SESSION 16
CYNTHIA BROOKE ON LONGSHORE WORK AND UNION HISTORY
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KRISTINA LEE PODESVA ON EBBING: TOWARDS AN ALTERNATIVE VOCABULARY OF VALUE
Tuesday May 30, 7pm
The Foreshore
Other Sights at Access Gallery
222 East Georgia, Vancouver BC
Please join us for two short presentations followed by discussion.
Based on her experience as a Stevedore and member of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union BROOKE will discuss some of the history of the union as well as how the shift toward exclusion and security in the ports and shipping industry obscures our understanding of the movement of goods, the people who do that work and their experiences.
LEE PODESVA will share some thoughts on ebbing as a means for developing a vocabulary of value that turns away from the principles of gain, growth, and accumulation, among other economic delusions. This discussion will also share very preliminary research on tides, especially low tides, to open up a space of practice that knits corporeal, terrestrial, and celestial contexts with social realities. Let us consider what an alternative vocabulary of value might look like. What forms might it take economically, aesthetically, psycho-spiritually?
BIOS
Cynthia Brooke is a Stevedore, member of of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, and former executive member of ILWU local 500 executive. She is also generally active in accessibility issues, and specifically for the Vancouver Folk Music Festival where she co-coordinates access security. She also provides port, and shipping facility tours for artists participating in access Gallery’s 23 Days at Sea residency program.
Kristina Lee Podesva is an artist, writer, editor, and publisher working between art making, critical writing, and experimental publishing. Taking many forms, her practice has had an ongoing concern with language and the politics of discourse. Her work has appeared at Artspeak (Vancouver), Darling Foundry (Montreal), Dorsky Gallery (Long Island City), the Power Plant (Toronto), and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco), among other venues. From 2005 to 2015, she was Editor at Fillip. She is currently in the process of forming the Bruna Press + Archive in Bellingham, Washington.
Image Credits:
A strike supporter harangues police during the Battle of Ballantyne Pier. This photo ran on the front page of the June 19, 1935 Vancouver Sun.
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Low tide on the west beach of Baltrum in the Niedersächsisches Wattenmeer National Park (Niedersachsen, Deutschland). Photo taken by Gisbert1. Color and contrast adjusted by Kristina Lee Podesva.
Audio recording of the event: