Barbara Bickel

Reality and Recovery

Accepting reality is the first step in recovery. Last night I chose to go to bed before the final election results were known. Awakening this morning at 5am my thought was “Trump has attained the Presidency of the United States of American. This is a reality.” Immediately I moved into thoughts of what I would share in my weekly newsletter to the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies community in which I am the Director of at Southern Illinois University. I realized what I do know is that a number of disenfranchised groups in America have risen and won over other disenfranchised groups in this current political system. The familiar win-lose binary that keeps racism, sexism, homophobia and every other oppression in place is alive and well. The backlash for the losers is excruciating, full of pain and horror. I feel overwhelmed and ill-prepared for what is to come. I wake my partner up in bed as I weep and shake and ask him for attention. Attention is what we can give each other as we do the conscious work needed to release the collective trauma that has surfaced so blatantly in this 2016 election. It is a trauma that invokes with its worst side the use of intimidation to silence us and keep us isolated and in fear. On its better side is asks us to keep moving from crying to singing. I know from my experience that it is crucial to not silence the voice even when words feel impossible and/or inadequate. As I sing, thoughts of how oppressed groups utilize singing in times of political, cultural and religious oppressions arise in my memory, both in mind and body.

I begin to ask myself questions:

How can I step out of this rampant political binary and step into what can be clearly seen as fearism now that all political correct hiding strategies have been blown up? How can I model something else more unifying with diversity for those who are part of my professional and personal life? The WGSS conference that I am in the midst of planning with students and faculty is entitled “Allies Across Differences.” We have been preparing to address the binary of win vs. lose, us vs. them. We have an opportunity to offer a hospitable space on campus for the collective trauma that this political election has brought to the world’s attention. The fall out from the election results calls for attention and healing. We have the opportunity to keep teaching truth to power in hospitable ways, and yet, not be cooperative with oppression.

I am grateful for my wise colleague Cade Bursell’s FB post in the hours prior to the final election results. Reminding us/me to continue the work; to not return hate that we feel directed at us as women, people of color and diverse sexual and diverse gender identities. Instead let us stay connected, give attention to each other’s fear but do not succumb to projecting it back out as attacks. Stand up for each other. Gather allies, strategize and continue to use your voice and gifts to build allyships across differences. I grieve for and with the young especially as they have been born into this legacy of fear. I begin this day with a simple commitment to remind people to sing. To keep walking the path with allies and those not yet allies with love and compassion. From chaos and destruction eventually comes new order. Keep teaching and speaking truth to power in your classes. And remember that the formal political realm is one of at least three realms that make up our world. The others being equally important, the natural and the spiritual realms. Take time for recovery. Spend some time outside today and remember the unconditional life giving forces that sustain us as humans on this planet.

Please contact me if you would like to set up spaces for dialogue. WGSS will do what it can to support initiatives and gatherings for recovering and generating creative and critical ideas and initiatives future.

I spent the day yesterday on an art and political ecology field trip organized by Sarah Lewison with artists Claire Pentecost, Brian Holmes and Alejandro Meitin from two different artist collectives Compass and Ala Plastica.  We ended our day of road tripping and listening to local activists at the Ohio River at Fort Massac National Park in Metropolis, Illinois, an hour from where I currently live in Carbondale. This fort was originally built in 1542 to defend settlers from the indians. It is said to have been the site of a native massacre, although this has not officially made it into western history books. 

The day prior I had a former student visit me at the university sharing she had to visit the university to talk with people in the US who were other than the people she lives and works with in Metropolis. She is terrified by her neighbours and co-workers belief in Trump making American great again. She tells me with astonishment “they really believe him!” I found an interesting article that addresses this Trump entranced town which was officially designated the home of Superman in the early 70s. In the article the author wrote that uranium is to Metropolis Illinois what kryptonite is to Superman. It is an example of what can happen when a people are in poverty, angry and desperate and entranced by media messages and not critically literate. A phenomenon that has become glaringly visible in the painfully long and drawn out US election process for the 2016 election/media season. The systematic demise of public education in the US is clearly visible and crises continue to build.

The education I obtained on this field trip is that I live one hour from a privately owned uranium processing plant where one third of all uranium mined in the world is stored. This uranium has been sent around the world to nuclear reactors. The plant is currently in the slow transition of being cleaned up after years of unsafe practices. The clean up employment rates are not equivalent to the full operational plant employment and the area suffers from poverty. The beautiful Ohio River with people fishing and cargo ships passing by, transporting mostly coal, has been contaminated by radioactive uranium. The amount of coal required to fuel these plants is extremely high. Cancer rates are also high with the result of large cancer hospitals built in this area to accommodate the number of cancer illnesses. 

All very disturbing information to take in and see in the short span of a day. As we travelled through the beauty of the natural environment we simultaneously  became entranced by the deeply disturbing activist information being shared. A devastating reality of what has been created through industry in the name of development. I was very aware of the younger students on the trip and how they might be dealing with the contradiction of being surrounded by natural beauty and taking in the information of on-going industrial devastation throughout the day. What do they think about their elders who have created this ecological/political devastation? 

I left the day wondering how art as an inquiry practice can help us integrate the knowledge of the severity of industrial damage in our world with transformative awakenings and new understandings that can assist us to change our destructively entranced state as a human species. How can art take what can be overwhelming knowledge, of the destructive capitalist industrial complex and transform it into aesthetic, ethical, politically activist trance-based learning experiences that are healthy, restorative and change inducing for life rather than death? 

MA Pose Prayer

I had the opportunity to enter sacred play with Nané Ariadne Jordan when I visited her in Vancouver this past May. To hear the results of our spontaneous art making together go to https://soundcloud.com/barbara-bickel/ma-pose-prayer

May 2, 2016 Teach-In at Southern Illinois University Demonstration for pulling the silk screen print at the Teach-In

Robert Irwin - Squaring the Circle at the Hirshhorn Performative response to the Irwin and Meyers exhibitions Linn Meyers in process at the Hirshhorn

FD Roosevelt Memorial, Washington DC. Eleanor Roosevelt - first USA delgate to the united nations in the FDR Roosevelt Memorial, Washington DC FDR Roosevelt Memorial, Washington DC

White House Martin Luther King Jr. memorial wall

Exquisite Uterus Project of Resistance installation process with students at Southen Illinois Univeristy Exquisite Uterus Project of Resistance artist Helen Klebesadel speaking with SIU students as they help in the installation Pinnin Pieces for a Cause read the student newspaper Daily Egytpian caption for the Exquisit Uterus Project. Artist Helen Kelbesadel being interviewed by the student TV station during her visit to SIU with the Exquisite Uterus Project.

Kate Lance photography as part of Divination Art fashion show by Alexis Kimbrell Alexi Kimbrell in motion Kate Lance Photography of Yamantanka embodied by Alex Lockwood Kate Lance Photography of Tezcatlipoca embodied by Eddie Kate Lance Photography of Oya embodied by Alexis

Photo by Aster Arseneau Of March 10th Nap-In in the Morris Library Photo by Aster Arseneau Of March 10th Nap-In in the Morris Library Photo credit Abdelrabman Abdelazeem in Alexandria, Egypt Photo credit Abdelrabman Abdelazeem in Alexandria, Egypt

Sphynx looking out over Cairo Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, Cairo Natural small lake in Cairo View of the Nile from Saria Sadek's home - Egyptian Art Educator Alexandria, Egypt

early morning view from Plaza Hotel Alexandria overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. outside my window at Safaa's flat Holy Friday noon prayers end at the mosque outside my window

Barbara Bickel with High School Student art High School Student Art High School Student Art , entitled "the pane of the world"- best of show

“We need to make peace with the planet.”

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon gave his last speech at my University in Southern Illinois on December 21st 2016. He seemed quite happy that it was “the last of his last speeches.” He spoke of delivering many “thousands of speeches” during his 10 year tenure with the United Nations. Having traveled to more than 150 countries he witnessed and experienced so much of the tragedy and possibilities of this world. On this day of winter solstice he spoke with clarity and calm to the 1,500 people sitting with rapt attention, hanging onto his words. I too sat attentive in my chair surrounded by international students, students, faculty, university staff and leaders, and community members. He spoke of “us living in a very small world” and called for all present in the room to “become global citizens.” He requested students to “let go of nationalism and look beyond the US.” He advised them to follow their passion but to “develop passion and compassion hand- in- hand, or passion may not go in the right direction.” The direction that leads to the “upholding of human dignity and human rights.”

His words “we need to make peace with the planet” spoke volumes to me for all levels of life on this planet, the human and more than human. May his words reverberate loudly, far and wide beyond this small town, crumbling university, State and country.

Moving to the US to teach in 2008 transformed me as a Canadian into a global citizen. The threads of my artworkings, within cycles of the moon and earth seasons alongside my artist collective, have stitched me into the fabric of the cosmos and earth in surprising and profound personal, historical, political and sacred ways. It is through my arts-based communication with trees most recently that I have received guidance and support for decisions and actions in response to the personal and political tragedies calling for attention and action.

Humans desperately require, what my poet friend Pamela Richardson wrote to me of standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon on winter solstice, an experience of profound “Deep earth wisdom beyond time and words.” Pamela and Ban Ki-moon’s words re-solidify for me how we require a return to the global worldview of Indigenous wisdoms that teach the necessity of making all decisions with the future seven generations in mind. Not decisions based on individual nation states and personal gain, but for future sustainable peace with the planet and all of its inhabitants. This darkest time of the year and the darkest political time in my own life’s history, offers us the opportunity to deeply question our severed relationship with the Earth and its inhabitants. The original wound of all colonizing nation states.

From the article Provoking a Curricula of Care: Weaving Stories of Rupture Towards Repair

A Métissage of Polyphonic Textualities

Honoured to be part of this provocative issue (with my co-authors Nané Jordan, R. Michael Fisher, Pamela Richardson, and Susan Walsh with Sarah Dorau) in the Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies. The issue was lovingly curated/edited by Erica Hasebe-Ludt and Carl Leggo drawing from the creative scholarship at the Provoking Curriculum Conference at the University of British Columbia in 2015. May this quality of educational thought seep deeply into informal and formal spaces of learning worldwide

Vol 14, No 1 (2016): Canadian Curriculum Studies: A Métissage of Polyphonic Textualities