspects of one’s identity is to make unfair generalizations based on a loose age grouping.

I was raised Unitarian Universalist – a liberal religion that focuses on tolerance and the human right to spiritual autonomy – and despite how comfortable I grew in my congregation, I frequently felt a divide between the youth and adult members there. Though the leadership made attempts to involve youth in congregational happenings, I regularly felt as though our presence at services and events was a disruption more than everything else. During youth group meetings, we regularly had mature and insightful discussions on anything from ethics to politics to sexuality. I often wished more adults in our congregation had been able to sit in on these conversations to witness what us young people were capable of and interested in. Rather, we only felt like an underrepresented, even underprivileged, demographic within our own congregation, only known to the older group as rambunctious and apathetic teenagers.

While there are certainly aspects of the millennial ‘type’ that resonate with me, these stereotypes, for the most part, seem to indicate what my life looks like, not who I am. I’m certainly familiar with the recent graduate stereotype, someone faced with crippling college debt as well as fierce competition for low-paying entry jobs. I am from the U.S. – the land of exorbitantly-priced higher education – so I am no stranger to the realities of today’s college market and its repercussions for students. Growing up in the suburbs, I knew lots of neighbouring families with children five to ten years older than me. While I was making my way through elementary school, one by one, they all began to leave home for university. And four to five years later, they each started to return home, jobless and in debt.

This focus on the plight of the millennial, however, occludes the real issues – like what brought about this stereotype of the twenty-something who moves back home. The popular concern is over whether we will get jobs, not why there are no jobs for us in the first place. The argument that we millennials are harming our own professional careers with our characteristic laziness and entitlement suggests that professional success results solely from hard work and dedication – the age-old myth of meritocracy.

The notion of meritocracy, which is particularly (though certainly not exclusively) popular within right-wing economic circles, fails to get at the truth of the matter.

The millennial stereotype often ignores the experiences of marginalized communities – the image of a twenty-something with a BA still living at home, for example, excludes those who cannot afford university in the first place.

Not only is this generational caricature inaccurate, but in ignoring socioeconomic backgrounds, it allows for pundits to ignore social context and place the blame on us.

In today’s job market, class, race, gender, and sexual identity (among other key factors) all have the power to hold a person back from the success their hard work deserves – no matter what generation the individual belongs to. The generational label, and all of the implications that come with it, ignore the experiences of underprivileged demographics and obscure the effects of other sociological factors on personal and professional development.

As time moves on, the conversation is shifting away from millennials and toward Generation Z, those currently under the age of 18. Labels like ‘apathetic,’ ‘attention deficit,’ and ‘overly preoccupied with social media’ have all been slapped onto this age group. Do these criticisms sound familiar?

These newfound denunciations of the up-and-coming Generation Z are a mere repetition of those faced by millennials. Throughout history, most young generations have engaged in a kind of cultural rebellion against their parents’ cohort in an attempt to declare independence. Millennials are subject to criticism from older generations for our reliance on technology just as baby boomers were heavily criticized for Woodstock and their hippie tendencies – every generation feels anxious about the next.

Living arguably right in between two generations, I cannot say I identify strongly with the labels placed on either. As an 18-year-old, I can arguably identify as a member of Generation Z as feasibly as I could a millennial, proof of the arbitrary construction of generations. As a McGill student, I am part of the privileged community to whom the “millennial” label exclusively refers. Though my life is undoubtedly shaped by my era, these effects are not unique to me, nor to anyone in my age range. There is no “one millennial,” but there are certainly issues that all millennials will have to face – climate change, a harsh job market, and the pressures of globalization.

If a generation must be defined, it cannot be by a set of stereotyped personality traits, but rather the set of social, political, and historical conditions it is faced with – and how it handles them. So while baby boomers will continue to lament our Instagram accounts and Tinder dates, shallow criticisms of the millennial generation are nothing compared to what we are about to take on.

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Similar workshops promoting food waste reduction were held across the province throughout the week, pulling a less-discussed aspect of food sustainability out of the dump and into the spotlight. North America’s destructive food system is increasingly attracting attention, from the 2008 documentary film Food, Inc. to the release of the documentary Cowspiracy this year. As more and more people adopt vegan diets, and as eco-friendly cafes pop up across the city, talk of food sustainability has been focusing more on what we eat than how we eat it. But with the average Canadian household chucking up to half their fridge’s contents in the trash each week, events like this point to the importance of questioning a broader culture of consumption that makes some uncomfortable with the idea of wilting food scraps on their dinner plates.

But these scraps are exactly what I found at the workshop. The evening’s unusual ingredients were carrot and sweet potato peels, freshly-gutted pumpkin seeds, leafy carrot tops, and apple remnants – seeds, browning peels, and all. With the ingredients at hand, attendees broke into small teams to cook our dumpster dishes, chopping and chatting in the small cafe.

Rachel Chainey, one of the five founders of Le Milieu, facilitated the workshop. Chainey told me that the co-op “wanted to draw attention to the fact that we can actually make delicious food from food that is otherwise thrown in the trash or the compost.” She explained that often “veggies at the market are not chosen because […] they don’t look as beautiful as they could, so they just get thrown away. So some of us do dumpster diving to save them.”

Dumpster diving is sorting through dumpsters – often those of restaurants, cafes, and grocery stores – in search of still-usable food items. “There’s an ethic of dumpster diving,” Chainey explained. “You leave the place as clean or cleaner than you find it, because then there will be no reason for stores to lock their dumpster.” Chainey also confirmed that sanitary concerns are valid. “I think if people eat meat and dairy from a dumpster, they have to be really cautious.” For those with a vegan diet, however, there’s less to worry about. “With veggies and bread, there’s not much risk. Often times [a food item] has been thrown out right away, so it’s not even rotting. […] But even if some parts of it have started to rot, there are some parts that you can save.”

Chainey admitted that with all the guidelines involved, dumpster diving can be very time consuming, and is not an activity to be taken lightly.

For many, dumpster diving is not a lifestyle choice or a questionable fad but a necessity, which makes the unwritten code of diving even more imperative. Le Milieu’s event presented a potential alternative – the ingredients used were recycled scraps from the cafe itself, demonstrating how food conservation can begin by digging through our own kitchen trash.

Between the chopping and the stirring, I also chatted with Kay Noele, a highly involved co-op member, about other food sustainability initiatives at the cafe. “We do a lot of food recovery,” said Noele. “Every Wednesday we get [day-old] bread from the bakery around the corner, and that’s what we serve alongside the soup. […] We try and make sure that we’re really being conscious in everything that we do.” The co-op, which also acts as an open, affordable art studio for the Montreal community, provides other creative and eco-friendly workshops regularly. You can learn anything from quilting with scrap fabric to fermenting vegetables. “So really what [the co-op] is,” explained Noele, “is just a resilient community space that can be so much more than four walls and a door. And we often explode right out of the space.”

Several hours and a few dirtied pots later, we all sat munching on our waste-free creations: pesto made from carrot tops, apple sauce made with entire apples, fried sweet potato peel chips, and sweet jelly from pumpkin seeds. The dishes were big hits. I found myself quickly addicted to the carrot top pesto, and I was not alone.

“I honestly didn’t expect it to be this good,” Stephanie O’Hanley, a longtime Le Milieu supporter, told me as we ate. “I don’t think of [carrot tops] as something that you eat.” Those of us new to radical food conservation echoed O’Hanley’s pleasant surprise. The sweet pumpkin jelly tasted just right on top of the week-old bread saved for the event. “There are a lot of ideas on how to use peels for food or whatever, but you kind of put it on the shelf [and tell yourself] ‘I’ll try that someday,’” said participant Tara Lachapelle. “Now that I’ve actually done it, it’s so much easier to take it home.”

To Chainey, Le Milieu’s participation in Waste Reduction Week seemed like a no-brainer.

“[This event was just one of] a lot of things [we do] that encourage people to be more independent from the mainstream economy and more in solidarity with each other, [to] use their hands, and [to] be gentle to the planet.”

It’s places like Le Milieu that stand out amongst food initiatives, challenging preconceived boundaries between trash and dinner through simple means. Instead of turning dumpster diving into a frivolous pastime, “Dumpster Dining” encourages each of us to be more aware of how we consume. For university students with potentially limited budgets and limited cooking experience, it can be particularly useful to know how to make the most of our ingredients. So the next time you go to throw out that old bread, take moment to stop and think – you may be missing out on a great meal.

Visit facebook.com/cooplemilieu to find out more about Le Milieu and its events.

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The McGill Daily (MD): Can you tell me a bit about the Underwater City Project in general?

Aimee Louw (AL): The Underwater City Project is a multimedia research and documentation project. It started when I was in the pool one day, and I was kind of swimming around and fantasizing about how it would be to get around if everything was underwater. Rather than having to worry about transit, I could just swim wherever I wanted to go. When I was a kid, the pool was a really pleasant place for me, and I swam a lot, so I have all these really nice associations with water. I had been thinking a lot about accessibility before that – I knew I wanted to do some sort of creative project, but I didn’t know exactly what. Often when I get an idea, I end up working around a theme.

[Next], I did a research trip last spring. I left in February and went for a number of months. I went to Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Calgary, Victoria, Halifax… I only focused on five [cities] in the zine, but the research I was doing was in a lot of different cities.

MD: What kinds of things did you look at in the different cities, as far as looking at accessibility? How did you go about doing that?

AL: Well it’s not a scientific study, I’ll tell you that. Mostly I just experienced it. I talked to people, interviewed people, I took transit. The zine was kind of the product of some of the writing I did on that trip. It’s by no means an [evaluative] comparison, but more like my experiences and other people’s experiences in those cities.

I always look at transit because it’s such an integral part of life in the city, and it’s such a daily frustration for me here. I fantasize about [public transit] being so much better in other cities. [Sometimes I wonder] is it really, or am I just building it up? But yeah, it is actually better. So much better.

MD: Which city was public transit the best in?

AL: Vancouver. It’s completely accessible, actually.

MD: What kinds of features did Vancouver’s public transit system have that made it the most accessible?

AL: Everything is accessible for a lot of different people. The SkyTrain, which is their underground metro system, is 100 per cent wheelchair-accessible. They have raised panels next to the train tracks for people with visual impairments, so that it’s well-defined. They have trails in the different stations with different textured ground, so that people using canes for visual impairments can tell where they’re going. The buses are 100 per cent accessible.
Of course, all buses break down sometimes, but they are proud of their accessibility, whereas here [in Montreal] it’s seen as a service or a charity. In terms of structural accessibilities, but also in terms of interactions with employees of the system, Vancouver has an openness of spirit [toward people with disabilities].

MD: What is your goal for this project?

AL: I originally took that trip to research and scout out filming spots, and to find people I wanted to interview for a film. But it turns out I did a lot more writing, which is why I wanted to first publish a zine: so I could get some of the stories out there and kind of spread the word about the project. As I said before, it’s a multimedia project, so my goal is to eventually produce a short documentary. […] In the meantime, I want to put out another zine, or another publication of some sort, looking more specifically at Quebec. It’s kind of interesting because accessibility in urban spaces is one of those areas where as soon as you look at one thing, there’s a million other questions that need to be looked at.

I really want to focus on Quebec and Montreal specifically for the next publication that I’m going to do. One of the reflections that I have about this zine is that I would really love to look at more subtle questions of accessibility in addition to structural [issues]. I would like to talk to people living with other sorts of disability, like economic backgrounds. Something else that I really wasn’t expecting when I was writing the zine was that sexuality was a big part of it. I really want to explore writing and work related to sexual freedom, because it’s a huge issue and with a lot of barriers.

MD: Would you say that’s something you found universally?

AL: I have to do more research to talk about it more, but it’s interesting because it’s something that came up in all the interviews that I did with artists and activists in the cities. For example, in Toronto, the gentleman I interviewed was talking a lot about how hard it is to access gay spaces. He was a gay man, saying, “I can hardly get into any gay bars.” He was saying that he can’t get into the spaces that he wants to, and of course that affects his opportunity to express himself sexually. He made the point that if people aren’t used to seeing you in bars, when you do go, you get stigmatized. […] And [sexuality] is something that’s so integral to every person in one way or another.

MD: So your inspiration for this project came from the pool?

AL: Yeah! It came from the pool. That’s the little nugget where I got the idea, but it also just came from daily experiences – feeling isolated and ostracized, feeling like I can’t get into places. It’s written about in the zine a bit, but my mobility changes a lot. Some days I can get into this café, and other days it’s not gonna happen. Whatever, it’s not like a huge social injustice not to get an expensive latte. But at the same time, almost every single [store] that I and other persons with limited mobility try to access, we can’t. Like, where do I go to buy socks? All these experiences made me think “I need to do something about this creatively.”

MD: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

AL: I would say if any of your readers have read my zine […] the writing that I did about Montreal was very negative, because it is easily the worst or the second-worst city in terms of accessibility. But there are some positive things to Quebec in terms of social programs, so that’s something else I’m going to address in my next publication. There are still places that we can plug in and improve.

MD: Yeah, there’s work to be done.

AL: Oh for sure, but it’s not impossible, it’s just going to take a lot of people – a lot of people who are aware and care and can do things about it.
That was one really cool thing that one of the people I interviewed in Edmonton told me. She was talking about the queer scene in Edmonton, and how a lot of the queer-friendly spaces aren’t accessible for a lot of people. They’re not free, they’re not wheelchair-accessible, the lights affect people with neurological [issues], and they’re also sometimes really expensive. She was telling me that they started raising awareness in their city, and that people started cancelling events if the spaces weren’t accessible. So the venues started thinking, “Oh shit, we have to do something if we want business,” and things slowly changed. I would love to see some of that cultural work happening here in Montreal, because the arts and culture scene is part of the reason people want to live here. That’s somewhere people can plug in, you know?

– This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

To find out more about the Underwater City project and zine, visit: underwatercityproject.tumblr.com and facebook.com/UnderwaterCity.

The post Diving into accessibility appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Emile, the evening’s host, got the ball rolling with a performance of his own work, weaving song with performance poetry, and encouraging the audience to clap along with him as he sang, “All I wanted was a hero, I’m a hero, you’re a hero…” Over the course of the evening, seven spoken word artists stepped onstage to become heroes in their own right as they shared their poetic interpretations of the competition’s theme, “Smashing Stereotypes in the Media.”

The Black Theatre Workshop (BTW), the oldest black theatre company in Canada, is predominantly known for its professional theatre, rather than performance poetry. “[This event is] a nice way to bridge the gap,” explained the company’s artistic director Quincy Armorer. “A lot of times, the different genres of performance are segregated, and a lot of people who are used to going to spoken word events might not go to the theatre events.” It’s not hard to see why audiences might prefer one over the other – theatre and spoken word are hugely different in both their development and performance. Poetry slams have none of the dialogue, scenery, costumes, or choreography of theatre. Spoken word is raw in both presentation and content, and poets have limited time to jam-pack their message into their performance. Theatrical performance may seem drawn-out to spoken word enthusiasts, while spoken word may come across as intense and overly concise to theatre-lovers.

The performances at the slam, however, satisfied theatre and poetry enthusiasts alike. Most readings were in the fast-paced, fervent recitation typical of spoken word, some with fluid rhythm approaching rap, and some so smooth and personable it seemed the poet was speaking to the audience like a close friend. The crowd was responsive, snapping along to Emile’s opening song, nodding in agreement with lines of poetry, and clapping after each piece.

Though this spoken word style was miles away from formal theatre, the content was accessible and relatable for any kind of art enthusiast. Brefny Caribou, an actor, first-time slam poet, and recent graduate of Concordia’s theatre program, interpreted the “Smashing Stereotypes” theme from a personal perspective, incorporating her own past experiences. In an anecdotal piece, Caribou told the story of being questioned about her specific ethnicity while on the job as a store clerk, quoting one customer’s invasive, “What are you?”

“This poem had been in my back pocket for a really long time,” Caribou said. “It was just floating around and I was really into it, but never had a platform for it.” For Caribou, this year’s BTW Poetry Jam was the perfect opportunity to have her poetic voice heard for the first time. “For me, it was just getting the content of what I had written out there into the world somehow.”

Patrick Ohslund, second-place winner of the jam and current McGill graduate student in the Faculty of Education, also used past experience as fuel for his poem. Telling the story of his own sexual assault in high school, Ohslund addressed the horrors of peer pressure and homophobia in the social dynamics between high schoolers. “It was such an emotionally impactful experience in my life,” Ohslund explained to The Daily. “Being able to transform that into something positive can be a source of transformation for myself.”

The jam’s first-prize winner, Svens Telemaque, used the stage as a medium to voice frustrations over racial stereotypes in the media throughout history. When dealing with such socio-political topics, however, sometimes a poem may not feel like enough. “I feel like I got my message across,” Telemaque told The Daily, but went on to reveal that given the complexity of his content, he sometimes has trouble saying everything he wants to. “A speech would do it justice […] if someone were to look into the content of what I was saying, it would be more enriching.”

Telemaque’s statement raises questions with regard to the effectiveness of slam in comparison to other scripted artistic mediums. A lengthy speech provides more factual information, whereas slam poetry will likely provoke emotional responses from the audience. While theatre can more easily straddle these two methods, there is a crucial difference in that the material is often not written by the performers themselves. Caribou, an experienced actress in the Montreal community, finds this to be the biggest change in switching to performing poetry. “As an actor, you get a play […] you are doing a production of something,” Caribou said. “But there is a whole level of vulnerability and intensity that comes along with performing your own words […] this isn’t a character […] it’s just me, it’s my words.”

At the end of the night, three talented poets left the building with cash prizes, while audience members left as newfound poetry fans, or future theatre-goers. Events such as BTW’s Poetry Jam allow personal stories like Caribou’s to reach a wider audience than the spoken word community, demonstrating the importance of using individual experiences to dismantle systemic problems.

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