Ghanaian sculptor Brahim El Anatsui's father was a master weaver who taught the tradition of strip-weaving Kente cloths to his sons. This textile technique has become a staple of El Anatsui's art: he amasses and refashions the debris from his community to create majestic, visual narratives that address his personal history and global issues like environmental sustainability. The North American premiere of his four-decade career retrospective When I Last Wrote to You About Africa is at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, having been extended to Feb. 27.
Give the gift of solidarity this season: Alternatives to Christmas as consumerism
Change the conversation, support rabble.ca today.
Let's admit it. Christmas shopping can be the worst. Even when you avoid large chains and shopping centres like the plague.
There's something about the obligation this particular holiday -- that, no, not everyone celebrates --has to demonstrate affection in the act of purchase, that's pretty counter to what the guy this holiday supposedly set out to celebrate supposedly spoke about.
Graffiti artists Os Gêmeos: Fishermen of illusions
Interviewer: How would you describe your own style?
Os Gemêos: A tiny boat in a huge ocean with all its infinity and surprises.
- Artists Os Gemêos in Art Crimes
Over the past half-century -- since the days of the actual "Madmen" -- advertisers have transformed public space. The former understood that in an age of cutthroat economic competition, every surface of the city needed to become a canvas for publicizing the joys of consumerism. Along with the advertisers, mainstream policy-makers have pushed for the transformation of civic geography across the world into giant shopping malls that would attract public consumption and thus greater corporate investment.
Feeling Canadian: Book Launch & Reading by Marusya Bociurkiw
Location
"My name is Joe, and I AM Canadian!" How did a beer ad become a
national anthem? When did Olympic opening ceremonies become an
advertisement for national superiority? What do toques and canoes have
to do with nationalism? Canadian couch potatoes need wonder no longer.
This book by award-winning Toronto-based author, media theorist,
filmmaker and professor Marusya Bociurkiw examines how affect
(passionate sites of feeling) and consumerism work together to produce
shows like Canada A Peoples' History, North of 60, and television
coverage of the 2010 Olympics. As Canadian TV expert Michelle Byers
writes, "Providing anecdotes that most readers will be very familiar
with, Bociurkiw's analysis situates us firmly within the context of
on this christmas day - hands off mother earth
how are you?
Catalytic Conversation: The Story of Stuff
Location
The Story of Stuff takes you on a provocative tour of our consumer-driven culture -- from resource extraction to iPod incineration. We will begin by watching this 20- minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of production, consumption, and waste. It’ll teach you something, make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all your stuff.
This event is FREE!

