A Generous Curiosity // Erin Stodola
As part of a new series of essays taking inspiration from the Alternator archive, Erin Stodola explores the work of Julie Oakes, founding member of the Okanagan Artists Alternative Association, the society that runs the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art.
Julie Oakes Breast Protest Anonymous. From the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art Archive.
In the summer of 1992, a 28-person single file line walks the several blocks through downtown Vernon, from City Hall, depositing themselves on the steps of the grand, pillared courthouse. The figures wear large, brown paper bags over their heads with holes cut out for eyes and nose, obscuring their identities. Their blue jeans in contrast to the grey polyester business suits normally seen in these buildings. They wear nude coloured, oversized t-shirts silkscreened with an illustration of a woman’s naked torso as if they are all marching topless through the city streets.
Once gathered on the stone steps of the Vernon courthouse, they lift up their shirts to reveal the bare skin of their own torsos. Taped to each breast of the women were pieces of paper with the words: “Up to $2000 fine” and “Up to 6 months in jail”. The chests of the men were uncensored, free of warning.
This performance piece, created by Julie Oakes, was a comment - a protest - on the then recent arrest of a woman in Guelph, Ontario, for the crime of being topless and female. At that time, the penalty for being a topless woman was a $2000 fine or six months in jail. There was no penalty for being a topless man. The piece was called Breast Protest Anonymous and it received Canada-wide media coverage.
Several years prior, in 1989, Oakes and two other artists created a performance piece called S.W.A.T. Snuff Walls Around Townhouses. Oakes had noticed several walled, gated enclaves cropping up around Kelowna. Gated communities are now common sight but several decades ago were novel. Donning black masks reminiscent of sneaking robbers, the trio hung placards with images of sneaky robbers climbing over the top of the imposing cement walls that surrounded one of the housing complexes. The cartoon robbers seemed to be scaling the walls to get inside, with the S.W.A.T. acronym scrawled beneath them. After photo documentation, the three ran off before they could be caught. More than a protest, this was performance art that asked viewers: who are the walls for? Who can afford to be within them and why are they afraid of those beyond them?
Oakes mentioned these two pieces of performance art when describing the early days of the Okanagan Artists Alternative Association, known today as the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art. She would know, being one of the several artists who initiated the artist-run centre. Along with Murray Johnson, Jim Kalnin, Mary McCulloch, and Johan Feught, they were hungry for a place where they could be more free to experiment outside the confines of a white cube, curator, and funding etiquette.
While there was, and remains, a necessary place for traditional and commercial art galleries, there is also need for alternatives.
Galleries and museums carry out a significant amount of research, are able to lend credibility to works, are accountable to stakeholders and the public. While artist-run centres do these things too, they are generally more open, experimental, active with and activated by the artists themselves. The artists take a significant role in the curatorial process. The artists are beholden less to stakeholders and more to one another.
Oakes, whose catalogue of work bubbles over with bold figures, colours and scale, tells me about what art means to her. Social and environmental consciousness. Awe. A force that jolts you out of what you think you know. Art is philosophy. Art and beauty and curiosity are embedded in all aspects of our lives, without always being aware of it. But a world without it would be noticeable as dull, lifeless, monotonous.
Since it began, the Alternator has been a place where artists can exercise their craft, share ideas, and be inspired. We all need places where we can be inspired. A forum to be exposed to thoughts and forms. That begets more expression and thus keeps us moving forward.
The Alternator, and other artist-run centres, are also training grounds for cultural workers to learn from one another and practice communicating meaning, organizing others, and facilitating important conversations.
Art is a way of understanding the world in new ways. It is a role model for processing without constraints, Oakes says. At times, creating art is a solitary act in one’s studio. Yet the inputs for processing come from all around, every day. The act of creating seems to be something that we are all compelled to do in some way or another. To make the thing. To voice the thing. To bring something into being that only makes itself known within the creating of the thing. In giving it life.
When was the last time you were presented with new information, and not knowing how it fit into your worldview, discussed it freely and with curiosity. In turning it over and morphing it several times, the information becomes more clear and eventually into something you might want to share with others. A point. A counterpoint. This is what artists go through when they have the space in which to experiment without constraint.
Artist run centres are good for artists. Sure. And perhaps the gallery-goers who freely choose to spend their time with the artists’ work.
Let us not overlook, however, those who never step foot in an art gallery who nonetheless benefit from the work of artists.
For if artists are not asking questions and posing new ideas, then who is?
The algorithms in our pockets? The men with chequebooks behind big oak desks?
Back at the Alternator in 1992, shortly after the Breast Protest Anonymous march through Vernon to the courthouse, Oakes stages a piece within the gallery space: a Breast Protest fashion show. Yellow and black police caution tape marks the runway and an even-toned British accent comments on each look that took to the catwalk. Once again, the models don paper bag masks with cutouts to see and breathe through. In the measured manner of a BBC reporter, the commentator remarks on the breasts that stroll down the runway. It puts plainly and shockingly the constant dialogue that surrounds women’s bodies simply existing. The incessant spoken and unspoken commentary. Should we not question why?
To be open to a world with a myriad of perspectives we need poets and sculptors and philosophers who question what is and do so in a way that encourages us to do the same. Art asks us to pay attention. Take in the world with our eyes open. And to play with the status quo. Artists, with a great generosity, lead us right to the doorway of curiosity and invite us to step over the threshold.
Julie Oakes is a multidisciplinary visual artist, using painting, ceramics, glass, performance, installation and video. Environmental protectionism, women’s rights, spiritualism, artistic activism and the benefits of cultural diversity have been threads throughout Oakes’ work. Oakes’ works are in public collections such as The Glenbow Museum, The Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery, The Mendel Gallery, The Varley Art Gallery and The Vernon Performing Arts Center and more.
Erin Stodola (she/her) is an arts and culture professional living on Secwépemc territory in Salmon Arm, BC. She is on a continual quest for beauty and magic.