Interesting Group of Stories

Objectively speaking, I'd imagine that there are many ways to respond to stories as there are people.

Subjectively speaking. The stories are an eye opener. I drive by these folks daily and have become somewhat callus to their condition - as calm and callus as they seem to have become themselves over their own situations.

An insightful glance into the lives of folks who lacked the kind of counseling, good sense and advice that I fortunately benefited from growing up ☺

Invisible? Hardly.

This reminds me of Oprah continuing to tell us that incest is society's unspeakable secret, at a point when it had been the big reveal in every talk show, celebrity bio and movie of the week for ten years.

Unless you live under a rock, you know the personal histories of countless street people by now (or at least the parts they choose to share with reporters and social workers). The mere reveal of this information at this point takes things no further. It's just some kind of emotional wallowing.

Let's move on.

I think this piece is fine.

I think this piece is fine. It is minimalist and doesn't overtly exploit its subjects, nor does it use them as ideological props for the usual social welfare bromides. I like inclusion of quotes - it gives the subjects a voice to accompany the visual image they've donated.

I note the origins of the subjects...

...only one of them is from Vancouver.

Juxtapose that with the appalling sentiment echoed in many publications and forums across the country, that the DES is somehow the sole responsibility of citizens who live west of Boundary. 'Why should my tax dollars subsidize Vancouver bums/addicts, blah, blah, blah. Why is the West Coast my problem!!"

The DES is a microcosm of the whole country, and a place where people end up partly because they can't survive in other locales where there's real winter. It's time taxpayers from other parts of the country acknowledged that and started to care....

Deeby

I ask what the heck are we supposed to do? Everybody blames Campbell or Sullivan, some even blame Harper or Chretien for the DTES and poverty in BC.

This enrages me. These are not 'our' people. They came to BC for warmer weather and a free ride.

How does the left blame Gordon Campbell? These are not British Columbians hitting the streets. These are not BCers left behind! These are people who came to BC to prey on our social programs. So, we are supposed to set up pervasive social housing programs?? This will only bring more problems.....

They haven't ever contributed anything to our economy. I really want to help the poor. Yet, these people come and demand.

Honestly, if we cut-off welfare and social housing to people who have never established roots in BC, we'd stop attracting Canada's drug addicts.

Talk about standing an argument on its ear....

Geez Cappy...you'd have us believe that the solution is to be as parochial as people from outside Vancouver, who don't want to pitch in to help deal with the DES's problems, except that your solution appears to be to 'send them all home', wherever that might be.

The same problem in reverse....

Quote:her friends believe

"Yeah, cause if they didn't keep us down with fu**in chemicals and sh*t, man, they'd have a fu**in revolution on their hands, you better fu**in believe it."

I know what you mean, Mary, but..

I know what you mean, Mary. Noone can really know what's in heart of the artist who did this piece--whether it's a career move--even financial, although I doubt there's many bucks in a story like this.

I know personally I would never take a penny from anyone for doing a story on the homeless or drug addicted, but I tend towards self-righteousness.

There is some validity in the fact that there's a bio accompanying each photograph. In fact, personally, I didn't really need the photos to get what's going on on the mean streets. Who among us hasn't seen it?

I bet every artist or writer who's ever contemplated a piece like this has wondered whether such articles contribute to desensitizing the reader-viewer or sensitizing them, making them more--or less-- interested in contributing to a solution.

Co-incidentally, I was sitting in a cafe an hour ago listening to two working guys trying to outdo each other with stories about being callous to street people. I can say quite confidently that seeing these photos would have merely increased the animosity of people with such hatred.

And Capitalism, what do you mean: "These are not our people."

You are a human being, are you not?

hubba, hubba, hubba - who do you trust?

Our political 'leaders' are 'off the streets' and I don't trust them.

whom remains to trust?

Truman

We are all human beings - but I don't believe that we should be responsible for these Albertans/Maritimers. It is terrible that there are where they are! People cannot simply shun responsibility and move out to BC because the weather is nicer and the social accomodations are better.

I am all for letting people come to BC, but it better damn well be to contribute. I say this without any malice - these people are a plague. They leave the streets in a mess, vandalize and break into property, abuse drugs and alcohol and cost us more than just the money we throw into social programs.

This Susannah especially. 19 years old and clearly has the capacity to dream. What on earth has the world come to??

Cap, it sounds like malice to me.

Cappy said: "I mean this without any malice-these people are a plague."

That's exactly the kind of stuff those working guys I referred to were saying to each other.

Maybe do a bit of soul-searching on this one, Cappy.

May I suggest the 'Here but for the grace of God go I' adage--for openers.

Then you might consider the 'Faith, hope and charity' stuff in Corinthians. I'm no Christian, eh, but this stuff is pretty good.

Or, Cap, it you prefer pop music...

Or even this, Cap: "Put a little love in your heart."

The Charter

I guess it's pretty obvious why you don't believe in the Charter Maybelle.

You believe in the republic of North Vancouver, or the Republic of Roulette wheel or maybe the Republic of Las Vegas.

In fact Cappy, reducted to first principles you only believe in yourself...and that means you really aren't a human being as I define the term.

Truly.

Good God Capitalism!

You've really outdone yourself this time Capitalism. These people are not human because they don't contribute to capitalists profits? Because some of them come from somewhere else? "They've come to take advantage of our social benefits"? Which benefits would those be? $425 a month? I can barely afford to rent in this burg on my inflated workers salary! I doubt very much that you are a real capitalist...the requirement being that you have capital. I think that you're just some hate filled person. Do you hate children for not contributing to capitalists profit margins? How about those useless pensioners? I recently ran into someone I hadn't seen for a couple of years in the coffee shop next door to my work on the drive. She asked me to buy her a coffee and so I did. The server asked if I really wanted to and I said of course, yes. We talked for a few minutes and then I had to go back to work. As I was leaving I noticed a hospital bracelet on her wrist. When I went for coffee the next day I asked the person what the problem was. He said that she'd been begging from people in the shop and had to be removed. I don't know what I would have done had I known, but it was early before my coffee and I wasn't 100%. I know that she drank some and dabbled in some cocaine with some guy I knew from the neighborhood but this was full blown psychosis. She was mostly ok but needed some help...help costs less than hospitals.

INTIMATE , DIRECT and at the same time ...

STORIES that need to be told. Thanks for that. An experience and an opportunity to express how I feel after having firstly been aroused in my curiosity by the comments that flowed around this article itself., THEN BEING CURIOUS ENOUGH TO GO ONE STEP FURTHER TO ACTUALLY SEE WHAT THE PHOTOGRAPHS THEMSELVES HAD TO COMMUNICATE.*.. ( Actually BC Mary , your passionate post served to have me wondering why you felt as you did .., ) and in a way it is thanks to your direct sharing of how you felt that I even bothered to look any further.. ) and looking further I did..,

so thanks for your input .., giving me reason to look into this particular photo gallery..

YOU KNOW HOW BOMBARDED WE ARE , IN THIS WORLD OF OMNIPRESENT COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION proliferation of ... substances that vie for our attention.., that actually compete for our MINDS... so here goes with my reflections.

I agree with the minimalist aspect and it is in that light that I appreciate the possibility to actually stop and look into the eyes , directly and without any hesitation whatsoever ,into the certainty of it all. The Humanity of it all.

Human allegory and a step in the right direction notwithstanding . ( giving a certain dignity to PEOPLE who otherwise are without any medium to convey their existence ).is welcomed in a world where so much contrived techniques are used to get us to think this way , or that other way.

I feel the '' artist '' ,as a fellow human space ship earth traveller , managed to capture the essence of our fellow human beings ..., some carrying pride .., carrying also a beautiful sense of direction and purpose ..( Albert) .. others having pain and sorrow carved into their very bones..along with a clear source of strength and determination.. (AN INSPIRATION , really) , she reminds me of a person right out of ZORBA THE GREEK.. a very touching image , really. With great beauty and character . ( Christine )..

The hurt and rage embedded within... an obvious consequence of abused body and soul.. ( by others ?, by themselves.?. ).. Powerful reminders of how time and tear and wear impacts on any living organism... JABBAR and RICHARD.. , and yet a reminder of how , in the same circumstances within our very own road travelled we actually could be easily that embodiment.

A sense of optimism and youth and determination. ( a sense also of why people at that age believe they will live forever..) A beautiful statement and language communicated through her eyes..., ( as was CHRISTINE )..

This photo gallery exhibition brings to the viewer through an obvious trust and confidence displayed by the subject matter , who clearly felt that in Lindsay Mearns , there was a sense of purpose , a sense of HUMAN QUALITIES , of feeling and caring that he must have clearly been able to communicate to these..., '' other wise.. STRANGERS IN A STRANGE LAND.. in all of our lives..

Taking the time to simply reflect on their existence and body language .., as with the connection that truly gets established through their eyes .. ( the powerful SOUL CONNECTION that is felt..), brings me closer to my fellow human beings..,invites the viewer to simply take in the ''light sculptures '' of one individuals CAMERA OF THE MIND.., THROUGH HIS LENS AND EYES.., bringing to the audience a feeling and sense of belonging to the human family..

I THANK YOU WITH ALL OF MY HEART , LINDSAY , FOR HAVING TAKEN THE TIME TO BRING THESE SOULS TO the forefront of our minds.., at a time.. when so much information is available.., the simplicity of your statements and your acting as a medium on their behalf, and on our behalf also .., has the markings of a true artist..*..

More of this kind of reporting is critical in our lives..*

VILLAGE ,

Village just go for a walk then.

Hey Vil, instead of all this overdone Zorba the Greek stuff maybe just go for a walk tonight around hastings and columbia and hand out some toonies and cups of coffee or phone an ambulance for somebody lying behind a dumpster with a bloody face.
Heck, you could even give a girl 40 bucks so she won't have to do a trick for it.

Oops, pay me no mind, Village

I tend to get mouthy, Village, so pay me no mind. Especially, don't go wandering around down there trying to do something nice, unless you know what you're doing. It could be dangerous. Seriously!

Celebs vs. the rest

What a contrast!
Celebrities who suffer certain addictions, out of control lifestyles, or mental illnesses, or arrests, become subjects for popular fascination and entertainment!

But a poor down and outer in the DTES going through similar patterns in their own lives seems more likely to provoke disgust, with some folks thinking "I don't want to see them or hear about them,how depressing, yuck!"

I wonder how many of such repulsed citizens are among those millions mesmerized by stories such as Lindsay Lohan's recent drunken binges out on the town and subsequent rehabs, or Courtenay Love's checkered history of drug use, arrests for dope and assault, having child welfare authorities declare her an unfit mother, nutty rumours she had hubby Kurt Cobain offed, etc. (hey, take away the money, music and glam ,and Courtney's story sounds like that of a sorry soul you might find on your downtown streets and in the police records!)

I recall actress Margot Kidder ("Lois Lane") some years back suffered a breakdown, and actually BECAME a homeless person. It was discovered she'd been wandering for weeks disheveled and dirty, and ended up camping out in somebody's backyard in L.A.

If it happens to rich celebs it's valuable tabloid fodder, and infotainment,'cause millions of people eat those stories up.

If it happens to anyone else who doesn't happen to be rich and famous, quite a different attitude gets provoked in many
onlookers.

Yet most of our population is addicted to some substance or another, be it nicotine, alcohol, sugar, fatty foods,prescription drugs, or TV. Some of our legal addictive substances are the most destructive ones of all. But woe be unto he or she whose substance of choice just happens to be deemed illegal!

Because, due to our foolish drug policies,
you may very well end up on the streets downtown, leading a desperate life, and viewed as "human vermin" by some - or if you're a rich and famous addict you'll be forgiven and your bankability may even go up!

This has happened to supermodel addict Kate Moss after being videotaped snorting coke with her famously addicted musician boyfriend. Initially she lost contracts... but a few months later she was making a lot more money than before the scandal, 'cause celebrity drug scandal sells and is celebrated in our hypocritical society. We love bad girl and bad boy druggies - but only if they're rich and charismatic - otherwise, to many, they're just "low lifes".

+ Tim Horton's!

I certainly intended to include caffeine in my list of those legal addictions so many of us covet, and couldn't bear to be without, due to the unpleasant withdrawal symptoms that would accompany our kicking!

Tip o'the hat to BC Mary,

Tip o'the hat to BC Mary, but I don't think this essay does much at all to get us into the heads of these people. It's just the basics and leaves us to fill in the blanks the way we want to, which is where Cappy gets his ideas from. And from which you fill in your own blanks as you shit-kick Cappy.

I got a severe kicking in church a few years ago when we invited a woman to lead the service who kicked our holy asses with the poetry of Bud Osborne, whose canvas was the people of the DTES. For an hour. I tell you, five minutes with Osborn is all I can stand, but an hour! Bleak rage doesn't begin to describe it.

Some were in tears, some were enraged, some were just numb. And suckah me, I had to put the room back together and fish out a context with which to posit the grace of God in this Gawdawful mess. I couldn't, not really.

We're all just going along in the world trying to do a job so difficult it has never been done before - live our lives. Some of us do better than others. Sometimes we know why, sometimes we just think we do.

Blessings to those who fight for these people, as well as those who fight against them from the same turf. They are engaged. And a pit full of scorn for all those who ignore them or glibly explain them away.

I think this thread deserves less speculative comment, and more poetry.

Great Snaps

Sort of reminds me of Lincoln Clarke's crack babes a few years ago.

We have addiction, we have homelessness, we have insanity, we have a babe coming out to Terminal City for a tattoo.

What we do not have is anything which looks like a solution.

I have a smiling outdoor drinker who sits beneath a tree a hundred yards from my door. Nice man. Likes kids and gin. I think he sleeps under a tree. Which would be cold.

Years ago in Toronto I left my Queen Street apartment building door open for the street car shelter bum who lived five feet from that door. He was smelly. Especially when he thawed out.

It is long past time to welcome these people back into the world or place them in a world where they are, at least, safe.

If this article brings that a day closer, grand.

Let's face it, the DTES

Let's face it, the DTES catastrophe is a self-contained profit mill whose mechanisms are shielded by a peculiar confluence of interests embracing everything from the mafia, the police (surely the most corrupt force north of the Mexican border) and ideological liberals who seek to valorize the "alternative and unique lifestyle" of the DTES. I find the way some academics and social welfare gurus speak of the DTES to be downright unhinged. Feeding that mechanism of misery is the wrong answer - I believe it needs to be dispersed outright. By that I mean: institutionalized care for its worst cases, incarceration for its profiteers, and geographic relocation to halfway houses and other rehabilitative refuges for its more salvageable victims. The DTES has been permitted to become an institution in itself. That evil institution needs to be dismantled.

Unfortunately, those feeding off the DTES would be the first to oppose anything even remotely effective.

"Nuke" the DTES?

It's naive to believe that leveling, gutting, rebuilding and gentrifying the DTES will somehow solve the problems concentrated there: street prostitution, addiction, disease,property crime, and drug peddling.

Pushing the local residents out will only serve to disperse the problems far and wide. But the same people with the same issues will still exist, scattered across other low rent neighborhoods, or they may end up homeless living on the street, as low rent single occupancy rooms become harder to come by.

Evidence thus far suggests DTES harm reduction programs(needle exchange, safe injection sites, even the pilot drug maintenance program) have worked to decrease OD deaths and disease spread, and
have acted as starting points of access to detox programs for those wanting to quit.

Once most have been evicted, the harm reduction programs will no longer be able to serve as many clients.
It will be much harder to offer such programs, and it will be harder for people to access programs, if those requiring them are spread far and wide.

It's a safe bet that dispersing DTES residents will just result in more OD deaths and more disease. Crime and prostitution won't diminish, they'll simply move to numerous other neighborhoods. Maybe yours.

We're talking apples and

We're talking apples and oranges, Bob999. Sure, implementing harm reduction ideology (harm reduction is not medical science; it is ideology) will clean up the worst cases. Harm reduction alone with never ever solve the problem.

And no one is suggesting "nuking" the DTES. I do think it has become a misery-mill which propagates the social ills you describe. It's existence is more than just a mere symptom - it is an self-enclosed socio-economic engine which actively generates, perpetuates and recruits for its own internal profit-driven mechanisms, which lead to these miseries.

Eviction would be stupid. Clearly they need somewhere to go. I think it's time to re-examine prevailing liberal attitudes towards institutionalization. Most of those people should not be on the streets - many should be institutionalized, where they would be fed, cleaned, bedded, sheltered and medicated as needed. There doesn't have to be anything Dickensian or abusive about such an approach. Such a solution is far more compassionate than what we're currently allowing to transpire. The DTES is a hell hole.

Real Life...

I like the photos. There isn't just pain and suffering revealed here but much more....

In Susannah, a gutsy kind of determination, a sense of play and fun even... well, just plain spunk.

You can't stand or kneel much closer to the tracks or to danger itself than Richard is, but still we see a ferocity and aliveness coursing through his body. His photo much in contrast to Albert's proud, warm stance for the camera... and to the worn sad softness of Christina.

The photo of Jabbar is a portrait of loss... and yet his arms are the crossed arms of a strong and determined will.

For Christine, the pain of the past is etched deep into her face but yet so is a certain strength... and resolve.

I actually like the simplicity of this article... that it reads like that rare thing, a list of bios that for once contains no bulls*it...and no falsity. And that the advice proffered and contained therein about "life on the streets" is coming from the people behind these faces...the people on the streets that live that life every day.

This article for me, at least, is not about fixing things or people...it is about really seeing these people and honouring them on their own terms.

Albert from Cape Breton's my

Albert from Cape Breton's my favourite.
His appearance and expression makes him appear wise, but possibly mischievous. If only he had wizards' robes on and a wand in hand, he'd be perfect for a Harry Potter movie!
In reality, he could well be a wise, mischievous Cape Bretoner. He evidently had talents as a horseman, even if he never received the glory the jockeys receive.
I kind of envy him: he's probably got a nicer view than I have, and he likely enjoys quiet and privacy on the boat he lives on in the harbour (False Creek, no doubt)....

I agree with you Nightbloom that those people with serious mental illnesses, many of whom were likely prematurely discharged from institutions like Riverview (which should never have been near-mothballed to begin with), should be allowed to return to such institutions if they agree to it.

A steady stream of clean syringes isn't so much ideology, as it is clean syringes - which prevent spread of HIV, hepatitis, etc.
Practicality, I'd call it.

Harm reduction by definition doesn't claim to be an ultimate solution, it's exactly it says it is. And since we know it works to reduce harm, it's a valuable approach.
Even Harper's "let's get tough on crime, including drugs" gang allowed safe injection site program continuation (at
Mr. Emerson's pleading - finally Emerson did something right), although not its expansion.

Storming the Bastille

Pushing the local residents out will only serve to disperse the problems far and wide. But the same people with the same issues will still exist, scattered across other low rent neighborhoods, or they may end up homeless living on the street, as low rent single occupancy rooms become harder to come by.

Right on, Bobb999...re: These relentlessly cruel attempts to push the poor out in order to re-design and gentrify the city - shades of Paris, pre-The French Revolution.

And btw, much agree... lots of "twinkle" going on in that photograph of Albert - and with 39 years as a horse handler, he must have been a wizard of sorts ...at least with horses. ;-)

street stories keep a coming

I'm not a regular tyee reader, nor do I currently live in the Lower Mainland. The Street Stories in this , what, portrait, are but a sampling of the lives lived, not only in the DES, but around the world. I don't want to sound to needlessly global but there are so many shattered lives or, if not shattered, lives in pain or perhaps underwhelmed by opportunity, that one feels frozen when considering remedial or supportive action.
Nevertheless, we all do what we do; we all commiserate to some degree, or shut down to avoid feeling someone elses pain,
or assuming guilt unnecessarily.

I live in a small community that has a notch of people who by some standards are on a downward slide; folks living in the woods,in their vehicles, or in precarious rental digs.

When I imagine what can be done to insure that everyone is sheltered safely and adequately, fed sufficiently, when I use those terms that most often translate into impersonal shelters and mass feedings, I question , not the solutions we currently try so much as our capacity to collectively remedy the lives of people who want or would accept intervention.

I am of the government-can-fix-most-of-this-stuff school of social repair. Still, I lament my orientation because, up to now, the job has been hugely under-done, don't you think?

trueman: Underachievement by

trueman: Underachievement by gov'ts in social repair, i.e. "the job being hugely under-done", as you say, largely stems from
our foolish policies with regard to drugs, IMO. Until those policies and laws are rethunk and radically changed, the types of problems found in the DTES (and elsewhere) will continue.

Lynn: I'm glad you too don't endorse
"Paris-style" gentrification.(I should brush up on my history.'Fraid I don't now recall much of the detail of what led up to the French Revolution).

The more I go back to the photos and capsule bios of these folks, the more human and interesting they all become. (BC Mary might try giving them another go).
Thanks for emphasizing them the way you did.

(Hey, I heard Rupert Sheldrake interviewed this week on that late night "Coast to coast" show. Not only are his ideas important, but he's such an able communicator of them, in that reserved British manner he has! That memorable Sheldrake Tyee thread, that you'll recall, remains my all time fave to date - it peaked, IMO, after the militant skeptics finally wandered off!).

If we fail to run screaming into the streets ... ?

Bob999, if you mean that the people photographed in this gallery will be less] hurt, and less in pain, if I just keep looking at their photos ... I don't think so at all. If only that were true.

But I did love Lynn's reaction to the gallery. So in a sense, the gallery is more about the viewer than those whose lives are laid bare?

I have such a lot of trouble with this topic. How, I ask you, does it alleviate the injury done to people -- especially children -- that leaves them only the street and addictions as an option?

And how does it improve us, simply to look at them and then fail to run screaming into the streets, that profits must give way to human decency?

I'll keep reading what others say here. I hope you can make the issue come much clearer.

Hi Bobb, lynn, Mary, Nightbloom.. everybody

Did you guys read this in the Metro, Feb 16? I hope it's alright to quote the Metro.

"DOCTORS BACK UP MAYOR'S PROGRAM FOR DRUG ADDICTS.

Three prominent doctors are backing Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan's plan to establish a substitution treatment trial for drug addicts."

Sullivan might (or might not) have been fantastic as Vancouver's mayor, but I think this is his finest hour. Heroin addiction can be treated easily by prescription as long as the drug environment is diminished along with the weaning process. Of course, there are stake holders in drug misery, as many--including Nightbloom above--have described, who hope that the prescription trials fail, and who will try to encourage failure, but congratulations to Sullivan for his effort in this issue. The three prominent local doctors who are supporting the trials are David Marsh, Perry Kendall and John Blatherwick.

BTW, Mary and lynn, I think I know what you're going through, trying to properly evaluate 'misery as art.' I try to resolve this issue by asking questions about the artist. I think it's always important to remember that the art was done by an artist--and remains an artist's vision, and cannot really be seperated from the intentions of the artist. So what about this little bit of forensic situation ethics: What if the artist is a slimeball, seeing an opportune chance to cash in on the DTES misery machine?

Not suggesting this is what's happening here. But, what if?

Next question I'd ask myself: Are the subjects here really any more interesting than your neighbour who you might get a glimpse of through your window while she/he's doing the dishes, thinking about what kind of a video to rent for the kids? Or is it really the predicament that the subject finds himself in that is so interesting and inspiring of Zorba the Greek-type comments.

Next, has the artist made a pile of dough by exploiting people living in misery?

Then the always-begged question: Could the artist have contributed more merely by giving some financial or emotional support?

Which is an exaggerated analogue of the responsibility photographers have to put down their cameras and offer assistance to those in peril.

The fact that I can never know the answers to these kinds of questions usually causes me to view 'misery as art' with cynicism, unless there are remedies implicit in the artists' creations.

Coincidentally (what else, eh, knowing me) I watched a show last night about an artist who did a photo-documentary in Iraq. (mainly about Iraqi refugess and their struggle to survive) He explained how his editors always wanted more misery, but he wasn't really there to do misery--but rather art. An honest fellow, perhaps, but I didn't like him or his work.

Even though it was excellent, I thought. I mean...why go to Iraq to do art?

What do you guys think?

Bobb, the fact that you

Bobb, the fact that you mentioned Sheldrake (my favourite evolutionist) and that I would remember the thread vividly--which I of course do--and the fact that you addressed your comments to 'trueman,' makes me think that you mistook 'trueman' for me.

Did you?

I wanted to see that hand reaching out ...

Good one, Truman. You're getting closer to my own reactions than I've been able to do for myself.

I guess it's really the photographer that I wondered about. What drew him to the DTES, why did he take these photos, what was his message?

In the bios, he's having his subjects say: "Don't be like me," which reinforces a sense of abject horror that we could look at people that way, publish their whole vulnerability that way. "Don't be like this."

I guess I needed to see something nearer to the description of God made by G West one day when he wrote: God exists in that space between the hand reaching out to someone who is suffering. If God isn't there, he is nowhere.

I wanted to see that hand reaching out to the people in the DTES, not to have to click the Back Button and go to the next story as if uncaring.

Maybe I did see it, and it was you Truman.

Lindsay Mearns

I'm not sure where I come down in this debate.

I didn't see the original piece in Geist Magazine - issue number 63, having let my subscription lapse some time ago. Mearns has quite a few more photographs and stories at this location:
http://www.streetstories.net/

Many of them are, I think, more hopeful and life-affirming than the 6 chosen for Tyee's spread, or is that just me?

And at the website we also learn that Lindsay Mearns is a woman, and not the man described in this story's opening paragraph:

I guess I'm with Truman and Mary on this one. I can't quite separate the artist here from the 'property developer' Mearns tells us she is on her own home page.

Call me shallow, but that's the way I see it, or more properly, why I question what she’s all about. I’d probably love Michelangelo a bit less too if, when I studied him and his art, I’d realized he ended up being, at the end of his life, one of the richest men in Europe.

You see, I used to make my living in property development and I know how it changes you.

Truman Green: After doing a

Truman Green:
After doing a quick doubletake, I knew you and "trueman" were not one and the same!
I was directing the Sheldrake comment to Lynn who had just posted above. You may recall Lynn was an enthusiastic and valuable contributor (as were you and G West as well) to that wonderfully atypical (for the Tyee), and inspiring thread!

I'm glad to hear some additional credentialed supporters (like doctors)are getting on board with Sullivan's drug replacement/maintenance plan. The biggest obstacle will be Harper and his dreaded "base". One more reason to dump Harper.

What ever the motives are of Mearns, I see nothing objectionable in the article and photos themselves.

The bios here aren't all tragedies, it seems to me, either. Susannah doesn't appear to be on a dead end course.
"Her drug of choice is alcohol". Is that unusual for many 19 year olds? It doesn't say she's a chronic alcoholic. She's just new to Vancouver, and as far as I can tell, she's temporarily in a situation where she has little money. She might very well be in school soon as she so plans. Is her story a tragedy?

Or Albert: He obviously takes care of himself (McDonald's dinners notwithstanding). Living on a boat in False Ck. doesn't sound like a punishment. He appears like a friendly guy. He may not particularly mind panhandling. Yes, it's sad that medical problems mean he can't
work as a horse handler or at a regular job any more. But how do you know he isn't enjoying life still, despite having some handicaps?

Christina: She's finished detoxing from heroin. No mean feat.She obviously has the drive to change her life. There's hope in her story, isn't there?

In fact, most of these people have some positive aspects in their current lives, and appear to be strong survivors.

Jabbar's story appears to be the least hopeful. But I'd say he's the exception. And he's in fact just the kind of guy who could benefit from Sullivan's drug replacement idea. Stimulant addicts like Jabbar may be weaned off the most destructive stimulants like crack and onto
a stimulant that leaves them functional, like Ritalin. I'd say Sullivan offers even the Jabbars out there some hope.

I think some of you are glass-half-empty
onlookers here. You're missing half the story, IMO.

Lindsay Mearns / Bobb999

Looking back at my own comment, perhaps I've been unduly influenced by the fact the Tyee called Mearns a 'property developer' - in fairness, her own site actually says she is a 'business person'.

So much of what we think about people comes from how they're labelled, don't you think?

It's a lesson we all could learn.

What's this 'invisible community' stuff?

This is what first bugged me about the photo project: "...raise awareness of sometimes invisible community of people living in our midst."

"Living in OUR midst." What does this mean?

The people in the photos are not living in OUR midst; Pigeons and Raccoons live in our midst. The people in the photos ARE our community.

The people in these photos are only invisible to a blind person. (Probably, not even to blind people!)

Why invisible?: Geez, you just have to go for a walk and look around. The people are right there. Most of them need help. They're not invisible. And they certainly aren't an 'invisible community.'

They're just part of the same community that we inhabit.

Thanks for the link to more of this project, G.West. I like it even less now.

Sometimes the glass IS half full, Bobb.

Life's full of unpleasant questions that need to be answered. Unfortunately, I think it's important to know if money has been made on this project. Did the subjects benefit? Did the artist benefit?

If so, how?

It would be a lovely world if we could just depend upon our first impressions of an event (or the camera angles) to judge the sincerity and beneficence of an artist.

But I don't think that's how THIS world operates.

In the artist's statement Mearns writes about doing a 'raising of awareness.'

Does the project accomplish this?

Not for me.

You don't really need photos to get your awareness raised.

Actually, I'm being coy. I really hate this kind of 'art.'

Maybe just the pictures

Maybe just the pictures would have been okay, on their own - as a pictorial essay perhaps.

I don't know what to think and you're right Truman, whose consciousness is being raised; and for what purpose?

The labeling is definitely over the top - but at the same time, I think that the lives of the people of the DTES are invisible in the salons of many Vancouver homes.

Is it possible she's just confused about how to address a blankness that really does exist in others' relationships to the variety of the human condition?

It would be nice to know what business she's actually in – if the generation of ‘feeling’ is the objective here, I think it’s a phony exercise. Many people cry in the movies.

AN ODE TO A CARING AND ''

AN ODE TO A CARING AND '' TROUBLED '' HUMAN BEING.

For 5 years , if not more , a certain individual I've gotten to know has been living within our community out in the Region I live in.

He has been an inspiration to our sense of COMMUNITY due to his ever communicative and connectivity role he's played by introducing people to other people..by simply being who he is.. an independent soul.., ( homeless by any measure of our modern world's definition..- living in nearby woods - as he reappears everyday.., doing his routine stroll.. , going for coffee , meeting his friend , and keeping up with the latest developments.., within the neighbourhood and city itself.. THE LIBRARY BEING HIS SOURCE OF SEARCH AND CONTINUING KNOWLEDGE...( which he enjoys sharing with others ).

FOREVER seeking to build the kind of bridge with a ''people to people'' friendliness that has kept HIM in good spirits - for the most parts - and kept him in good stead. , as well as bringing hope and kindness to our community..

He seems to thrive on the FAMILY dream that he never fully had in his childhood ,as he imagines us all to eventually become.., ( as he also struggles with his own very traumatic experiences of the past.., ever at times slipping back into that troubled mind and memory ..., that has yet to fully comprehend what has happened to itself.._)

THESE PHOTO'S IN THIS GALLERY AND ARTICLE SIMPLY MADE ME REALISE THAT HE WAS ALSO ONE OF THESE INDIVIDUALS.. WHO HAD SOMEHOW FALLEN THROUGH THE CRACKS ... AND YET HAD FOUND HIMSELF..,IN SO MANY WAYS.., BY HAVING LOST HIMSELF.., TO BEGIN WITH.. and yet at times clearly struggling with an unrealised integration of a fractured psyche resulting from the obvious hurt and deeper inner wounds that has marked him for life..., it would seem.

He continuously brings to the CITY ...a sense of open and very direct honesty.., when he is building family relations..,
( IMAGINED though they be, at times ).. , he nevertheless exemplifies what is missing for the most part in our fast paced modern technologically driven society*..

HE BRINGS GOOD CHEERS AND UNSELFISH GIVING .. ( you heard me right , as he enjoys sharing his good fortune at times by buying lotto tickets for his friends , and for the most part sharing all of what he owns.., be it the occasional extra food or money that he's come across.., or for matter.., what he finds in nature.., such as carving walking sticks.., or apples he picks from trees .., ) indeed
if more people.. had a tenth of the heart that this individual had within our region , we would all be a lot happier and productive.., ( in the building of community spirit itself.._)

He offers to help wherever and whenever he can.. as well as stands for what is right when he sees a situation that needs his intervention. Making sure children are taken care of or not neglected..as well as building a rapport with them...as he watches them grow up..., as if ... they had become one of his brothers and or sisters... TAKEN CARE OF THEM , THE BEST WAY HE KNOWS HOW... BY KEEPING AN EYE ON THEIR SAFETY .., ON THEIR WELL BEING.. ( A protector by any other name , a connector bringing a heart and a soul to a city's ...''sense of place '', ''sense of belonging '' and ''a sense of identity itself..'' .. , a SPIRIT if you will.., raising the questions of any CITY... like.., does it have a heart? , does it have a sense of caring?.. does it feel for it's neighbours and neighbourhood per se.. DOES IT HAVE A HEARTBEAT ? ,,

With his presence within our city..., the answer is YES!

WHICH IS THE GREATEST CONTRIBUTION HE BRINGS TO OUR CITY. ( COQUITLAM )..

HOW THIS CITY EVENTUALLY DEALS WITH THE ''TROUBLED '' SIDE OF THIS HUMAN BEING WILL SAY A LOT OF IT'S VERY OWN SENSE OF DUTY TO IT'S FELLOW MAN, WOMAN and CHILD.

National Homelessness

Nice article. It's been said - but it's important to attempt to bridge gaps in understanding between people living on the streets and those of us who stand on the sidelines, discussing policy and solutions without any true understanding of the lived reality of homelessness.

I'm looking forward to the National Homelessness Marathon, however - it's a national radio broadcast that comes out of campus radio in Montreal (McGill) that attempts to give the power of storytelling over to people who live on the streets, and people who work with people on the streets on a daily basis. Articles like this one - and far worse, those in the national dailies - can't give much more than a mediated voice to homeless people.

It starts February 20th, for those of you interested - available on CJSF (SFU campus radio), CiTR (UBC campus radio), and CFRO (Vancouver Coop).

Yes, but is it really art?

The questioning of the validity of this work by questioning the motives of this woman's other professional endeavours is absolutely astounding, and outrageous.

I can imagine you self-righteous pompous twerps gawping at a work in a gallery and demanding a full bio including a signed philosphical manifesto from the artist before you decide as to whether or not you detect any value to the piece - let alone whether or not you like the work. And, we are still light-years away from discussing composition, lighting, framing, medium or any other technique.

My god, the Bush administration would love to have some of you deciding as to whether camera people should be allowed into war zones, or any other zones, come to think of it.

What about about the work done by the photographer's for the US Farm Security Administration in the dust-bowl 30's. No validity since all the photogs were too well fed? What about camers in 'Nam? No good, too many voters watching Cronkite and turning against the war.

Any contemporary subject is worthy of recording if only for posterity and if it's recorded, as this essay is, by a proficient artist then it's valid.

Too many myopics that can't see the wood for the trees.

realisticman

The folks speculating about Mearns' motives, and making an issue of them, are generally thoughtful, valued contributors to Tyee discussions. I appreciate their posts, and often am in agreement with them.

But, in this case, I'm puzzled by the
angle of the discussion, you criticize.

In other words, I agree with what you say.
I see absolutely no reason why motives are
even an issue in this case.

But since it's now been brought up, I would ask, if Mearns was in this for personal gain, how much financial gain is she likely to ever get out such a project?
Personally, I doubt she's going to get rich off a photo exhibit, and some publication of DTES photos!

Surely, if she was just in it for $$$, she could find a sexier, more saleable subject
to offer up for public consumption. Don't ya think?

Out of Order

The feature stands for itself as a piece of photography and writing.

If the creator did this for monetary gain she has a rude awakening coming. There are many hours of work in this piece and there were many hours, if not years, devoted to her art to arrive at being able to produce such a work. Believe me, she ain't gonna get rich doing this.

Navel-gazing by philistines is moot.

I think motives are worthy of debate

I think motivation is an important and worthy subject of debate. Peter Paul Rubens, although he's certainly part of the corpus of fine art in an historic sense, was more of an organizer than an artist. He ran a huge atelier and did very little actual work himself. Many a famous architect, Frank Lloyd Wright for example, has been lauded as an artist, designer and creator but he was, as a person a complete idiot - especially when it came to his family and his personal relationships. Many of his roofs leaked, the balconies on Falling Water sagged and cracked within months of construction and Wright himself admitted that his ass was black and blue most of his life from sitting on his own furniture.

Artists, who they are, what else they do and how they live, cannot be divorced entirely from their creations.

From my point of view, it's this sentence that makes me think twice about Mearns’ work:

Given the fact that the Tyee apparently got Mearns sex wrong - or, since the piece is ostensibly signed by Mearns, she made the mistake herself and it wasn't picked up at edit and hasn't been corrected since. Should this be ignored? Perhaps.

Mearns, on her own website says she's a businessperson; here in Tyee 'she's' a property developer. You might want to call pointing out that kind of carelessness nit-picking, I suppose, but I don't think it's navel gazing.

As for art having political purposes, of course it has. Think of Diego' Rivera's murals for Rockefeller Centre in New York and remember what happened to them. Some people thought of Liberace as a great musician but I’d say his personal style and flamboyance – along with the candelabra and the sequins – made a bigger impression of his audience than his skill as a pianist.

Art in the modern world is, more than ever before, a political act that can't be separated from the artist and the intent in the artist’s mind when the work was made.

I think it is a perfectly legitimate subject of discussion to debate what was in the mind of the creator of this collection of images when, at the outset, she tells us that her object is to raise people's awareness of a 'sometimes invisible community' of people living among us.

I don't think that debate has even really gotten started. In so far as Lindsay Mearns 'occupation and intent' have anything to do with it, I'd be prepared to drop that question (although I don't think there's anything wrong with asking it) and explore whether or not - as Truman seems to be saying - we even:

1. Recognize these people as part of any 'community' at all; and
2. See them not so much as invisible as inconsequential, unimportant and irrelevant to the more important issues upon which we wish to spend time and money.

The simple fact that we place a few pictures and thumbnail biographical sketches on a gallery wall may well have an 'artistic' side to it, but since the actual models for these photographs are still walking the mean streets of the downtown east side, I think all the attention paid to quality of the photos as ‘art’ is pretty pathetic.

Since this spread appeared in the Tyee, another SRO hotel owner has given notice to vacate to his tenants in the DTES.

This is not Jeff Wall, Bobb

These subjects are all artists' models, and damn good ones too, so I hope that the objective of the artist--which as stated-- is to do a project IN THE SERVICE OF THE SUBJECTS by increasing the awareness of their plight, has been accomplished.

I'd have to interview the subjects to know the answer to this question, and do a survey of those who have viewed the project.

As I would in the case of any other social advocacy project, I want to know the motives of the people doing the project, so I can judge whether this project is really a kind of exploitation, or not.

This project feels like an artistic venture to me--not an advocacy project.

And because I don't know for sure which it is, I tend to sneer. The world is already chalk full of ambiguity and sleaze.

I appreciate clarity.

Otherwise, I'll look at some of Jeff Wall's work. I understand what he's doing.
There's zero chance that Wall is exploiting anyone. I don't know about this Mearns stuff. So I don't like it.

Eye of the camera

.

Well said, Bobb999.

An interesting discussion, I think...great to hear from Mary and all, we're not always going to agree but I have to say I'm in Bobb999's and realisticman's camp on this one.

Having said all that, I have to say that where I really agree with realisticman is that I don't like the rather heavy moralizing going on about Lindsay Mearns. I don't know about you guys but I'm far, far from perfect...heavily flawed actually, even on my good days...and I sure as hell don't expect artistic works of art to come with a good housekeeeping seal of approval, nor do I expect the artist to have one stamped on her forehead. ;-)

This is a photo essay that stands on its own...the portraits are both sensitive and strong...and manage to capture the uniqueness of each person...in other words they capture a miserable situation but not necessarily miserable people. (And I am not suggesting there is not a lot of misery on the streets, only that this photo essay is trying to reveal much more than that alone.) Anyway, its not as if our own lives are exempt from pain and suffering...or human fallibility. Nor are the lives of the individuals here exempt from joy. We are them. They are us. So why should they not be photographed? Are they too pitiful in some eyes to be photographed? They all seem to be looking the camera straight in the eye, some proudly, definitely not shrinking away...and why should the camera's eye not be for them, too?

Just want to address Truman, who always asks excellent questions. As realisticman says where would we be without those war photographers and those who bravely chronicle devastating events, misery and suffering. Who would expose what the corrupt would love to silence and hide from view? Who would bring back pictures that often change the world?

And then your question probably is how can they just stand there and record and invade the private space of suffering, photograph the dying?

But what if they didn't? What if suffering was never recorded, so that it became invisible, as if it never happened? A tyrant's dream, I would think.

I don't know but photographing suffering I would think must be a very difficult job. I'll use this very personal metaphor. When my brother was dying in a very big city hospital in the States and my family was all gathered round his bedside, somehow it was always me that was expected to go find and ask the doctor the results of tests, what his present situation was, what we could expect, what were the odds of this drug or that drug working... and on and on. I hated it. I had to bring back the frontline truth of the situation that no one wanted to face but I would always try to cushion it for my parents and my sister...often very hard to do. But for me, eye to eye with the doctor, there was no cushion...just brusque medical terminology... usually what the doctor said was not good news and came as a direct blow again and again.
In the end I almost had to be pushed out the door to go ask the doctor the cruel cold facts of what was happening, I just started to break apart.

Now I know that was not the best comparison, the war photographers experience being infinitely harder than mine, (though cancer wards can sometimes seem like a war zone)....but the thing is when the photographer does his job we get to view that photograph from a familiar comfy chair and a relatively safe place...and though what is revealed there may hit us hard, it is the photographer in the field who in the name of truth must not turn his eyes away, even though he may want to...who in the end takes that first raw and direct blow of horrendous events and records it for us all.

Only rarely would I ask to know...

We can only go by our personal emotional and experiential responses, lynn. This stuff FEELS fake to me. Very rarely would I want to know about the artist. If Charles Manson produced some marvelously interesting and cogent drawings or photos of life in prison I'd be interested in having a look--and I'd give credit if I could imagine it was due.

The exception is regarding photojournalism and social advocacy. For me, the motives of the photographer will always be an important component of the context in which work such as this--social commentary--has been done.

I was a homeless person on several occasions myself, hanging around Pigeon Square--probably an interesting subject for an artist--and spending months living in an old truck. If an artist had asked me to be in her photo 'awareness' project I would have told her to eff off, and so would my friends of that day, I believe.

There are, believe it or not, writers and artists who only pose as advocates and helpers of certain groups such as the homeless--or even a specific racial community--even writers who spend their entire artistic careers faking advocacy, but really only exploiting. You'll have to trust me on this one. Naming names is not really on here.

And so I would have to know something about Lindsay Mearns in order to evaluate her work--in this rare instance.

Cameras lie.

They catch only a brief instant of a life. These photos don't mean anything. And certainly nothing which can't be known better by going for a walk around the downtown east side of Vancouver
and associating with people living there.

Who needs these stupid photographs?

You want to know about these lives? No problem.
Go and experience the people living these lives. Go sit in Oppenheimer park for a couple of hours. In the winter climb up to some roofs where people have been lucky enough to have found a private hot air vent to sleep by. Or go watch the cops move people along out of the classier doorways in the West End.

I guess my other point is that anyone who doesn't know about homelessness by now--and needs their 'awareness' raised--should be at least given a good talking to.

Photography and the truth

A thoughtful post, as always Lynn. In addition, you're absolutely right, the best photography does make it possible for us to "see" things in new ways or to see the truth of things we've been told something else about.

I suppose everyone has in their mind that harrowing AP photo by 'Nick' Ut of Phan Thi Kim Phuc, her clothes torn off, running away from her burning village after South Vietnamese planes mistakenly dropped napalm on Trang Bang, Vietnam, on June 8, 1972. Or maybe Chuck Harrity's simple composition they called 'Baby in a Box' from the same war and pretty much the same period.

As I wrote above, I'm prepared to accept Mearns' images as honest attempts to reflect a reality she's seen in the streets of the DTES. But I think, as distinguished from the two examples referred to above from Vietnam, that it's not the 'art' of those two pictures which strikes the observer but their very 'artlessness', their honesty, their directness, their ability to cut through all the cant and spin about war and politics and to drill down to the reality of what was going on and what sorts of ‘people’ were actually being hurt.

Now it may be that you see things in Mearns' work here that I can't appreciate, but very few of these images strike me as having that kind of honesty. They just don’t impart in me the same feeling I got when I look, as I often have, at a portfolio of images from the Farm Security Administration archives.

Mearns’ photos look...there's no other way to put it, posed. They seem to me to be carefully staged almost for effect, and as if they'd been contrived to illustrate the little word sketches about their subjects. Richard, for example, seems almost irrelevant when compared to the sky and the rails that evoke his prairie roots and I can almost imagine the same picture as a landscape with no human content.

Most of the other images have this same quality about them, or at least it seems so to me:
They're purposely 'artful' and I find that, in the context of the issues these images are meant to subsume, just a little off-putting.

As I said above, these ‘models’ are still treading the mean streets of Vancouver.

Both the little girl fleeing Trang Bang, and the baby in the box have gone on to live better lives.

If Lindsay Mearns’ work actually is contributing to meaningful 'change' for the folks whose images she's displaying, then I'll put my check mark on the other side of this ledger. For the moment, it stays with Mary and Truman. With all the respect I can muster for other honest points of view.

Motivations

There is a fundamental distiction between applied arts and fine arts. The former is commissioned, the latter done as a personal project, without obligations , on spec. The user or publlisher either taking or leaving it.

Yes, Lloyd Wrights building(s) roofs leaked including the Johnson & Johnson building and even our own Arthur's Law Courts building has had serious roof and terraces problems.

The commissioned works such as the building and architect GWest cites are therefore criticizable if they fail to achieve the contracted madate.

Non-commissioned works done entirely by and however the artist so choses can only and should only be judged on their artistic merit.

Does anyone seriously wish to open the debate about which fine-artists, whether they be writers, painters, film-makers, photographers, etc., were/are well intended and meet a decent -fellow criterion, otherwise their oeuvres shall be utterly discounted?

One more question..

If this work was showing at the Carnegie Center at Main and Hastings, would you go have a look?

I might, but I'd laugh like crazy at myself and all the other viewers for being idiots and cowards, and thinking there's something to see in a photo...when these lives are all within walking distance.

Which, I think, says a lot about our photo-video-hysterical culture.

Irrelevant!

The artist is recording a moment in time as an interpreted depiction. The artist is under no obligation whatsoever to also be involved in any judgemental decision process. That is the job for others.

It is utterly ridiculous to encumber any artist with the obligation to presumptiously attempt to change a situation. That would be to alter the fundamental disire of the fine-artist and divert them from their work, which may be simply recording events or situations as they find them. Perhaps YOU see a problem to be solved, a situation to be adjusted and diverted. Perhaps the artist did not. The only obligation of the artist is to do what they want to do!

As for Truman Green saying, "Who needs these stupid photographs?", where does one begin? All through history mankind has had artists depict their contemporaries. Whether on the walls of the cave or in motion pictures. Is Green seriously suggesting that this practice should end?

realisticman

Not utterly discounted surely, but taken into consideration and important in any evaluation of both art and artist.

One of my favourite Italian architects is Francesco Borromini, whose passion for his art was raised to such a pinnacle of emotion that he murdered a stone carver whose incompetent work had spoiled some piece of tracery on one of his projects.

In fact, I've thought more about my disquiet with Mearns' images as 'made' art, and put down my feelings above here.

I can't escape the conclusion that many of her images would be as 'artistic' and gallery-ready if the people had been airbrushed out of the picture entirely. Think of some of Charles Steeler's or Edward Hopper's paintings, for example.

Tumbling into the morass

Evaluating the art AND the artist may be your pleasure; it's not mine and I generally don't like it a bit.

Biographies are frequently very interesting and give a perspective but I usually only enjoy them in aretrospective sense.

I could not care less whther a actor is busted for punching out their significant other, or any other unsociable act. Therefore, I don't read or watch almost all of the so-called 'entertainment' sections of our contemporary media. I am only interested in their work. They may not be able to hold a marriage, or even a drink, but what I might be interested in is their métier.

What about Gaudi, a passionate Catholic, does that make him OK or a nutter? Picasso, crazy guy but difficult to take in person, good or bad? Peter Sellars, a really bad man, according to some. Good or bad? Acceptable or not? Graham Greene, another Catholic. Dali, you tell me. What about those that decorated the temples in Egypt, can't judge the people since they are unknown and that's how artists should be considered. Many people who would be considered crazy, even needing help, are great artists. Leave them alone. The last thing we need is public or state sanctioned approval of artists. Concentrate on the art not on vetting the artist.

realisticman, the artist's statement...

The artist claims that her intention is to raise awareness of 'a sometimes invisible community.' I don't believe it and I base my judgement on what's been created. I see attempts here to do 'art photography,' not social advocacy. If this is more about doing 'art photography' than it is about the claimed social advocacy, then this work is primarily EXPLOITIVE, because social advocacy was claimed in the artist's statement.

If this work is indeed social advocacy, then who the hell wants to talk about the artistic merit of it. Go take some pictures and stick them on a piece of plywood and stand on the corner with them.

If an artist wants to do 'art photography' of human beings, let her hire models. (You are aware that there exists the profession of 'artists' model,' I would imagine.) Or at least, let her hire the street people she has used. (Of course, I really don't know if this was done--perhaps it was.)

Afterall, the one thing that makes these subjects members of an apparently 'invisible community,' is that they have no money with which to rent or purchase comfy digs like the ones the artist and most of us live in.

As you'll recall the photographer I referred to who went to Iraq was asked by his editors to do more 'misery,' but he admitted he was doing 'art photography.' An honest fellow.

What's going on here can only be known if the artist's motives are taken into consideration.

Same reason why intelligent people don't believe, at face value, anything they read in the CanWest newspapers...because we know the context and we know the source.

Context is everything in social commentary.

If you see something else, thats fine. I go to art shows and I read artist's statements. The subject of exploitation in art photography is not a new one, and it's not far from the minds of all photo journalists. Some artists and writers are tricksters, pretending to help but helping only themselves. I don't want to look at their photographs or read their stories.

Realistic, realistically speaking, have you really learned anything from this show and if so exactly what? Hope you'll answer.

I think you guys are just kidding yourself that you can really understand anything about this work without knowing exactly who the artist is and what she's all about as an artist and a businesswoman.

This work is by an artist doing art. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But do we have to all get silly about what the phot0s tell us?

I didn't say Borromini wasn't a great architect.

Realisticman:
In fact, I thought it was pretty clear he's one of my favourites, as an artist...as a man, well, not so much. He was clearly Bernini's superior as a technician too - that long apprenticeship as a stone carver will do it for ya, every time. Have you seen S. Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, or S. Ivo della Sapienza? – that’s beside the point of course.

But anyway, I don't think you're dealing with the real issue. If Hitler had won the war, would he be a great man? Napoleon ends his life in the Élysée Palace and he's a hero - instead he ends up on Elba and he's an historical anachronism. Dali and Picasso are strange choices for heroes too, I'd say. They belong, it seems to me, as much in the Andy Warhol camp as that of the truly great artists. They are, my view, as much wrapped up in their 'lives, loves, and studied notoriety' as in their art.

However, it's a matter of personal preference - I can appreciate the art without making apologies for the artist - but I don't think that means it is wise to ignore the fact they often have feet of clay. Like the rest of us.

I notice, moreover, you're not really dealing with the fact that Mearns' work is highly 'staged' and isn't, at least as I read it, capturing a 'real' moment of any kind. A difference between art and reality that is more than a minor distinction.

I think it's an important issue. Especially when were talking about photography. Particularly when the subjects are living the kinds of lives these folks are. I’m still with Truman.

Just me

.

Truman, I have to disagree, I would suggest there is no exact knowledge either of artists, works of art or human beings. Who will decide who an artist, work of art or person exactly is? Each of us can have our opinion, but exact knowledge? I don't think so. And anyway, I'm not interested in that...as I said above first I would probably stumble over my own flawed self...

Everyone doesn't have to like this photo essay. I just do. I actually think these are some of the least staged photos I have ever seen. They are all (and I have looked at Mearns project site) a very simple portrait of each person...there is not much else in these photos..sometimes their dog, a few personal belongings. I would think Man Ray photographs would be considered staged, dog wearing running shoes etc....even the works of Diane Arbus look more staged than these simple photographs. But G and Truman, you are certainly entitled to your opinion on this, that's what makes this an interesting discussion ..I just don't agree with you this time round. ;-) Hell, how boring it would be if we all had to agree on what touches us in life.

I certainly agree, Truman, that artists can exploit their subjects...but it seems the subjects of these portraits appear quite willing to participate...and Mearns, in my opinion, uses her camera with great respect and sensitivity.

Why does every study, and every sub-text of every study of the lives of street people have to be about us self-righteously "saving" them...that old missionary zeal kickin' in to make them "better" people...

Why can't they just have the simple pleasure of a photograph taken like the rest of us that says "Hi, it's me, just as I am... right over here....here's a bit of my story. Can you see me?"

That's what I think Mearns accomplishes.

Lynn

That's a valid point. And, as I said earlier, or I think I did - without that phrase in the quotation marks right up at the top of this Mearns' gallery - raise awareness of a sometimes invisible community of people living in our midst I'd be entirely with you Lynn.

I just can't see how it's possible to be conscious and aware and NOT already know about this obscenity.

Maybe you're right and Mearns is doing a valuable public service. I just read Capitalism's comments on the Will McMartin story about lies, damn lies and health care spending....

The senior war artist for

The senior war artist for the Canadian Army in World War II was Charles Comfort. With him in Italy was Lawren Harris. They were professional artists who joined the army and painted.

Twice during the Italian Campaign, these Harris and Comfort were ordered to hang as many of their paintings and sketches as possible for an Art Show.

In his book, ARTIST AT WAR, Comfort remembers how unconvinced he felt about this, believing that the bone-weary soldiers coming out of battle would want to sleep or drink beer at the canteen ... never to attend an Art Show.

But the soldiers came. The show was a resounding success. Everyone who could walk, came to look at the paintings. And then lingered, chatting to one another about the day or the action depicted, whether the artists had got the equipment right, how the soldiers were moving, where the live fire was coming from, who got hit that day ... who was killed.

Lawren Harris and Charles Comfort had obviously validated a part of these soldiers' battle experiencs in a way that gave them -- the subjects -- real satisfaction and where, perhaps, they thought nobody would ever know what they'd been through. The soldiers would be forever pleased to see these historic paintings (some of which are in a travelling Art Show across Canada this year).

I think this explains why I feel such sorrow over the Mearns display of those other young bodies embattled, wounded, exhausted, for which there can never be medals or validation. There's so much lost, in them.

Raising Awareness

Naturally, I agree with Lynn's point of view. I was, in fact, thinking about Diane Arbus earlier today and how she staged her photographs.

What about others like Lee Friedlander or Robert Frank? Frank traveled with a Guggenheim grant, in Peggy Guggenheim's car, when he recorded Americans for his book. Jacques-Henri Lartigue documented the life of his wealthy French family and friends as they played with all the new toys that their money could buy. I don't recall any particular philanthropy or social work by any of these photographers, including Henri-Cartier Bresson.

Earlier in this thread it has been suggested that the artist, Mearns, is also a property developer and therefore a severe strike went out against her. Her motives were questioned too. I'd like to hear from the naysayers as to whether the other photographers that I've mentioned have any place exibiting their photographs, here or elsewhere. Is their work, including Lindsay Mearns, valid or can you seperate them?

I happen to think too that the images do raise awareness by putting faces, in a very real way since the obvious communication with the photographer includes a friendly and very human dimension, to those statistics were read about.

As for G West calling this situation an obscenity, perhaps go back and read the captions. Susannah came from Edmonton for a tattoo, she's just hanging out. She's a tourist not someone down on her luck. If she wishes to live on the street is this an obscenity? What are you suggesting we should do for this young woman who came down to Vancouver in search of a tattoo? And, why on earth should she not be photographed if she smiled for the camera and didn't mind?

Diane Arbus and 'staging'

I certainly don't think Lindsay Mearns has much to teach Diane Arbus about staging...but that's another subject. I've already made my own position very clear.

As for that statement about obscenity, I'll stick with it.

Obscenity is frequently a result of the fact that we find certain juxtapositions jarring and uncomfortable.

As long as the DTES exists in its current state while a few hundred meters away the bright lights of a 'world-class' city typified by these two little ads and what they represent also exist, I don't think obscenity is too far from the truth.
http://www.opushotel.com/

http://www.opushotel.com/blog/

Street stories indeed. It Mearns displays her stuff cheek by jowl with some of the bumpf portraying Vancouver's beautiful people (like self-styled plaudits for the Opus hotel and beanery), I bet it'll attract as many interested viewers as Charles Comfort's and Lauren Harris's war paintings did.

The audience, like those soldiers, will know then they're actually seeing something true and authentic...and shameful.

Can I be any clearer?

correction

That should be: "If Mearns displays her stuff..."

let's break it down, then

Lynn, you say: "I certainly agree, Truman, artists can exploit their subjects."

Can you give us an example of what you would consider an artist exploiting her subjects? And would the conclusion depend--at least partially--upon the appearance of joviality that appears in the photos? (Remember they're staged.)

And what do you imagine the effects of 'staging' might be?

Would it be like a stage or film director giving direction to her actors?

Is a 'staged' event a 'natural' event?

What is the artist's statement regarding what these photos are intended to accomplish?

Do they really heighten awareness of the plight of this so-called 'invisible community?'

Does the fact that most (all?) of these subjects are poverty-stricken have anything to do with the issue of exploitation?

If so, how would we find out?

Or does the world--or art--come pre-answered?

Finally, did you ever see that British nun claiming that she knew what the artists were thinking when they did their classics--and always maintaining that such knowledge was essential to understanding the works? I thought she was consistently full of horseshit, but then I was only guessing, too.

I think it's a fantasy that it is possible to understand art (with the exception of decorative art) without knowing what the artist was trying to do and who they are or were. (I understand that I'm in a vast minority here, and people wander around art museums and galleries all the time, sincerely pretending that they understand the artists' creations).

And even more so with art photography because the medium is such a great part of the message.

Maybe, lynn, the answer is as simple as: To me the work feels exploitive; to you it doesn't.

And maybe even exploitive art can accomplish the goal manifested in the artists' statement.

I wanna know, for instance, if the artist has a body of work unlike this. Does she do pencil drawings or paintings? Or is she a businesswoman with a good idea for a show?

Ideally, I'd like to sit down with her and quiz her about these photographs, but that being unlikely to happen, I'll retain some cynicism and retain my default position, which is: I just don't have a clue what these photos are really all about.

So, I don't like them.

If you do, (know what they're about, that is), lynn, you're a lot smarter than I am--which might indeed be the case and the true source of our disagreement.

What I see and hear in these

What I see and hear in these comments- and especially when I take an aggregate approach to the contributions so far - I come away realising that the PHOTOGRAPHS that were submitted , then obviously SELECTED for their impact by whoever decided to sign off on this story in the TYEE..., has managed to elicit a fascinating response.

Indeed , as a once upon teacher of that particular art form and a historian to boot.. who was ever fascinated by this invention..., ( which obviously created a totally new form of artists..., those that I think of - especially the very successfully ones..- as LIGHT ARTIST , USING LIGHT BRUSHES in some ways - bringing a certain point of view and a clear FRAME OF REFERENCE..., which invites viewers to explore and discover - hopefully- the EXPERIENCE THAT WAS RECORDED IN THAT INDIVIDUAL'S MIND'S EYE..

Once another medium such as an online magazine transforms this particular COMMUNICATION in another art form- such as an online magazine is - then it really is a question of ..., does it contribute to dialogue? ...does it MIRROR back the viewers and readers minds -in this case -BACK TO ITSELF..?, Does in create a ''communications matrix '' , a '' communications grid '' inviting one and all to enter it's frame....?

I would conclude YES and YES again on both and all counts...,

BRAVO... Mr. EDITOR..,

I knew you were gonna say that, Village.

I sometimes jokingly claim that I know what Maestro is going to say, (faking clairvoyance) but honest, I figured you'd take that approach Village. But let's deconstruct here, too.

And this is easy.

Does the fact that the photos elicited a response mean that the photos are not exploitive?

We talk a lot about the Iraq war, too. But does our mere response mean it's a good war?

It's the rightness or wrongness of the opinions that counts, not the fact that the opinions exist.

Otherwise, imagine the things that could be validated by the fact that people have strong opinions about them.

More questions

Truman you do ask very good questions, but jeez you asked sooo many this time ;-) I know I didn't answer them all but tried my best as I don't have a lot of time tonight.

Okay...example of exploitation: intentionally staging a seductive pose of young child. No appearance of joviality necessary for it to be exploitive.

But as I said I don't believe Mearns photos are staged.

I got a question:

Are street people never jovial... a smile never crosses their face?

Or does it just serve some (and I don't mean you Truman) to imagine them as only living pathetic, meaningless lives?

More questions by moi:

So there is no laughter among the poor in India? There is never a moment of joy?

Is laughter and joy the sole territory of the rich and comfortable of the British Properties? Only moderate levels of it found in moderate, middle class Burnaby?

Why can't street people sometimes be photographed smiling or winking, or sharing a moment of camaraderie without the assumption this is all being staged? ( And Mearns photo essay certainly doesn't depict only these kind of moments... there is much that disturbs in her photos as well.)

You see, I think her photographs reflect an honesty in her...that she has found a measure of laughter and play (as evident in Susannah) and pride and mischief (as in Albert).... in a place where there is expected to be none.

And that is the sensitivity, the intuitive level of awareness she brings to it..and yet so many posters here think by doing so she is being false, I think quite the contrary.

Truman, I'm not saying what the photographs are about...I'm saying how I alone interpret them...which is all I really can do. (Not that the artist's intentions aren't important.) But then that process pretty well goes on about everything in life doesn't it... subjectivity, that is...how do you escape it? Except perhaps in mathematics and physics...and even then there are questions if the information changes or if the observer changes the information. But that is definitely your area..science and math...so I think I better not go there...definitely a foreign land to me. ;-)

Well said

Lynn, I must say that your reply reply to Truman is thoughtfully considered. Bravo.

Ed (Village) speaks with some authority and invites the audience to consider the positive complexities too.

My opinion has been explained here earlier but I will say that it is no obligation to like the photographs, although I do, and they are perfectly valid as they stand.

MINDS and MIRRORS

QUOTE :

''It's the rightness or wrongness of the opinions that counts, not the fact that the opinions exist.

actually had you said instead :

IT'S THE RIGHTNESS OR WRONGNESS OF THE EVENTS THAT COUNTS , NOT THE FACT THE OPINIONS EXIST ... would have resonated more to the issues at hand .

Now we would be getting somewhere's Truman. Because , you see ,* ( or do you? ) , we are all our very own introspection /projection , and with our very unique experiences of life , we can't help but see AND EXPERIENCE SEEING through these unique and individual lens that we inherited. OUR EYES BEING THE WINDOW TO OUR VERY BEING..,TO OUR ESSENCE. To our very soul!

How we go about interpreting and processing what comes within our ''mind universe'' , will provide for the clues of our INTENTIONS..

As for your questions of photographs of whichever subject matter that is being explored and discovered by the photographer.. ... THINGS ARE THE WAY THEY ARE...,and lend themselves to millions no billions of interpretations.., as cosmic as the billions of cells that inhabit each and everyone of us..

they are in effect what they are .. PERIOD.

QUOTE : .. '' Otherwise, imagine the things that could be validated by the fact that people have strong opinions about them.'' .

HOW ABOUT..., otherwise, imagine the things that could be validated ( or invalidated) by the fact that people have strong opinions about them.

You are becoming your questions and answers Truman..., but to what end ?* ,

AND TO WHAT BEGINNING? ...