TRANSLATIONS OF CORMORANTS

One of the delightful things about drawing is the looking – in drawing you give attention to details that are often otherwise missed – like the space around a bird. 

This video belongs to a poem I wrote for the sculptor and hunter Billy Gauthier who I listened to at a symposium in 2020 at Toronto’s Power Plant. He was one of the speakers in a group of Indigenous artists and scientists from the Arctic and Amazon, come together to talk about climate change. It was an incredible conversation to listen to. Billy, in particular, inspired me deeply. And continues to. Here is Billy.

Through this past spring and summer double-breasted cormorants have become my companions, especially those belonging to a colony on the Humber River near home. They glide above our kayaks in the early morning, skimming the surface of the Leading Sea (also known as Lake Ontario). We've marvelled at their nests, hooked beaks, bright green eyes. The adult bird is a deep grey and brown but the youngsters have downy white chests. They are called gaagaagiishib in Ojibwe and they've been here a long time. 

The cormorant is a conservation success story – their population was close to making the endangered list some time ago and now they are thriving. Unfortunately there is a lot of misinformation about them, mostly that they're a nuisance and a threat to fish. These are unfounded claims. Distressingly, their future is again in jeopardy. From Sept 15 - December 31st of 2020, the Ontario government has approved their long slaughter. People now have permission to kill up to 15 of these birds a day to "control" their numbers.

Toronto visual artist, conservationist and activist, Cole Swanson is currently hard at work to challenge this. You can read about his efforts (along with Gail Fraser, professor of environmental and urban change at York University) and the research behind his efforts here.

For those of you interested in the film-making process: My partner, Paul Esposti, photographed the cormorants in flight; I used Paul’s photos to draw stills with ink and pencil on vellum (about 90 drawings!). We then photographed each drawing, and Paul turned them into an animation, created the sound design and edited. This is our first attempt at animation, and we’re just getting started. Paul and I both feel like these birds are our neighbours and teachers. We made the film thinking about how much might be resolved in our world if we could learn to care for a cormorant, for the sky and space around a soaring bird.

Paul David Esposti is a photographer and videographer who does his best to listen to birds. One of the ways he listens is through looking closely. Paul's photographed birds from Costa Rica to the Salish Sea and he especially likes photographing them near his home in Etobicoke, Ontario. You can find out more about Paul and see his photographs at pauldavidesposti.com

Jessica Joy Hiemstra is a designer and visual artist who does her best to listen to birds. One of the ways she listens is through drawing. She's also written several books of award-winning poetry, most recently, The Holy Nothing (2016) with Pedlar Press. You can find out more about Jessica here: jessicahiemstra.ca.

Dear Tree, From Shadow
Performative Sculpture

Bijarim-ro in Jeju Island is a two-lane road connecting two nearby towns, Songdang and Gyorae. With justifications such as high traffic for tourists using this road and the convenience of transportation for the residents of Songdang, the provincial government of Jeju unilaterally pushed for the “Bijarim Road Expansion Project” in 2018. Since then, 1,000 cedar trees had been clear-cut around Bijarim-ro.

Upon hearing the news, a small group of people came out to protect the forest. Sometimes with the support of the residents, other times with the extra help from the creatures living in Bijarim-ro forest, they’ve been protecting the forest for the last three years.

I also heard the news about Bijarim-ro, but I couldn’t run out to the forest like them. Perhaps because of their sound of resistance occupying a small corner of my heart, at some point, without thinking, I was out making work with stones by rolling them around in the Bijarim cedar forest. While working there, I met the “Bijarim-ro Cedar Forest Keepers” and was invited to participate in an art event that they organized.

I send this video letter to a tree once faced the light, and to a tree facing the light right now.  

제주도 ‘비자림로’는 ‘송당’과 ‘교래’를 잇는 2차선 도로이다. 이 도로를 사용하는 관광객 교통 수요 증가와 ‘송당’ 주민들의 교통 편의를 명분으로, 제주도 도정道政은 2018년 ‘비자림로 확장공사’를 일방적으로 밀어붙였다. 결국 ‘비자림로’ 주변 삼나무 1000여 그루가 벌목되었다.

이 소식을 들은 제주 시민들은 현장으로 뛰어나와 ‘비자림로 삼나무 숲’을 지키기 위한 저항운동을 시작하였다. 때로는 시민들의 호응을 받으며, 때로는 비자림로에 사는 뭇 생명들의 힘을 빌어 3년 간 이곳을 지키고 있다.

나 또한 비자림로의 소식을 들었지만, 그들처럼 ‘비자림로 삼나무 숲’으로 달려가진 못했다. 내 마음 한 켠을 차지하고 있던 그들의 함성 때문 이었을까? 언제 부턴가 나는 작업을 한답시고 ‘비자림로 삼나무 숲’에서 돌멩이를 굴리고 있었다. 그러던 중 ‘비자림로 삼나무 숲’ 지킴이들이 진행하는 문화행사에 참여하게 되었다.

한 때 빛을 향했던 나무에게, 그리고 지금 빛을 향하고 있는 나무에게 이 영상편지를 보낸다.

고승욱/ Koh, Seung Wook

I was born and raised in Jeju Island.
For 20 years, I lived in Seoul, building my art career.
Even though I’ve been back in Jeju for over 10 years,
I’m still learning about the island and
I surprise myself for my ignorance of Jeju. 

제주도에서 나고 자랐다.
20년간 서울에서 미술활동을 했고
제주 내려온지 10년이 지나고 있다.
늦깍기 제주공부에 매달리면서
제주에 대한 자신의 무지함에 새삼 놀라고 있다.

Plastic Wind
2019.12.11.
판교낙생대공원 / at the Pangyo Paradise Park, Seoul, Korea
두터운 잎 Project/ part of Thick Leaf Project

As time goes as humans love the city forest, the forest loses herself and morphs with our habit. Her power and beauty are destroyed by our impatient and insignificant acts. We think the forest will remain the same, but she loses her language every time we walk through her path. The beautiful path for us is a plastic wind for her.  

- How do we express love?


사람이 도심의 숲을 사랑하는 시간이 흐를수록 작은 숲은 자신을 잃고 사람에 맞춰 변해간다. 숲은 그 자체로 힘이 있고 아름답지만, 사람이 만든 성급하고 작은 사건들에 무너져버린다. 숲은 계속 그대로일 거라고 생각하지만, 사람들이 한발자국 걸을 때마다 숲은 빠르게 숲의 언어를 잃어간다. 사람의 아름다운 산책길이 숲에게는 플라스틱 바람인 걸 모른다.

-사랑의 표현은 어떻게 해야 하나

CHOE Rayun is a visual artist who works closely with elements from everyday and nature. She is an active member of Mullae Art Village in Seoul. Site-specificity of Mullae informs her work and directs her attention to nature, human and urban, and their relationship to each other.  With her thought provoking works, she offers a moment to share and an opportunity to contemplate. She works in diverse mediums such as painting, drawing, sculpture, video and performance.

https://blog.naver.com/canero

BECOMING ROCK

Becoming Rock (2018)
Video excerpts from a series of 13 video performances (02:57)

Becoming Rock: Road Rock (2019)
Video still image from performance series ‘Becoming Rock’

Becoming Rock is a series of performative videos that explore the relationship between body and earth through the repeated action of becoming a rock within the landscape. Although it is physically impossible to merge with the land, Jessica Slipp sees the exposure of each repeated attempt as an absurd, awkward, yet genuine and honest gesture to engage with the land.

Jessica Slipp uses rocks as a form and means to compact earth and time. She is interested in what rocks contain and how, when deconstructed, they return to tiny particles of matter – the elemental component to the fabric of the universe and where all of life began. With concern for planet Earth, she looks to Donna Haraway’s rethinking of the Anthropocene and use of the term Chthulucene to describe our current epoch. This encourages the process of thinking, making, and being with all living and non-living species. In this time of ecological crisis and global climate change, it is vitally important to shift anthropocentric modes of thinking about the world to thinking with the world.

Jessica Slipp is a Visual Artist currently living and working in the unceded Indigenous land of the Kanien’kehá:ka Nation in Tiohtiá:ke (Montréal). As an interdisciplinary artist her work investigates notions of place, uncovers new perspectives of land & landscape, and challenges the way we exist within the world. She is interested in the the ways that place and identity are embedded in the land through geological, ecological, and human histories, and the intrinsic connection we all share with the world — from the particles that randomly composed it, to the very nature that we embody. Through her artwork she attempts to repattern perspectives towards a more caring and compassionate engagement with the world, and seeks to find new ways of rekindling the fundamental relationship between body and earth.

IF TINY CRYSTALS FORM CLOSE TO THE EARTH’S SURFACE THEY FORM DIAMOND DUST
 
My antler heart grows hooves.
I follow the lead from the pack.
Find shelter in a drunken forest--
 
what species isn’t at risk.
Insulating properties of snow
keep me warm--
 
trapped air between each flake.
With body heat and earth-transfer heat
my home becomes a snowbank.
 
It’s not the hare’s scream
that haunts,
it’s the antecedent silence.
 


​
 
THE TREES  
 
we fill ourselves up
with slow-banked health
 
push off the not needed
with the growth behind it
 
we tick silent rings
inside our own xylem clocks
 
each wound is sealed
with home-spun adhesive
 
we synthesize sunshine to a flameless fire
we shed to survive     to burn spring green
 
 



INTERSECTIONS  
 
All parts have a line
with never end.
 
Ongoing fury—burns
a shatter zone.
 
Cries by a gate can’t
slip out, they hover.
 
Hold blue in your hands.
Go on, cup sky. This isn’t illusion.
 
The sound of absence is your boat
coming in. The work is in the meadow.
 
It’s hard to put past in a safe place.
Some eyes see, if not birds.
 

 
 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
“If Tiny Crystals Form Close to The Earth’s Surface They Form Diamond Dust” first published in the UK literary journal Stag Hill Literary Journal
“The Trees” first published in the LCP anthology: Heartwood: a League of Canadian Poets Anthology
“Intersections” published in the online UK journal/website Burning House Press  

​Catherine Graham is an award-winning Toronto-based writer. Her sixth poetry collection, The Celery Forest, was named a CBC Best Book of the Year, appears on the CBC Books Ultimate Canadian Poetry List and was a finalist for the Fred Cogswell Award for Excellence in Poetry. Her Red Hair Rises with the Wings of Insect was a finalist for the Raymond Souster Poetry Award and the CAA Poetry Award. Her debut novel Quarry won an Independent Publisher Book Awards gold medal for fiction, “The Very Best!” Book Awards for Best Fiction and was a finalist for the Sarton Women’s Book Award for Contemporary Fiction and the Fred Kerner Book Award. She teaches creative writing at the University of Toronto where she won an Excellence in Teaching Award and is a previous winner of the Toronto International Festival of Authors’ Poetry NOW competition. Æther: an out-of-body lyric will appear in 2020 with Wolsak and Wynn. Visit her at www.catherinegraham.com  Follow her on Instagram and Twitter @catgrahampoet

OCTOPOLIS









a cracked
silver mirror
reflects no octopus;
its sand-blessed face now blasted
and dark.








wriggling
copepods blind
to the harvest, swarm on
the bars of a vintage metal
birdcage.










given
your eyeglasses,
an octopus would shun
the primitive lenses; covet
their frames.










 
gilded
candelabra!
ardent octopodes
recreate your branchial arcs
with flesh.










 
see here,
li’l miss mermaid!
this octopus has one
dinglehopper your museum
can’t claim.










 
her move:
palpitating
to the white king.
a tentacular caress.
checkmate.










 
 
in an
octopus’
untrained suckers, swords are
more direct and less efficient
than beaks









 
 
if an
hourglass lurked
half-submerged in white sand,
could an octopus measure a
minute?










 
splintered
seashells in a
nacreous mosaic
frame an abalone portrait
of you.

BREEDING GROUNDS: EMPTY CALORIES
 
so much depends
upon
the Greenland shark
grinding
its toxic jaws
into
a
gaunt polar
bear 

WHETHER THE HEAVENS BREAK


WHETHER THE HEAVENS BREAK

WHETHER THE BROKEN CLOUDS ACCUMULATE ENOUGH 
               AUDIENCE TO DEBUT AT TIFF

WHETHER CURIOUS CUMULI INCUBATE OUR ATTENTION

WHETHER THE WEATHER BURSTS FORTH
               LIKE HEAVEN'S GATES 
               LOCKING DOWN ALL THE LATCHES

WHETHER WATER AND ETHER COMBINED
               MAKE A BEAUTIFUL SUNSET

WHETHER DUSK IS UPON US SOONER
               RATHER THAN LATER

WHETHER YOU PREFER HURRICANES OVER HEAT WAVES
               MONSOONS OVER ICE MELTS

WHETHER YOU HARVEST FRUIT FROM THE FOREST FLOOR OR
               WITHERED ON WIZENED VINES

WHETHER YOU PINE FOR YOUR MUSKOKA CHILDHOOD

WHETHER PILEATED WOODPECKERS DELIGHT YOU

EITHER THE CONTINUOUS PRESENT OR THE LOOMING FUTURE

EITHER SOME OF THEM
               OR ALL OF US

WHETHER EMPATHY

WHETHER MORALITY

WHETHER TRUTH WAVERS BEFORE SIX-DOLLAR LATTES
               AND MAUVE MACARONS

WHETHER IT WAS A TOTAL BLOCKBUSTER

WHETHER YOU'VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE IT

WHETHER THE SKY GETS DARKER THAN "BREAKING BAD"

WHETHER REALITY IS A MALEVOLENT COLOSSUS
               COMING ON LIKE AN ADORABLE BABY LION

WHETHER SUPERWINDSTORMS MAKE THE RATINGS RISE

WHETHER THE DEADLINE PREMIERE
               IS A NO-HOLDS-BARRED DOCUMENTARY ON SUBLIME
               SUB-SAHARAN DROUGHT

DO WE HAVE OUR TICKET IN ADVANCE

DO WE HAVE OUR SEAT RESERVED

DO WE HAVE A COVETED SPOT BESIDE THE RED CARPET

WHETHER WE LIKE COMEDIES 
               OR THRENODIES

WHETHER THE FILMMAKER WAS FUNDED
               BY A FRACKING CONGLOMERATE
               OR A BRAZILIAN MINING CONSORTIUM

WHETHER THE CLIMAX IS A MASS SHOOTING EVENT
               THAT SOUNDED LIKE A RUNAWAY TRAIN
               THAT BARRELLED INTO CANADIAN TIRE
               LIKE A BLOOD AVALANCHE AT NIAGARA

WE'VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE IT EVER BEFORE

STEP RIGHT THIS WAY

STEP INTO THE HARSH GLARE
               OF THE BIGGEST SHOW ON EARTH

WHETHER WHATEVER WE DREAM
               IS JUST LIKE A MOVIE

WHETHER IT IS ALL JUST LIKE CUTTING-EDGE CINEMA

WHETHER WE'RE ON 24/7 CANDID CAMERA

ALONG WITH FACIAL RECOGNITION

HOW ABOUT GLACIAL RECOGNITION
               OR WILL THAT SPOIL THE PLOTLINE FOR US

WHETHER IT IS ALL SO ORIGINAL

WHETHER IT IS CRAZY GENIUS AT HAND 
               WHEN THE HEAVENS HEAVE AND THREATEN

YES       THE SKY MIGHT BREAK OPEN

YES       THE SKY IS MADE OF GOSSAMER ETHER

YES       THE ETHER IS MADE OF TRANSHUMAN MEMORY

YES       THE MEMORY DRINKS IN RAIN

YES       THE AUDIENCE IS AN OCEAN

WE WANT THE C.G.A. WEATHER TO LOOK 
               MORE WILD THAN WILDERNESS ALONE

WE WANT THE ENDING TO SHOCK US

WE WANT TO BE AWAKE

SO WAKE UP

CAN WE WAKE UP

LET'S WAKE UP
​

Margaret Christakos creates poetry, teaches, and thinks about forms of direct and indirect social address as part of her thirty-year artistic practice. She hails from Sudbury, Ontario, and lives in Toronto. Recent books include Multitudes and Her Paraphernalia: On Motherlines, Sex/Blood/Loss & Selfies. In Spring 2020 her new book charger is forthcoming. ​

First, we will tell them of our dominion
We will tell them of the web peeling back
in the heavens, the sun's maw radiating
We will tell them we can see the air
We will tell them green turned brown and grey
We will tell them green covered the earth
We will tell them of plastic islands
We will tell them of sands too hot to inhabit,
We will tell them of where people
cannot hold their breath forever
 
We will tell them of undulating obituaries
We will tell them of backroom deals, of slow-moving cogs
We will tell them of childhood depression
We will tell them of corporate footprints,
handprints, fingers in pies, stained red
We will tell them of mass delusion
We will tell them of moral misbehavior
We will tell them of fears for marble over feather and fur
 
We will tell them about the non-identity problem
We will tell them of the powerful two-faced 
We will tell them why the scientists cried
We will tell them why the philosophers cried
We will tell them why the parents cried
 
We will tell them of carbon dioxide
shouts, of splintered protests
We will tell them of tear gas, of turned heads
We will tell them of laws broken
We will tell them of backs broken
We will tell them of turning, turning
 
Later, we will tell them the oil barons are dead
We will tell them guardians fought back
We will tell them a panacea was birthed from the Amazon ash
We will tell them blood is not translucent, but still pumping
We will tell them the ocean is still loud
We will tell them we relocated the sacred
We will tell them we refined our brains
We will tell them the sun is everything
We will tell them we were sorry
We will tell them we know why the sky is blue.