Jay Bawar Portfolio
written by mena fouda illustration by anastasia kozachinskaya
mplica te om co ec he TT h plica ted na tu e ve ov eo off llo d na turre There is a saying in Arabic that roughly translates to: the gates of heaven lie at the feet of your mother. A strange phrase, she always thought. Categorizing her mother alongside heavenly bodies, or notions of angels and eternal happiness, was not something she could ever do. She loved her mother so much, but they often fought. The criticism and the insecurities and the doubt that slipped from her mother’s lips suffocated her. They could be so happy sometimes. She would trudge home after a long commute and her mother would see the look of exhaustion on her face. She’d open her arms wide. Her warm embrace felt like floating on your back in an ocean, somehow fully at peace and not at all scared of any waves. Just calm. There were other times where they’d be fine one moment, talking about cute guys on the street—but suddenly it was as if the woman beside her who had been laughing would become someone else. Someone who emerged whenever their happiness was at its peak, intent on making her daughter feel unloved and not good enough. She
never expected this side of her mother. Like floating on your back in that ocean and then being hit by a sudden thunderstorm. Her theory about why her mom was always so fluid in her emotions was that maybe she was just jealous of her relationship with her father. The man that she could have a normal conversation with—no shouting, no hurtful words. She grew up her entire life hearing people exclaim, “You are your father’s daughter.” She considered this to be a compliment and wore it as a badge of pride. Her friends would tell her that she was lucky to have a mom like hers. Her mother was always bubbly in public, never without a smile on her face, the “cool” mom. She’d reply with things like, “Yeah, yeah… She’s great. You know who else is really cool? My dad. He’s always travelling to different countries. He buys me things. I only get to see him a few times a year cause he works somewhere else, but he really sees the best in me.” She would repeat that like a mantra to anyone who cared to listen, letting people know that she definitely had
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a favourite parent. She never felt any regret saying those things. Never wondered if perhaps her mother was quietly listening. 18 years ago, when her daughter was first born, she was in labour for nearly 11 hours. Can you imagine 11 hours of pain? And before that, nine months of discomfort, mood-swings, and cravings for strange foods that she had never even thought about before? But all those thoughts went away when her daughter was born. She wasn’t able to hold her newborn girl at first due to complications. Her baby was placed in an incubator for an entire week. Alone, in a prison of plastic and a jungle of tubes. She had severe blood loss. Her husband ran from hospital to hospital, looking for donors. When she took her baby home for the first time, they decided to give her a name that represented how they felt—“a gift from God” is what her name translates to. Sometimes, she didn’t really act like a gift. She was fussy, she cried all the time, her face was swollen from crying all the time. Time didn’t change anything. Her daughter was closer to her father, always choosing to sit in his lap during family dinners. Always crying when he wasn’t home. Always teaming up with him to play cute little pranks on their relatives. At some point during these years, her husband was briefly arrested by Egyptian authorities. He, along with some journalist friends, had dared to voice his critiques of an unjust government. She had to take care of their three kids during this time, and it wasn’t easy answering their questions. “Where’s Baba?” On a business trip. On a vacation. Visiting some relatives. “When’s he coming back?” Soon. Maybe next week. Next month. When the authorities finally released him, they made a collective decision to leave the country and go someplace safer. She packed up her clothes. She sold all of their furniture. She said goodbye to her family and her friends and her job as a teacher. When they arrived in Canada, she tried to learn English as best as possible. She went to an ESL class. “I’m making so much progress,” she would say to herself. But then she would mispronounce a word, and her kids would make fun of her. She would sit alone, saying that same word over and over and over, trying to pronounce it the way they did. But it was hard for her tongue to change its patterns, to become accustomed to a new alphabet. When her children asked for help on their homework, she was lost. She herself couldn’t understand. When she attempted to explain the inner workings of long division, her daughter would scoff and tell her “That’s not the way Mrs. Brown taught us.” Time passed, as it always does. Her husband’s qualifi-
cations did not satisfy the standards of this new country, so he took a position overseas. She was left with her three children, a minimal understanding of how the country worked, and a lot of loneliness. When her daughter was a teenager, they fought. It’s not like she wanted to fight with her, she just wanted so badly to protect her. Her daughter would wear a t-shirt in the middle of winter, and this is something that angered her—how dare she not protect herself from this weather? She was going to get sick, her body was fragile and so weak. And if she got sick, she would have to witness her baby girl sneezing, coughing, shivering, crying. Like a baby, alone in an incubator. She didn’t want to see her daughter like that ever again. So she would yell at her. “Go upstairs and change right now.” Her daughter would frown. “You can’t tell me what to do!” She would reply, “Someday when you have a daughter of your own, you’ll understand.” And her daughter would say, “Dad would never tell me to change. He loves me no matter what I wear. I never want to have a daughter if I treat her the way you treat me.” It went on like this for years and years. They hurt each other, but then they would make up one morning over a cup of Turkish coffee. Then they would disagree about something trivial. One of them would make the other cry. There would be a half-apology, but that apology wasn’t good enough for one of them—so they would fight again. Ten minutes later, they’d both be in the kitchen warming up leftovers and laughing. There is a saying in Arabic that roughly translates to: the gates of heaven lie at the feet of your mother. This is all she can think of during her mother’s funeral. Strangers come up to her and give her hugs. They tell her she must have been so lucky to have a mother like hers. She agrees with every single one of them. She tells anyone who will listen about how brave her mother was, raising three children in a foreign country, seeing them at their best and at their worst. At the end of the day, she still finds that phrase to be a little strange. She doesn’t really care about a distant continuation of life. If paradise exists, then great. But that place would never offer any the same happiness she felt when she and her mother would drink Turkish coffee together. To her, paradise didn’t lie at the feet of her mother, but rather in her arms. All of those memories of hugs and unconditional maternal love; all of the memories of trivial fights and unnecessary shouting, all the mispronounced words and all of their laughter. Sequenced together, they create something more precious than heaven could ever be: a portrait of her mother, as deep and as beautiful as an ocean.
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The flower
written by kayleigh birch illustration by yilin zhu
The sun, when it came time for it to set, made a grand spectacle of trickling its golden light over Playa del Ray. It seemed to roll down the bluffs of Vista del Mar—where the ocean spray became tiny houses, made with love— radiant rays pouring and fizzling and crackling into a barely-there purple dusk. Ma placed the glasses on the counter far more gently than Jaime ever could, as his hands were twice the size of hers. She poured the honey whiskey with careful intention, watching the melted rosin kiss the oneounce line before making her first trip. Jaime checked the windowsill, then the clock, then the front porch one last time before leaving the door wide open, inviting in the warm summer air. He picked up a few extra chairs and placed them around the windowsill before returning to the coffee pot. “It’s a helluva lot nicer than that last place, no?” Jaime was right. The porch, although rich with crunchy brown plants and chipped dollar-store paint, felt more home than anywhere else at the moment. Inside, the rooms were outlined with silky mahogany. The windowsills were caked with the powdery leaves of dried lavender. His eyes continued to glance into the kitchen, meeting the clock, before peering out of the window and down the road. “They’ll be coming any minute now,” he said, containing his excitement. Ma nodded silently, snapping open a fan decorated with little gold pieces and ruby-red flowers, waving it gracefully every so often with dainty, sun-spotted fingers. She was draped in a confusing cardigan for July. Jaime guided her to the chair closest to the window, balancing a thick cup of Folger’s, which nearly spilled as Andrew poked his head in the door. “I didn’t miss it, did I?” he asked with wide eyes. “Hello to you, too.” Jaime laughed heartily as he led him in, patting Andrew’s back slightly too hard. “But no, it’s lookin’ like it’s got a little performance anxiety this year.” “I’m sure if we just stick it out,” Andrew began as his eyes trailed to the honey whiskey, then to a nodding Jaime, “it’ll outdo itself.” “Here’s to hoping.” Jaime replied, clinking glasses with Andrew and tasting the warm amber. “You boys are so dramatic,” Ma nearly shrieked. “It happens every year. What makes you think that this time will be any different?” “Aren’t you excited, Ma?” “Of course, don’t be silly.” Her fanning
slowed down to an occasional pitter-patter that clinked the sliding gold rings on her fingers. She was silent for a moment, staring at the windowsill. The stairs needed to be redone: the terracotta shell seemed to be cracking. There were no fireflies, but there were crickets somewhere far off in the distance as more neighbours locked their front doors, starting across and down and up the street. “You better bring more chairs,” she advised. “It looks like the party’s getting started.” Some neighbours brought fruit plates and coffee creamer and tiny brownies meant for no more than two bites. Some even brought their own chairs to pull up in a sunrise shape. Sunshine through them, fiery gems for you… The conversation was sparse and lingered in the rolling ocean fog, a sense of gentle excitement filling the room. In the afterglow of half-drunken smiles of anticipation, “Freewheelin’” and “Déjà Vu” hummed in the background, the clock in the kitchen ticking on as a fifth pot of coffee was filled to the brim. Only for you… When James Taylor came on, Miguel danced with Mary. Even Ma twirled gracefully around the room, still fanning the heat gently away. Just for a little while, in the limbo of something spectacular, everything was easy and clean and right, as the clock in the kitchen struck a few minutes after midnight. A collective hush held the room, as everyone at once knew it was finally time. Chairs tightened toward the windowsill, as the living room was now filled; the adults put down their cups as kids jumped up and down with excitement, their bedtimes long past. Jaime, though a grown man, reached for his mother’s hand. You best walk her way and watch it shine… In a tiny potted plant, the green shell of the night-blooming cereus shyly began to blossom, peeking yellow leaves before the main attraction: a blooming sphere, no bigger than a baseball, soft and white and the embodiment of short-lived love. The crowd was entranced, and no one dared to break the silence until Jaime stood up. “I’d say,” he began, holding up a cup of coffee, “that this is the best bloom we’ve ever had!” Everyone cheered and watched the remaining flickers of the flower, where, even just for one night, love was small and close and real. And watch her watch the morning come…
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08 FEATURES
ILLUSTRATION
EDITOR | REBECCA GAO FEATURES@THESTRAND.CA
| SEAN KELLY
THE INCLUSIVE FUTURE OF S K A T I N G TORONTO'S ODDITY COLLECTIVE AND OTHER YOUNG SKATERS ARE A FORCE FOR POSITIVE CHANGE IN THE SPORT
EMMA KELLY CONTRIBUTOR
When I first met Kira Tejada on a dreary, spitball-coloured afternoon in early November, they immediately clocked the Unity sticker plastered on the deck of my board. It came as no surprise to me that Tejada was a fan of the Oakland-based queer skate collective founded by artist and skater Jeffery Cheung in 2016. Tejada and one of their roommates, Zainab Imam, founded the collective Oddity in Toronto last year with a similar objective to Cheung’s: to create a safe and welcoming space where the city’s “hidden queer skater population” (as Tejada puts it) could meet up and skate together, support and encourage one another. The Facebook page for one of Oddity’s summer events stresses that homophobia, transphobia, sexism, and racism will not be tolerated, and that informal instruction will be provided for beginners. I learned that Tejada, Imam, and their third roommate, Oddity member Chuck Hopper, typically drag a rickety cage cart of skateboards to every meet-up—the steep cost of a board is often one of the most prohibitive aspects of skating—and start off each session with a land acknowledgement. As people of colour, Tejada and Imam also find it imperative that some meet-ups be exclusively for Black and Indigenous people of colour. Imam, who has training as a social worker, helps facilitate a circle discussion at the end of each event. She says this intervention is crucial because “in the West, we often forget how the mind and body connection is so integral to us as human beings… I find that [skating] helps me nourish and become in tune with that connection that then fuels me as a creative,
political being that white supremacy and its systematic oppressions often aim to erase and diminish in Black and Indigenous people as well as other people of colour.” I am a fervent admirer of Tejada, Imam, Hopper, and their work with Oddity. Although I am probably the worst skater alive—and that’s saying a lot because there’s no shortage of Instagram-famous skateboarding dogs—I have always been a fan of the sport. While I was getting coffee with Hopper, they said that skating was another avenue of their art practice (Hopper also performs spoken word around Toronto under the name Soft Honey and runs the thrift brand Casually Clothed). Tejada, who is currently an apprentice at Ink & Water Tattoo, echoed that skating gave them the feeling of being “free in their own world,” like there were no rules and that they finally had the liberty to play around and be silly. This is one of my favourite qualities of skating: it has never been about perfection. No matter how good you get, you are inevitably going to mess up a trick and fall flat on your face. You are probably going to do that a lot. But the more you fall, the more you learn how to fall and how to bounce back. It is this process of redoing and persevering, this process of learning, that is the fun part. And when you finally land that trick, everything feels perfect. Oddity is important because of the vacuum it was created in. Many people, including me, associate skateboarding with figures in media like Steve-O from Jackass, Tony Hawk, Bart Simpson, and, most recently, Jonah Hill and his movie Mid90s. There seems to be a near-universal assumption that it is a mode of expression only available for straight white men from the suburbs.
We inherently link the qualities necessary for skating— innovation, tactical thinking, physical strength, and dexterity—with this kind of person due to the Western patriarchal ideology that structures our society. I am anxious even talking about skating, much less actually skating, in public since I worry I will not be taken seriously because of my gender and femme-presentation. I sometimes feel as though a skater who lacks machoism has no right to be skating at all. Tejada, who has been skating since they were nine years old, described to me the similar discomfort they often experienced in skateparks and shops. The majority of skaters in these environments usually appear to be white, cisgender, heterosexual, and male. Tejada maintains that their initial reaction to meeting skaters of this ilk was the same that they have had with every person they see holding a board: “Oh my god, this person skates! I want to be their friend!” Their attempts were often rebuffed or ignored outright. Cheung told i-D Magazine, “It’s funny that skateboarding—which is something that stemmed from going against the mainstream—can also be so much a part of that same heteronormative culture.” Despite the emergence of a skate mentality in the late 1970s that was based on the enduring ideals of defiance against authority and conformity, creativity, and a simultaneous sense of individualism and community, propagated mostly by ex-surfers like the Z-Boys in Southern California, skateboarding can often seem like a daunting niche to break into for queer people, femmepresenting people, and people of colour. Some of the most revered pioneers of the sport, like the late Jay Adams (one of the aforementioned Z-Boys),
FEATURES 09
@STRANDPAPER THE STRAND | 15 JANUARY 2019
have also helped foster its homophobic undercurrent. In 1982, Adams assaulted Daniel Bradbury and his partner and left Bradbury for dead. Adams told Juice Magazine, “We went to a place called the Okiedogs and two homosexual guys walked by and I started a fight. That’s just how every fuckin’ night was for me back then.” Adams only served six months in jail for Bradbury’s death. He was inducted into the Skateboarding Hall of Fame in 2012 and posthumously honoured at the TransWorld SKATEboarding Awards in 2015. Adams’ case is an extreme one. However, in conversation with The New York Times, Victor Valdez, who rides for Unity, says, “Growing up, I skated with your typical skate crew—dudes’ dudes,” and he regularly heard homophobic slurs in the scene. In that same piece, Cher Straub, a 25-year-old transgender woman who also rides for Unity, says she skated alone after she became more open about her gender identity, despite her long career in the sport. “I lost all my friends,” Straub says. “I didn’t skate for 10 years. I just quit—I didn’t own a skateboard, I didn’t look at skateboarding magazines. I hated it.” Furthermore, when Brian Anderson—who has won Thrasher’s Skater of the Year award and ridden for Toy Machine, Girl, Anti Hero, Independent, Nike SB, and Spitfire—came out as gay in September 2016, he told Rolling Stone that it was something he had known about himself since a young age was “really scared” to reveal as an adult because he thought it would have a negative effect on his career. For women, skating presents another set of unique challenges. In a 2015 interview with Broadly, Lacey Baker, one of the best female street and technical skaters of all time, spoke on the discrimination that female skaters face in the male-dominated industry. Having been the recipient of the 2017 Super Crown Women’s World Championship and the Berrics’ “Populist” award, Baker pointed out that women in these competitions often win less than half of what the first place prize is for men. She said, “The skate industry is a bunch of dudes mak-
book The Answer is Never, which chronicles the history of skateboarding, Jocko Weyland writes, “Skating was [always] multicultural… there were always a lot of nonwhites involved in skating, which I liked about it.” However, Ray Barbee, an African American pro skater, told Huffington Post that lack of access, mainly due to economic inequality, has kept skating mostly racially homogenous, with people of colour still in the minority. “You think [about] the ’70s and the park era, and there’s definitely people of color that were skating in the parks,” Barbee said. “But again because the tone was set early on for the practitioners that got into skateboarding from surfing it became predominantly a white thing—that’s just the reality of it.” White people had more access to skating equipment and resources than people of colour. “Now to skate a half-pipe you got to know the dude that owns the ramp. To have [access] to a half-pipe your parents most likely had to have bought their home, have enough property to house a ramp and be able to pay for a ramp.” As skating moved away from the suburbs and into the cities in the 1990s, the scene became more diverse by demographic default. It embraced new terrain and participants, who went on to represent skating at the professional level and start new companies. When Chocolate Skateboards was founded in 1994, it was hailed by many as a “multicultural team.” Though it wasn’t the first team of multiracial skaters, it did anticipate the subsequent change in racial demographics brought on by the popularity of street skating. Nonetheless, there still exist areas of under-representation in the sport. Dustin Henry is a pro skater from Calgary who is Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in on his father’s side. He said he does not “look” Indigenous, so it was an aspect of his identity he downplayed for many years. “Being Indigenous has been something I’ve hidden for most of my life growing up because I used to be afraid of what people would think. I thought they would judge me in a negative way, so since I didn’t look it I never mentioned it.”
legedly erupted after Jessee called Ned “Peanut” Brown, an African American skater, the N-word at a skate contest in 1986. Jessee told the OC Weekly in 2006 that Brown confronted him for talking to Brown’s girlfriend. “I actually talked shit to him, on the top of the ramp. And the next thing I know, I’m on the bottom of the ramp. He socked me in the mouth.” Jessee has sported swastikas and white power stickers on his helmet at least since the late 1980s. The swastika has also appeared on a hand-stitched jacket Jessee donated to the Skateboard Museum, in his now-defunct clothing line Jason Jessee Apparel, and in his artwork. When asked about his use of swastikas by VICE last May, Jessee replied, “In my past, I used hateful symbols, speech and culture to get a reaction out of people [...] The hateful symbols I have used in the past do not represent who I am and what I believe in. I do not support white supremacy or white power that may be affiliated to any type of club or association that supports those views. I have no plans to ever use any of that negative symbolism again. Period.” Nonetheless, Jessee sported white supremacist insignia in his 2007 documentary Pray for Me and has continued a relationship with alleged neo-Nazi band The Highway Murderers. Recently, he has been sponsored by or collaborated with (in addition to Brixton and Santa Cruz) OJ Wheels, Independent, Grant’s Pomade, Madson Sunglasses, Stance Socks, and Converse. He is featured on the May 2018 cover of Thrasher magazine, and in April his first major video role in a decade came in Converse’s Purple. Converse and Santa Cruz both dropped Jessee after facing criticism. However, the fact that his racist leanings have been widely known and documented for more than 30 years suggests that these companies were more concerned with saving face than promoting an earnest dialogue. My intention is not to hold up skateboarding as an object of either contempt or reverence. I do not think that the sport is inherently a tool for social justice or bigotry. Rather, it is, at its best, a beautiful project that
Skating is for everyone, yet the nature of the patriarchal society we live in has convinced many that it is not ing decisions and judgements. If I don’t have long hair, wear tight pants and a push up bra then they decide I look too much like a boy… It’s about how I look. It’s about how we all look. It’s catering to all these dudes in the skate industry.” Another professional female skater, Marisa Dal Santo, talked to Platform about her experience with attending all-female competitions: “The guys’ contests go on for 3 days while the girls’ contests go on for 20 minutes. There’s usually 10 people at the most in the crowd… For those same reasons they’re also kind of lame and embarrassing, [because] it shows how low girls are viewed in skateboarding.” Furthermore, in a 2002 interview with Thrasher, Alexis Sablone, another female pro skater, said, “I think girls should just skate in regular contests. I don’t think girls should have to have their own category—they should just be in a skateboard contest. Girls just skate with guys, it’s all the same.” Within male-oriented skate circles, notions of skating “like a girl” demonstrates how women who skate are placed on the lowest rung in the hierarchy. Women’s involvement in the subculture is largely viewed as a performative intervention; they are separated from the centre normative as “girl skateboarders” and are often paid less and treated with less respect than their male counterparts. Their appearances are played up for their marketability reinforced by the hetero-masculine interests at stake in the commercial world of skating. No one takes them seriously. How race figures into skateboarding is a much more nebulous issue than other forms of identity politics. It has never been a whites-only sport. Mexican American Tony Alva and Asian Americans Peggy Oki and Shogo Kubo were some of skating’s earliest mega-stars who helped distinguish it from its surfing roots. In his
In an interview with Quartersnacks last October, he elaborated: “I feel like I didn’t have many [Indigenous people] inspiring me when I was growing up… I’d go to a skate park and all the natives you would see were drunk.” Henry said there is only one other Indigenous person he skates with—his brother Tristan Henry—and only one Indigenous person he could recall making an impact on Canadian skating: Joe Buffalo, a Cree skater who has been semi-retired since 2007. Now that he is older, Henry says, “I’m ashamed of the way I used to think because now I realize how special [my identity] is… So I’m trying to reconnect with my culture and heritage because it is who I am and I am not hiding it anymore.” By being more open about his background, he hopes to make an impact for other Indigenous people in skating. He has noticed that, among skaters, “people have become more interested in my culture.” Skating is getting more diverse as it ages, but the issue remains: iconic figures still get a free pass to use their platform to spread hate. Celebrated as a legend within the community, Jason Jessee initially rose to fame in Santa Cruz in the 1980s. He garnered sponsorships with Santa Cruz Skateboards and Speed Wheels due to his powerful vert style and outrageous personality. In 2012, TransWorld named him 24th on its 30 Most Influential Skaters of All Time list, calling him “simply one of the baddest individuals ever to ride a skateboard.” However, it is widely known that Jessee is someone who consistently uses racial and homophobic epithets, as evidenced in his interviews in many skateboarding publications. He is also a fan of the swastika and other white power imagery, often employing these symbols in his artwork and clothing. Racial bias was also the reason behind a fight that al-
people at all intersections of identities can find joy in. Skating is for everyone, yet the nature of the patriarchal society we live in has convinced many that it is not. We exist in a world that tells us that freedom of expression can only be bestowed upon straight, white men. In the hands of anyone else, it is supposedly too dangerous. Tejada told me that they could surmise the goal of Oddity with one phrase: “radical accessibility.” But what does that mean? First and foremost, we must be willing to listen to marginalized voices that we are most likely to exclude, so that we can understand their needs and how those needs are and aren’t being met. We must compassionately hold space for these voices, even when it means grappling with difficult emotions and truths. And, lastly, we must recognize the aspects of our practices and culture that act as barriers or drive people away, and then we must proactively dismantle what is not serving us. It will involve building relationships and re-evaluating priorities. It will require thinking of marginalized people not just as metrics, but as people we are curious about and excited to work with. Skating is often marketed as apolitical and detached from social issues. This simply isn’t the case. Skating, like everything else, is a product of our dominant culture. Skating has never been about perfection, but together we can work towards a more inclusive future for the sport. Imam told me that Oddity has been a “dream come true” for her as “a space with such a variety of lived experience, wisdom, and knowledge in it.” She added, “In actuality, it’s more than just a space to come longboard or skate, it’s a space where we talk, laugh, share our stories, our struggles, where we are heard, and actually seen. [Oddity] is filled with so much love, energy, and excitement all the time… There is a huge need and want for it.”
08 FEATURES
EDITOR | REBECCA GAO FEATURES@THESTRAND.CA
on mental illness and creativity By Ellen Grace
ILLUSTRATION
| ELLEN GRACE
FEATURES 09
@STRANDPAPER THE STRAND | 2 OCTOBER 2018
Every feeling, thought, and experience we encounter is viewed from the brain. We create mental frames for what we take to be reality. When our brain attempts to distort this reality, through trauma, addictions, and mental illness, we find creative ways to build new realities. The correlation between mental illness and creativity is often discussed, with the focus usually on whether or not the illness is the cause of original thought. As a mentally ill person, the ability to create and use art to express my feelings is one of my most valuable coping mechanisms. It allows me multiple means to show my feelings to others, including music, art, and the written word. Recently, I have begun wondering who I would be without my mental illness. Some of my own works I am most proud of have come from times of deep stress and depression, and some have come from times of pure clarity and joy. A considerable part of our society today involves condemning ideas that deviate from the norm. Both creative thinking and mental illness involve attributes that can be viewed as “different.” Just as in all aspects of living with
white. They think it involves either always experiencing symptoms, labelled “insanity,” or experiencing none at all. In her book on the connections between Bipolar Disorder and the artistic temperament, Kay Redfield Jamison notes, “Lucidity, however, is not incompatible with occasional bouts of madness, just as extended periods of normal physical health are not incompatible with occasional bouts of disease.” Scholars are quick to deny accusations of great artists being mentally ill, as they believe it will take away from the significant effort they put into their works. In discussing the life and work of William Blake, writer Harold Nicolson notes, “For those who defend against charges of insanity, much of the concern seems to stem from assumptions that ‘mad’ is somehow ‘bad,’ that madness is a fixed condition with no periods of rational thought or experience, that great art cannot come from madness and, therefore, great artists cannot have been mad.” Either way, since mental illness is not something that can be controlled, an artist’s mental illness should add no negative connotations to their work. Artists who are suspect-
artists, whether or not they are mentally ill. Simply put, art is the expression of an idea, and our ideas originate from the mind. “We have the most complex tool in the world, our mind, and no manual,” notes Hindu priest Dandapani, who dedicates his life to helping people navigate their brains. There is no correct way to express yourself. No matter the judgement on the content you create, art is a way to convey and work through feelings. From journaling to composing great symphonies, many artists write about how freeing it is to finally finish a work on a particular subject, as if it has taken the feeling away. Art is used as therapy in many areas of health and recovery. Writing fiction can allow you to escape to a new world, plunging yourself into a project is a way to leave behind your emotions for the time being. With all the discourse surrounding the correlation between art and mental illness, it is crucial to encourage people with mental illnesses to express themselves creatively. If no one with mental health issues ever made art, our world today would be void of so many seminal creations. It is imperative to tell our
suffering is not a prerequisite for good work, nor is it necessary for art mental illness, there are advantages and limitations to being an artist with a mental illness. For example, if your thoughts and experiences are already viewed as divergent, you may be more open to creative thinking. Psychologist J.P. Guilford concluded in his studies on creativity that “creative individuals [are] far more likely to exhibit divergent rather than convergent thinking.” He explained that creativity is a form of divergent thinking, influenced by several factors. While divergent thinking may lead to creation, the divergent thinking influenced by mental illness drastically changes how one views life and can have a deep impact on an artist’s work. Positive, welcoming environments with the freedom to take risks have been correlated with higher levels of creative thinking. However, depending on an individual’s experience and circumstances, they may not have the capacity for this mindset. The mental illness may tell the artist that the work isn’t worthy, to give up, and that they will never achieve greatness, therefore convincing the artist that it is not safe to share anything. Depression and suicidal ideation can lean toward rumination on the meaning of life and purpose. While this may lead to more art, often darkness is just darkness, not a creative tool. It is dangerous to ignore it for the sake of art and to leave illness untreated. One concern when discussing the work of artists who experience mental illnesses stems from the fact that many people do not understand that mental illness is not black and
ed to have experienced mental illness did not necessarily spawn their work in an entirely illness-induced state; they likely worked on it through a time that included many mental states. Jamison also notes, “In order for farflung or chaotic thoughts to be transformed into art, original and meaningful connections must be made.” Artists have noted that while they conceived an idea during a bout of selfdefined “madness,” they fixed and refined the idea while experiencing a clearer mental state. Another issue when discussing the mental health of an artist is the “tortured artist” trope, which can often lead to misdiagnosis or forced pain for the sake of art. Many poets and scholars imply that great creation comes from great suffering. Younger artists who see this suffering may seek to replicate it if they believe it is the birthplace of great work. All lives have varying emotions and emotional ups and downs, and the “tortured artist” trope is extremely dangerous to reinforce. No one should be encouraged to suffer for the sake of art. As long as we keep reinforcing this trope, those with mental illness may shy away from seeking help if they believe their suffering to be necessary for their art. Since artists are already viewed as different thinkers, they may not consider the fact that their thinking may stem from illness and avoid seeking help. Suffering is not a prerequisite for good work, nor is it necessary for art. If we group suffering and artistic work together, we are making a dangerous connection that is unsafe for all
stories so others feel represented and know they are not alone. Many current representations of mental illness in media involve negative and unrealistic portrayals, and use mental illness as a plot point. When more people with lived experience of mental illness are involved in the creation of media, the stories being portrayed can be more authentic and realistic. Positive representations of mental illness in media influence people to seek help and help people better understand what life is like as someone with a mental illness. These representations are best written by people who have experienced them. No matter how much trouble I have with my illness, it is part of who I am. It has had an undeniable effect on my work and creativity, and has allowed me to experience emotions that have led me to create great work. The emotions connected to living life with mental illness can be vastly different than those experienced by others. Maybe this is why artists who express these feelings in their work are seen as revolutionary. They have gone to the darkest, highest, and farthest places, and have come back to tell the tale. But this does not mean they went there willingly, nor does it mean that suffering is a requirement of good art. As the poet Lord Byron said: “I can never get people to understand that poetry is the expression of excited passion, and that there is no such thing as a life of passion any more than a continuous earthquake, or an eternal fever.”
Finding intersectional feminism in the psych ward
written by maia kachan
illustration by misbah ahmed
Content warning: mental illness
or comorbid addiction issues, and all were recently at a fragile intersection that had led them to need inpatient psychiatric care. Even with the heaviness of the things that led us to be locked inside a hospital, there were times when it felt surprisingly similar to a summer camp, albeit one for sick people. The bright yellow art room was where I found myself every evening, painting the sky with acrylics on my notebook paper and relishing in the messiness. When the art room closed and we had taken our nighttime medication, we would sit in the common area together. In between episodes of Grey’s Anatomy, we complained about the drowsiness from our Seroquel or our trazodone. How slow our world felt compared to the outside one. A psych ward is like an airport, or the subway, or a laundromat. It brings together a random collection of people with one thing in common and puts them in a transient space. This liminality was one of the most magical things about that place, because it made it easier to really, truly hear people. To listen to myself. I cried in front of those women more times than I have with almost anyone in my life. I stayed
The days leading up to my psychiatric admission feel more like a movie that I’m viewing rather than moments I’ve lived. I look back and watch the sleepless nights, racing thoughts, 20-kilometre walks, and intense mid-afternoon sadness like it’s someone else’s life. When I’m telling the story of how I walked myself to the psych hospital, I can laugh with my friends about the ways I flirted with all the emergency room doctors and spent my night in observation writing poetry on the walls. It’s only funny when it doesn’t feel like my own life. I arrived at the hospital three days after my 21st birthday. The morning after my night in observation, I was shuttled up the elevators to the ninth floor: a women-only inpatient unit. I spent 13 days in the hospital during the worst heat wave this summer. In a freezing cold, air conditioned bubble in the sky. A curious thing about struggling with an episode of severe mental illness is how quickly my life became
the first thing you learn in the psych ward is that everybody has a story up late giggling with my roommate who was in her mid 30s, an early child educator from North York. I learned how to make a dreamcatcher from an Indigenous patient who ran a workshop and brought materials from her community that we all paid her for. I spent an evening excitedly waiting with the rest of the ward to congratulate a young patient for attending Narcotics Anonymous for the first time, guided by an older patient in our unit. Slowly my world began to grow back, as my body and brain were cared for and tended to. I spent hours in group therapy confronting my own experiences, memories, and awareness. I wrote 41 pages in my journal. I realized that I was, in fact, not terrible at visual art. I slowly stopped being scared of the turbulent life I had left behind, and began to ache for a world that transcended the walls of the hospital.
smaller. I withdrew from everyone except my closest circle, who I clung to tightly, anchoring me in reality. It becomes easy to wallow in the thought that parts of your identity are falling away. I felt lost in my identities as an engaged student, a poet, an activist, a friend, a daughter. Mental illness is all-encompassing in how it takes over your mind, your body, and your life. The first thing you learn in the psych ward is that everybody has a story, and that those stories will gradually leak out of you and fill the five-foot space between your bed and theirs. Psychiatric inpatients are some of the best storytellers that I know. It isn’t my place to tell their stories, because then they wouldn’t belong to them anymore. I naively expected inpatient to be like Girl, Interrupted with me playing the part of moody Winona Ryder. The reality of serious mental illness and trauma quickly came crashing down on me in the women I met. Many struggled with housing insecurity, most were people of colour and part of the LGBTQ community, some had cognitive disabilities
I was released on a balmy Tuesday afternoon with six bags and a brain buzzing with follow-up care, resources, and friends. I was stabilized by an incredible women-led psychiatric care team, who worked far beyond the mechanics of their jobs to help me. 5
contributors
Maia Kachan Molly Kay Noah Kelly Hadiyyah Kuma Sanna Wani Maria Zelenova Georgia Lin
editors-in-chief Ainsley Doell Sabrina Papas
senior copy editor Tamara Frooman copy team Alyssa DiBattista Sandy Forsyth Rebecca Gao Noah Kelly Arin Klein Amelia Martinez-White Abbie Moser Harrison Wade
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design team Jay Bawar Sabrina Papas
cover illustration Aliya Ghare visuals Misbah Ahmed Melissa Avalos Mia Carnevale Keelin Gorlewski Molly Kay Anastasia Kozachinskaya Hana Nikcevic Yilin Zhu
contributors
Tamara Frooman Ellen Grace Mena Fouda Hana Nikcevic Rehana Mushtaq Kayleigh Birch