Carleton student artists assembled in the Carleton University Art Gallery (CUAG) to express their artistic freedom Nov. 16.
The event, Cabaret Voltaire, was organized by Dessy Sukender, fourth-year political science and
director of arts and culture with the Campus Activity Board, in collaboration with CUAG education and outreach assistant Fiona Wright.
Inspired by the exhibition CUAG has on right now, Photomontage between the Wars (1918-1939), Fiona explains that the Cabaret is those artists coming together to freely express themselves.
“The artists who were making these photomontage works in Europe in 1918-1930 got together in the back of a bar in Zurich. They would practice performances, music, weird dances, and wear costumes. It was also very politically and socially engaged,” Wright said.
“The Cabaret was staged because the artists saw society was too passive and they were trying to shake everyone out of what they saw as a society nap.”
Dessy helped select the artists and made an open call for people to showcase their original work. One of those artists, second-year sociology and communications student Nancy Asante, performed spoken word poetry alongside a pianist.
“I’ve been doing spoken word for about five years . . . I started in high school with open mics and assemblies for black history month.”
“I think it relates to art because I am speaking about poetry and how poetry makes me feel.”
Another performer, fourth-year philosophy student Liam Burke, did a reading based on a couple of poems that he took from a poetry book that he is hoping to release by early next year.
“I write about what I am feeling, typically it’s some metaphor for what’s going through my head,” Burke said about his style.
Burke’s free expression in his poetry directly ties to how the artists in Cabaret Voltaire expressed themselves.
“In terms of where it’s allowed to go and its new freedoms, Cabaret Voltaire was a huge revolution in art. I have always written poems that push boundaries in that respect.”
“Events like these are an absolute necessity for people in the arts. There really should be a large base for artists in the student body to have their say.”
Second-year political science student Nathaniel Bruni attended the event to gain more exposure to the Carleton arts community, and he was pleased to see events like this take place at CUAG because it finally brought him into the art gallery.
“It’s something new for me. I usually am into stuff like politics, and not very much into arts and culture and this is just something new that I wanted to do.”
Bruni said that events like these are great and that he hoped to see more.
“Last year I didn’t see too many, this year I got to see a little bit more and it’s just awesome to see these events come up for me to actually get to see arts aspect at Carleton.”
