Despite having government funding pulled, environmental artist Franke James said she will continue spreading the message about climate change through her exhibit “Banned on the Hill” in Ottawa this month.
“We can’t have a healthy economy if the environment is sick,”
James said, referring to the message she’d like to send to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
“Banned on the Hill” includes posters of five of 22 artworks that were part of her cancelled European tour, titled “What difference can one person make?” James said.
She created one new piece asking Harper to stop blacklisting
artists. Posters are on display in bus shelters along Bank Street and Wellington Street.
Her art explores several issues related to climate change like the controversial Alberta tarsands industry and environmental taxing following standards defined in the Kyoto Accords.
A $5000 government grant the non-profit organization applied for was approved internally according to Access to information documents on April — but the government denied in the media, James said.
However, days later, sources indicated that her funding was revoked by Jeremy Wallace, the deputy director of climate change at the department of foreign affairs,
she said.
She said she retrieved these correspondances through the Access to Information Act.
The government was unable to provide support for the exhibit because funding is focused mostly on public education abroad, Wallace said in an email. Project funding
should be “strengthening local capacity in other countries and not towards Canadian speakers making presentations abroad on the subject of climate change,” Wallace wrote in an email to the Canadian embassy.
“[‘Banned on the Hill’] is my protest for being banned by the Harper government,” James said.
She said she aims to reveal the tactics of intimidation and fear by
the Harper government against environmental activists and scientists
in Canada.
In addition to retracting funding, James said the government made things difficult for the nonprofit organization to put on the show. She said the show director became increasingly stressed dealing with the Canadian embassy and felt overwhelmed with
the political aspects of the art show.
According to an email from the Canadian embassy to the nonprofit organization hosting the exhibition, it was unable to provide support “due to an unanticipated cut in [the embassy’s] budget.”
A corporate sponsor was called. Following the call, the sponsor retracted their $75,000 grant, which led to the cancellation of the exhibit, James said.
James’ art pieces are displayed only steps away from Parliament
Hill. “Banned on the Hill” is not her first time to decry Harper’s attitude towards the environment.
In 2008, she produced a visual essay entitled, “Dear Prime Minister.” The essay artistically develops a counter-argument against Harper’s assertion that a pollution tax
would destroy the economy.
James said she uses humour, text and photography to create visual essays, which send a clear message: the environment and economy are inseparable. On one poster is an image of the planet burning up with bread beneath it.
It reads, “CO2 keeps rising but our leaders keep loaf-ing.”
“I was a little cockroach that they [thought they] could step on and get rid of,” James said.
However, she said she won’t be silenced and hopes to exhibit this show in other cities. James said she’s currently working on a video that will be screened at the climate change talk in Durban, South Africa.
James urged people to write their own “Dear Prime Minister” letter to their MPs now “before we are toast.”
