Comments on: May Day’s Ocular Proof: A Bundle of Cloth

By: FongWei

FongWei — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 22:02:00 +0000

Just wish to clarify: there is no “Edinburgh Fringe Theater Festival”; there is only “Edinburgh Festival Fringe.”

By: Lisa Aslanian

Lisa Aslanian — Fri, 06 May 2011 01:56:12 +0000

I was moved by this piece in part because it brought to my attention my own ignorance. I have learned the history of my country largely as an adult—- I did not learn much about Malcolm or Martin growing up, or the Women’s Movement, not until I was in college. And I know so little about the struggle for worker’s rights here in the US. What I know as an adult is that we got rich the same way every country gets rich— by exploiting workers, from slavery to child labor to underpaid migrant labor. We are not as rich as we once were but we are certainly going about making a profit the same way— we are just doing it by outsourcing jobs oversees, and this is perhaps more insidious because we don’t see it— if there is a fire in a factory in Mexico, we don’t see it, or even here on our borders with Mexico, we don’t read or hear about how corporations and small businesses use cheap Mexican labor to make a real profit and to keep the Mexicans in line, police raid the workplace from time to time, arrest a few and everyone else is quiet. This is an example from California—

The question that comes to mind here in terms of art and politics is not about exploitation— it is a different, more philosophical question- — what makes the FROM THE FIRE a work of art and not a political intervention? What makes it (perhaps) both? When we use art to make a political statement, how is it different from pure political statement? The responses to the post are not about the work of art, they are about the politics of labor. I do not really have the answer— but the question itself merits some attention and some reflection. I think there are some good shots at answers out there and I wonder how they apply to this piece.

If a work of art aims to make a political statement, I think, personally, that it has to have something else, or something more to call it art— it has to have what Marcuse called an aesthetic dimension, or the capacity to rock our world, destabilize us and make us see the injustice within our system. Even then, I am not sure we would not just call that good politics.

Just some thoughts.

By: Iris

Iris — Wed, 04 May 2011 20:00:15 +0000

I happened to catch the show on channel 13 last Sunday. That and this post are elegant, but sad reminders of a horrible event, made sadder by the fact, pointed to here, of the erosion of workers’ rights led by a number of Governors around the country. I read that Maine’s Governor LePage has proposed expanding the number of hours children can work, and lowering their pay. He’s tried to erase the memory of the passage of child labor laws protecting children by removing the murals that depicted this legislation and now wants to move in the opposite direction. Also, now there’s another call for “ocular proof.” This time to appease the doubters that Osama bin Laden is dead. I’m glad Obama decided not to release the grizzly photo, though it’s likely that the desire for proof will eventually lead to it getting out. I, for one, hope to never see it.

By: Rafael

Rafael — Wed, 04 May 2011 16:30:22 +0000

Very thoughtful. It is an important reminder. I was also impressed with trianglefromthefire.com