It’s the mural you pass on the way to your downtown job, or the poster gruffly stapled to a Bank Street telephone pole. It’s the muffled music you hear coming from a basement as you walk past what, at first glance, seems like an average Centretown home.
This is where you see, read and hear activists shaping today and tomorrow’s causes.
Members of the Centretown creative community are at the forefront of the fight to protect and promote the voices of marginalized people.
The past year has seen that community create multiple artistic expressions of this struggle.
In July, Ottawa activist group BlakCollectiv took over the legal graffiti wall off Slater Street, painting it with the bold and powerful statement that “Black Lives Matter.”
Babely Shades, a collective describing themselves on Facebook as “(people of colour) artists and activists,” has gone to work promoting local live music events in the Centretown area. They are heralded in the community for creating a safe space in the local music scene for people of colour, LGBTQ+ identified residents and women in what has otherwise been the predominately white boys club.
Stick and poke tattoos – although potentially dangerous – are exchanged among the Centretown creative types, making otherwise expensive tattoos more accessible.
Through their art, the creative community has helped change the conversation surrounding rights and respect within their own circles.
If only those outside of it would listen.
Canada is often put on a pedestal for its progressive values. We’re lauded for being too nice and saying sorry too often.
I don’t doubt that many among us live up to that reputation.
But that kindness hides a dark underbelly.
Institutionalized racism mars Canadian history, as evidenced by hate-driven government policies like residential schools and the Sixties Scoop.
While some would argue these kinds of odious values are a thing of the past, recent incidents show hatred is still very much alive and thriving in Canada, Ottawa and Centretown.
Just last September, racism and transphobia made conspicuous appearances at the corner of Bank and Somerset streets. Racist, threatening graffiti defaced a mural honouring murdered transgender women of colour.
Crudely scrawled across the vivid, powerful piece in an apparent response to the mural’s statement that “all black lives matter” were the words “All lives. No double standards. You’ve been warned.”
Such violent responses from our fellow residents underscore the importance of engaging with new conversations woven by the creative community.
By speaking the language of anti-oppression, Centretown creative types have seen new spaces crop up with a focus on fighting oppression.
They have seen sold-out panels on racism and sexism. They have made activism a mainstay of legal graffiti walls in the city.
Art is having a tangible effect on discussions in the Centretown community.
Now it’s time for the rest of us to take note.
Take a look at that mural on your walk to work.
Read the poster wrapped around the telephone pole.
Listen to the words coming from that Centretown basement.
If you read, listen and look hard enough, you might be inspired to join in.