Carole Roy

Working the Margins of Community-Based Adult Learning

This volume gathers stories about how various art and creative forms of expression are used to enable voices from the margins, that is, of underrepresented individuals and communities, to take shape and form. Voice is not enough; stories and truths must be heard, must be listened to. And so the stories gathered here also speak to how creative processes enable conditions for listening and the development of empathy for other perspectives, which is essential for democracy. The chapters, including some that describe international projects, illustrate a variety of art-making practices such as poetry, visual art, film, theatre, music, and dance, and how they can support individuals and groups at the edges of mainstream society to tell their story and speak their truths, often the first steps to valuing one’s identity and organizing for change. Some of the authors are community-based artists who share stories thus bringing these creative endeavors into the wider conversation about the power of arts-making to open up spaces for dialogue across differences. Art practices outlined in this book can expand our visions by encouraging critical thinking and broadening our worldview. At this time on the earth when we face many serious challenges, the arts can stimulate hope, openness, and individual and collective imaginations for preferred futures. Inspiration comes from people who, at the edges of their community, communicate their experience.

Masks & mirrors: from autobiographical reflection to unmasking interdisciplinary collaboration

Masks & mirrors represent the evolution of a reflective arts‐informed approach to research used in three contexts of inquiry including autobiographical reflection, performance and representation of data. Masks symbolize the social nature of human life and mirrors represent the importance of reflection. Together they hold a tension, a fine balance, between disguise/fiction and truth/reality. Masks represent the ephemeral truth of a moment in time that may become archetypal and that frequently connote ambiguity: what is true now may not be tomorrow. Mirrors, on the other hand, always reflect what surrounds them and while their reflective abilities do not change, what they reflect changes according to the context surrounding them. Just as one’s autobiography is continuously revised, so is the process of interdisciplinary collaboration; mask‐making is revealed as a process that elicits ambiguity and tentativeness yet which also opens deeper insights about the reality of the world.

The Transformative Power of Creative Dissent

The Raging Grannies have crashed official receptions, parliamentary hearings, Canadian Armed Forces bases’ open houses, and meetings held by representatives of diverse levels of government to alert public opinion and authorities about environmental, peace, and social justice issues. With flair and style, they transform rage and powerlessness into humorous and creative protests. With the creation of the colorful, resistant, and seemingly enduring popular figure of the Raging Granny, some older women claim a public space of their own. They defy stereotypes and authorities alike with smiles, wit, daring, and imagination. In the Canadian Theatre Review, John Burns (1992) suggested that they “have reversed cultural expectations by empowering themselves within a society which belittles their experience and point of view” (21). Such a story of transformation requires attention: without stories of opposition, resistance, and transformation, we internalize patriarchy’s ideology and pass its rules to the following generation (Lerner, 1997: 207–8).

Three Documentary Film Festivals

This is a case study of one visionary documentary film festival in Courtenay, British Columbia, and two of its affiliates in Peterborough, Ontario, and Antigonish, Nova Scotia. The film festivals discussed in this book all feature documentaries by independent filmmakers on a wide range of topics and take place in small Canadian towns of fewer than 75,000 people, where, unlike in large urban centers, film festivals are not common.

Fostering Community and Solidarity

The capitalist economic system produces and thrives on atomization of society as individualism expands the number of consumers who buy rather than share and as a result, corporate profits increase. In recent decades, technological inventions have also supported individual access to greater choices. Although the market is flooded with material gadgets, products, and even produce transported across vast distances to individual consumers, these activities fuel the warming of the planet, endangering a safe and healthy environment, a common good that has been greatly undermined but which requires a collective approach.

Weavers of Dreams

Films are excellent catalysts of discussion. English and Mayo (2012) recognized the important role arts and the media can play in social movements, important tools “to increase meaningful engagement and participation in matters that affect all our lives” (p. 138). Belenky, Bond, and Weinstock (1997) suggested that collective events provide a public space for questioning and learning. Organizers of documentary film festivals play a crucial role in providing alternative information and perspectives, presenting what they hope are alternatives for preferred futures to the current domination of corporations.

Challenging Assumptions and Gaining New Perspectives

Documentary films reveal various experiences, ideas, and emotions, expanding the context for reflection and dialogue. In fact, documentaries are an effective medium to disrupt taken-for-granted ideas, encourage empathy, and promote consideration of different perspectives. Documentary film festivals provide information that broadens attendees’ perspectives on several social and political issues. Films that highlight marginalized people in unexpected ways are popular as they outline possibilities rather than predict limited outcomes. Also popular are films about successful community development and victorious popular struggles, as they offer concrete alternative visions of what is possible and make it possible to see beyond the limits of one’s own assumptions.

Politics, Media, and Documentary Film Festivals

Adult educators often engage in practice and research toward social justice using social movements as a site and nexus of their projects. Increasingly, these social movements are recognized as significant sites of collective adult learning and transformation (Clover, 2006; Hall & Turay, 2006). In support of the co-learning dimension, English and Mayo (2012) suggested a notion of citizenship that “embraces collectivity and movements rather than the idea of atomised individual citizens” (p. 19).

‘Why don’t they show those on TV?’: documentary film festivals, media and community

The importance of alternative forms of information is undeniable in a democratic society. Yet mass media often ignore important issues as well as grassroots struggles and victories. Over the past two decades, citizens of one small Canadian town have initiated a documentary film festival as a means to learn about diverse problems and/or share stories of successful community development and victorious social movements around the world. This sparked a series of documentary film festivals in other small Canadian towns. This article examines a study of two of these documentary film festivals and the learning reported by members of the audience.