At the Hyland

By Penn Kemp

We are about to watch All the Beauty and the Bloodshed by Laura Poitras,
Her fierce and searing documentary, featuring photographer Nan Goldin,
is presented free by Western’s McIntosh Gallery. How Nan Goldin and

her P.A.I.N. organization got the Sackler name removed from art institutions
and discredited: Nan is an outlier, a rebel, her personal story brilliantly
interwoven with political activism. Catherine Elliot Shaw, Acting Director,

finishes a long, well-crafted, but rather perfunctory land acknowledgement,
as a voice behind us shouts, “Search the Landfill!” “Pardon?” says Catherine.
“Search the Landfill!”

A pause. One beat. Two. “Thank you,” says Catherine, moving on to further
acknowledgement. No-one in the audience reacts, nor do I. It takes a minute
to realize the relevant implications, the irony of silence in this greying London
​
crowd: cognitive dissonance at one remove from relative comfort on plush seats.
 
July 17, 2023

Editor's note: "Search the Landfill!" refers to the ongoing campaign to force Winnipeg to search the landfill in which police believe the remains of four Indigenous women, victims of a suspected serial killer, can be found. Winnipeg is claiming that the search is too difficult and dangerous, although others have said it is feasible. You can read more in this article by APTN (Aboriginal Peoples Television Network).

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Penn Kemp's recent work includes P.S. (https://www.gapriotpress.com/archive/penn-kemp-sharon-thesen-ps) and the anthology Poems in Response to Peril that she co-edited (https://www.rsitoski.com/poems-in-response-to-peril). Her latest album of sound poetry, Incrementally, is out now on Angry Starlings: https://www.hempressbooks.com/authors/penn-kemp. 
 
https://twitter.com/pennkemp