Posts tagged with activism.

Hey, hey, ho, ho, the polar bear suit has got mojo

Ian Wylie, January 29, 2009 at 1:40 PM

 

For 10 days, from January 16 to 26, U of T students Chris Somma and Rebecca Nugent lived on the bottom floor of Robarts Library, U of T's largest. They set up a tent in a corner specially designated by the administration as their living space. For those ten days they never left the library, save for the occasional five-minute break. Their cause was Live in for Literacy. Now in its fifth year, Live in for Literacy sees students across Canada camping out in their university's library to fundraise for projects promoting literacy in developing countries. 

 

The event, in its ambitious scale and novelty, is part of a trend of unconventional activism on campus. 

 

Student activism has long been a feature of university life. Its usual methods are marches, boycotts and letter writing campaigns. However, those tactics are getting old. The public is accustomed to the shouts of the beard and Birkenstock set. Seeing your message stand out in a slew of worthy causes requires a little creativity.

 

At U of T, dissenter and second-year student Zannah Matson organizes workshops on creative activism. Matson emphasizes humour in her work and is somewhat critical of traditional approaches.

 

"With [traditional] protesting, you go and you blame something that's faceless," Zannah explains.  "With creative activism you use humour and the issue's always right there but it's more accessible."

 

Matson believes engaging and educating the public requires blending your message with entertainment. If you're too heavy on the message, you alienate and irritate people. Too light, and the message is lost.

 

Matson's had success with her model. Last year, she helped organize a U of T conference on climate change.  It attracted a substantial amount of attention, I like to think because the centrepiece was a sketch in which Matson played a polar bear whose home was threatened by a massive Sun puppet. Later, while still wearing the bear suit, Zannah and the Sun puppet marched around campus accompanied by a trumpet player. The sight was rather surreal.

 

For the average student, creative activism makes life on campus a little more interesting. Nothing brightens and informs your day like polar bear suits and library camp-outs. Except for chocolate in the residence cafeteria, but that's entirely unrelated. And much less informative.

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