Flânerie in Detroit

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Detroit, 2017

In June I attended a conference of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment, Rust/Resistance: Works of Recovery, at Wayne State University in Detroit. I presented media and writing from my project in progress, Borderland Memories in Lower Silesia. It was my first time back to Detroit in many years and my only previous encounter with the city was at the Greyhound bus depot, en route to Ann Arbor Film Festival. As I walked among the ruins and some wonderful old architectures, I found myself in a city of hidden stories with much heart. Filmmaker Patrick Keiller wrote, “The present day flâneur carries a camera” and travels in some kind of vehicle (The View From the Train: Cities and Other Landscapes, 2013).

films at Workers Arts & Heritage Centre

My film “Northland: Long Journey” is playing in the program Labour and Love as part of 150 seconds of Ontario Film Festival.

NORTHLAND-1984 Mine Shaft

NORTHLAND-1984 Mine Shaft (2007)

The research I cited for this project ten years ago, in part for my doctorate in Environmental Studies, was recently connected to new media stories. In the film, I interview a number of experts on the issue of aluminum prophylaxis. You can hear some of their comments in the film’s trailer, and read some 2017 news stories online at these links:

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/04/15/in-human-experiment-ontario-miners-say-they-paid-devastating-price.html

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2017/04/18/do-right-by-injured-miners-editorial.html

northern journeys…

Distance is measured differently in places where the land is wide with many spaces mostly populated by more than human others. In Northern Ontario where I grew up, we could visit our neighbours two hundred kilometers away for lunch and be home later that day for supper. Now I live in Toronto where driving a mere ninety kilometers north constitutes a road trip. Recently I was north again, to participate as a mentor on workshops about knowledge mobilization and multi-media, produced by Docs North in Thunder Bay, home of the Bay Street Film Festival, and some of us there had a conversation about how distance is embodied in the north for those who live there, and still for those of us who went south …

NORTHLAND-Red Motel, 2004

NORTHLAND-Red Motel, 2004

                             “Red Motel” (2005) from the series Northland.

conference presentation

I am presenting my published writing, reading from the chapter I contributed to Working on Earth: Class and Environmental Justice (2015), on a conference panel with the book’s editors, Christina Robertson and Jennifer Westerman (see post on the book below). The conference is How Class Works, at the Center for Study of Working Class Life, State University of New York, Stony Brook, NY, June 9-11, 2016. For conference information go here:  http://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/workingclass/hcw2016.html

Much of my doctoral research was focused on themes of class, beginning with the work of cultural theorist Raymond Williams, that great proponent of lifelong learning founded in public pedagogy and open, shared knowledge. As early as the 1950s, Williams supported new media and film as democratizing educational technologies that, though polluted by commercial interests, can also promote a more critically engaged general public (see McIlroy & Westwood (1993). Border country: Raymond Williams in adult education. Leicester: National Institute of Adult Continuing Education.)

In the neoliberal global marketplace, the rhetoric of classlessness persists as a cultural imaginary. Meanwhile class divisions continue to be reproduced as economic inequalities intensify for much of today’s workforce, whatever their colour of collar, those fated to increasingly precarious employment. As we journey ever more deeply into environmental collapse, let us keep our spirits up as we continue to produce and engage with works and means of challenging that trajectory of doom.

Mining cart

NORTHLAND: Old Mine Cart (2007)

Our conference panel is called “Working on Earth: Essays on Class, Environment, Community & Justice” on Friday, June 10 at 3:45 PM.

This promises to be a timely and important discussion, and I’m happy to be part of the conversation as I look forward to a wealth of great presentations.

A new film by Michael Zweig, Director of the Center for Study of Working Class Life, tells the story of how international worker solidarity changed labour law in Iraq, guaranteeing rights such as collective bargaining, and prohibiting sexual harassment at work, and child labour. The entire short film can be seen here:   https://vimeo.com/164793529

I recently saw The Measure of a Man (2015) , a cinematic masterwork by Stéphane Brizé, which brilliantly interrogates themes of class. Here we witness a Foucauldian panoptical reality, as Snowden’s nightmare and Orwellian fantasy collide in a fusion of complex ethical struggles and human grace.

Image: “Old Mine Cart” (2007) from the series Northland, by Edie Steiner.

2015 Female Eye Film Festival Photography Exhibition ‘FIRE’

1000 Islands Sky

1000 Islands Sky (2015)

I have artwork in the annual Female Eye Film Festival’s Photography Exhibition, ‘FIRE’.

Exhibition Reception June 18, 8:00pm – Midnight. Silent Auction Opens (ends Sunday, June 21, 2015)

FLEX STUDIO SILVER, #106, 180 Shaw Street

PHOTOGRAPHERS Amy Wilson, Claudette Abrams, Edie Steiner, Elaine Brodie, Dlyse Pomeranz, Imogen Whist, Inger Whist, Jenn Wilson, Kasha Sequoia Slavner, Katherine Keates, Lynn Leonard, Shannon Griffiths & Tineke Jorritsma. Curated by Inger Whist.

book publication

Edie Steiner’s essay “Requiem for Landscape” is published in this 2015 collection of scholarly writing –
Working on Earth: Class and Environmental Justice
Edited by Christina Robertson, Jennifer Westerman
Description
This collection of essays examines the relationship between environmental injustice and the exploitation of working-class people. Twelve scholars from the fields of environmental humanities and the humanistic social sciences explore connections between the current and unprecedented rise of environmental degradation, economic inequality, and widespread social injustice in the United States and Canada. The authors challenge prevailing cultural narratives that separate ecological and human health from the impacts of modern industrial capitalism. Essay themes range from how human survival is linked to nature to how the use and abuse of nature benefit the wealthy elite at the expense of working-class people and the working poor as well as how climate change will affect cultures deeply rooted in the land. Ultimately, Working on Earth calls for a working-class ecology as an integral part of achieving just and sustainable human development. Available at University of Nevada Press: http://unevadapress.com/Browse/Titles/Working%20on%20Earth/W;2289
Reviews
Working on Earth is a significant contribution to the literature on class, labor, personal history, and environmentalism. Indeed, it is one of the first volumes of its kind to explain the ways in which class and the environment are powerfully, and sometimes tragically, entwined.” — Kathleen Newman, associate professor of English and cultural studies, Carnegie Mellon University, and blogger for the Center for Working Class Studies

Bay Street Film Festival

I have 2 films and a video projection in this festival taking place in Thunder Bay, Ontario, from September 3 – 7, 2014. Bay Street Film Festival

My new film Conversations on the Lake (2014), 44 minutes, presents at 2 PM on Sunday, September 7. My film Northland: Long Journey (2007) which was the opening film of the 2007 Bay Street Film Festival, is at 2 PM on Friday, September 5, as part of the festival’s 10th anniversary retrospective. My photo/video installation Views from Home: Facing North (2014) will be showing in the festival lounge. See it here: Views From Home on Vimeo

Lake Superior (2014)

Michipicoten Harbour Industrial Ruins (2014)

Images: Conversations on the Lake (2014)

book review

A new double issue of The Goose is here! Published by the Association for Literature, Culture, and Environment in Canada, this journal of great environmental writing and images features my review (page 197) of Jan Conns’ brilliant poetry text, Edge Effects (Brick Books, 2012). The Goose is available free online.