One of the focuses on my research project was to look at ways that artists are using their work to respond to and to challenge violence.  With a specific focus on my home country of Jamaica, along with South Africa and Brazil, I have been interested in exploring the ways that musicians, painters, writers, photographers and videographers try to capture, represent and dismantle violent oppression.  For my IdeaFest presentation I introduced the work of three visual artists from Jamaica who have completed projects on the Tivoli Incursion, an event that saw to the police killing over 70 people in the small community of Tivoli.  For my CapStone project I turned my focus to videographers and musicians and the ways that they have used their art as a space for political contestation.

 

To do so, I put together a film series featuring 4 films that have had some impact on my research, and that I believed opened up a conversation about institutional violence and how we all aid in its in cessation.  The following films were featured: (i) Amandla!: A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony, on South Africa; (ii) Favela Rising on Brazil; (iii) Trench Town: The Forgotten Land on Jamaica; (iv) The Battle of Algiers on The French-Algerian War.  The films were presented over a one-week span, with each showing being followed by a discussion.  The attendees were generally UVIC students who had been accompanied by friends or colleagues but there were a few attendees who had come from the Victoria community to see a film based in their home country.

 

These documentaries were selected because they were not only geographically appropriate but the struggles being represented were stories that needed to be told. Much of the responses to violent repression captured throughout the film show how music and art can be spaces of escape and empowerment.  The imagery and the stories in all these films were jarring, like watching high school students in Trench Town talk about not being able to leave home for fear of being murdered on their way to school or listening to stories about the Meadowlands in South Africa.  As much as these images and stories are upsetting, the most troubling part is that much of what is discussed continues to this day.

 

Art can be such an important medium for resistance and these film show that. None of the films in this series shows that more than Battle of Algiers.  It shows the toll of war and the destructiveness of imperial oppression and this film is visual reminder of what unchecked power is truly capable of.  This art form is an expression of lived experiences of those most affected by violence and who are using this medium to tell their own stories and I was so grateful to be able to share that with everyone through my CapStone Project.