I must admit I am prone to impulses – particularly when it comes to activism. I agree to do things that I rarely take the time to think through and they often have unintended consequences. Now, I am certainly not advocating for this sort of impulse-driven activism — to unconditionally agree to just about anything that will help make the world a better place — but at times it does yield some unexpected and often rewarding results.
During a conversation with Vancouver Island Feast of Fields’ coordinator Melanie Banas, we were talking about ways to add a little pizzazz to the children’s area (the festival was held on September 18th at Marley Farm) and make the event more engaging for the little ones (…while simultaneously sending subliminal messages that organic veggies are delicious and should be eaten at every meal!). So I proposed creating a vegetable mascot that might entertain a few of the kids.
I forgot a few important things — orange is my absolute worst color — and the carrot is not the world’s most flattering vegetable. I certainly don’t mean to disparage the humble and enduring carrot or sound too vain, but there are a few vegetables that might have been a bit more gratifying and fun to wear — I am thinking a sleek and sassy red hot pepper or perhaps a long-legged leek (my friend Susan assures me that the leek is the most elegant of the vegetable family…).
You see, I have a rather long history with making strange costumes and fusing art and activism together. I have dressed up as a Spanish dancer in a costume made entirely from candy wrappers to raise awareness about plastic waste at Halloween (accompanied by my partner who wore a Super Man Trash Costume also made from discarded plastic). I created a Pine Tree costume to help get support for a municipal tree protection bylaw that was successfully passed in Oak Bay in 2006. Most recently I dressed up as a Landfill Blob (comprised of plastic and styrofoam) to try to get more comprehensive recycling services implemented on Salt Spring Island.
Along the way, working with fellow activists, we have created lots of fun environmental and social justice art installations; including an enormous flying vagina, a Luminaria lantern art installation celebrating women’s varying body types, co-organized lesbian photo exhibits and a sex trade workers’ fine art fundraiser, and most recently organized a somewhat spontaneous anti-dolphin protest in Mexico outside one of those dreadful tourist magnets where you can swim with a dolphin and pretend the creature is having an equally good time as you are (OK – there were only two of us in attendance at the protest, but we managed to create a significant scene…). And we once even managed to get a large portion of the country talking about consumption around Christmas and Valentine’s Day when we put two counter-ideological billboards on our local highway. And these are only a few examples of the ways I have worked, with many other activists and artists, to fuse art and activism together over the years in a bid to create awareness, discourse and hopefully, some sort of change.
But there is something magical that happens when you are able to work with children, even in a small way. After wearing the carrot costume for a few hours, I realized what I miss most working at GreenMuze is the connection with the kids – we usually do attend Earth Days and other green events, but we used to have so much more involvement working with children of all ages when we helped run a small grassroots’ environmental organization on Vancouver Island. The group always made a concerted effort to ensure young people were always included in everything we did.
The work at GreenMuze is exciting, interesting and engaging and I have the privilege of getting to know and spend a good part of my day chatting to some remarkable people from around the globe, but it lacks that simple joyful delight of chatting with kids about the simpler things in life – like why we should eat veggies, what’s the impact of cows farting or the importance of riding our bikes.
In my middling years, I find it much more rewarding to put on a silly carrot costume and chat with happy children munching organic vegetables than sit in front of a computer writing a blog about why people should support a carbon tax. I prefer to find ways to engage people with humor and fun and, in particular, find ways to encourage our young people to remain hopeful for the future.
I tell myself that this is my lingering memory of that beautiful sunny Vancouver Island Feast of Fields 2011 day, not feeling silly (and hot) wearing a carrot costume, but how so many people of all ages came together to create a delicious community event while raising awareness about the importance of local food and maintaining our food sovereignty. There was nothing contentious about the event, combative or even particularly sensationalistic; it was merely a gorgeous afternoon spent enjoying delicious local food and drink, lovingly produced and prepared, in a stunning farm setting.
FarmFolk/CityFolk create so much goodwill in the community with their annual fundraisers and maybe this is a good lesson for all of us involved with environmental activism - always involve the younger generation and you will get more bees with honey, particularly if it is drizzled over a locally produced organic lavender shortbread cookie.
Valerie Williams is a writer living on Salt Spring Island. GreenMuze was a sponsor of the FarmFolk/CityFolk Vancouver Island Feast of Fields 2011.
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