Article 13
wall design, 100 FT x 8 FT, Arts Etobicoke and Amnesty International, 2010, Poem written by Poet Laureate of Toronto, Dionne Brand, and wall painted by muralist William Lazos.
Article 13: Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country. (from the UN Declaration on Human Rights).
wall design, 100 FT x 8 FT, Arts Etobicoke and Amnesty International, 2010, Poem written by Poet Laureate of Toronto, Dionne Brand, and wall painted by muralist William Lazos.
Article 13: Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country. (from the UN Declaration on Human Rights).
I was asked by Arts Etobicoke to create a wall design for a poem that Dionne Brand, Toronto's current poet laureate, was writing on Article 13 of the UN Declaration on Human Rights, to be included in the UrbanCanvas project for Amnesty International.
In the mural, I wanted to evoke the poignancy of Dionne's words through movement and type--suggesting water, borders, and freedom in a subtle and compelling way.
I liked the way that Dionne's poem takes stock of movement in nature and the environment, the passage of time, and the philosophical right to movement through our common ownership of the earth. Brand also poignantly touches onthe dark underbelly of the freedom of movement too--the hardships that peopleendure and, have endured, to cross borders in the hope of a better future.
Poem by Dionne Brand:
Article 13
The passenger pigeons once traveled here,
here once they furrowed the sky,
raked wide the full moon's face,
to drink the lakes inclined and pristine surfaces,
who crossed the langourous cold river first
and saw the ceiling of birds,
then wandered the mouth of this intimate lake,
skanadario, who needed maps and homing devices,
compasses, the featherless arms,
who came here driven on the muscular spasms
of guesses, and hard bargains and wars and lack,
this river, Tanaovate, at the east, has washed
its large share of loneliness and industry
it has collected time and more, much more
than its salt and black and rainbow creeks,
fugitive, its tributaries of migrants
inalienable nomads, global citizens
unfettered limbs, we are heartsick for the true world,
compelled to place we search for place,
there in the growths of black wild alders,
how many sojourns, the gathered feet, the flight of horses,
the vein of railway, the stray of airplanes,
we brace our transience on the hurtling planet,
this 13th note, its opening sound, articulates,
unbinds our migratory bones, renascent
here our common ownership of the earth
Dionne Brand
In the mural, I wanted to evoke the poignancy of Dionne's words through movement and type--suggesting water, borders, and freedom in a subtle and compelling way.
I liked the way that Dionne's poem takes stock of movement in nature and the environment, the passage of time, and the philosophical right to movement through our common ownership of the earth. Brand also poignantly touches onthe dark underbelly of the freedom of movement too--the hardships that peopleendure and, have endured, to cross borders in the hope of a better future.
Poem by Dionne Brand:
Article 13
The passenger pigeons once traveled here,
here once they furrowed the sky,
raked wide the full moon's face,
to drink the lakes inclined and pristine surfaces,
who crossed the langourous cold river first
and saw the ceiling of birds,
then wandered the mouth of this intimate lake,
skanadario, who needed maps and homing devices,
compasses, the featherless arms,
who came here driven on the muscular spasms
of guesses, and hard bargains and wars and lack,
this river, Tanaovate, at the east, has washed
its large share of loneliness and industry
it has collected time and more, much more
than its salt and black and rainbow creeks,
fugitive, its tributaries of migrants
inalienable nomads, global citizens
unfettered limbs, we are heartsick for the true world,
compelled to place we search for place,
there in the growths of black wild alders,
how many sojourns, the gathered feet, the flight of horses,
the vein of railway, the stray of airplanes,
we brace our transience on the hurtling planet,
this 13th note, its opening sound, articulates,
unbinds our migratory bones, renascent
here our common ownership of the earth
Dionne Brand
