FEAST 06 grant winners

Congrats to The Mass Arrival Project, winners of the FEAST Project Grant, and Humboldt Magnussen, winner of the Student Grant sponsored by XPACE.

Photo from Canadian Art online

About The Mass Arrival Project:

"Mass Arrival is a critical re-enactment of the so-called mass arrival of Tamil migrants in Canada via freighter ships in 2009 and 2010. On the anniversary of one of these arrivals, Mass Arrival collective will interrupt Toronto’s downtown with an open-air ship, docked in a public location, carrying with it, hundreds of white-identified Canadian-subjects.

Engaging hundreds of participants, on-lookers and gallery visitors in this staged arrival, artists Farrah Miranda, Vino Shanmuganathan, Graciela Flores-Mendez and Tings Chak will demonstrate that while some [white] arrivals form the basis national creation stories, others form the basis for fear, hysteria and the tightening of border controls.

Mass Arrival melds street theatre, public spectacle and community organizing, putting art into action. Inspiring political dialogue via Toronto’s arts community, the project uses sustainable tactics to question dominant narratives of citizenship and belonging, and is inspiring and mobilizing a large number of contributors.

Responding to an online survey of over 1,000 Canadians, which “found that 48 per cent of those polled would deport [Tamil] passengers... even if the refugee claims are found to be legitimate and there is no discernible link between the migrant and a terrorist organization” (Fong 2010); we will construct a visual marker to challenge such viewpoints."

Winning $300, here's Magnussen's project proposal:

"The project I will present will be a documentary film in which I will interview queer people on the subject of their voice, paying particular attention to people that have a stereotypically “gay” voice – that is, a voice that others would characterize as belonging to a gay person. I will conduct research and talk to academics that have completed research on the acoustic properties and social perception of “gay” voices. I am interested in queer people's relationship to their voice as an aspect of their identity, whether positive or negative. During this time, I will document myself going to a speech-language pathologist in an effort to have my self-described “gay accent” removed. During the speech therapy process, I will reflect on the process while discussing my own exploration of identity in connection to my voice. I hope the film will celebrate/question queer voices in Toronto."