Why Am I Doing
#Canada150, and what is one of my best ideas, ever?
(Edited for focus, spelling, grammar, etc., Feb. 28. Evolving document.)
It’s
yuuuuuggge.
The working
design for the first piece is a cast bronze #Thunderbird (approx. 8
foot x 10 foot) with a flashing red navigation beacon light in the
#heart position, atop a reflective, polished stainless steel pillar
(cylinder, rectangle, column... whatever we can afford or find).
The
second piece to be done in collaboration with a local/regional
Indigenous artist/community. My current plan for the second piece is to consult with representatives of that community and identify an artist to work with.
My initial thought
for the second piece is a Snowy Owl. I always liked the Inuit imagery
that were available to me, as a child. They are part of my awakening
to #art. [Thank you Grandma Edith and Grandpa Charlie and the
DEWLINE.] It is a great juxtaposition with my great #Bird from
#TheSouth. :)
My process for choosing locations, considered as seen from Google Earth view:
a) Bare rock
b) isolation. Room for local growth (dock, hotel, gift shops...)
c) roughly located at navigationally significant “gate points” for major transit entrances/exits of the #NWP
d) available level ground at least 10 metres above current sea-level.
Work towards saving the ice, plan for the worst; Should these pieces be placed to stay above expected sea level rise?
Please contact me if you are in
the Far North. Do you like this idea? This is my decolonial gesture;
my begging permission to impose upon the land. With my work. I offer
it as a vision of our #Indigenous vow to protect and advocate for
“the land” even if we are stuck in the inertia of “The
Greater-Society”. In this case, I advocate for the Greater Society,
as well as for the #Indigenous. We have mutual interests and long
history.
The desire to
travel the region, for pleasure and business is going to continue,
grow. The infrastructure of
Indigenous communities, often the only public
infrastructure in these areas, are incapable of meeting the needs of
the people there, now, never mind the impending trickle,
then perhaps flood of tourists, oil explorers, diamond miners, etc. Rather than building new towns
for tourists to visit and get their BrandX Coffee and fast foods,
under the Aurorae, finally finish the infrastructure of reservations
and Inuit villages to the expectations of Southern suburbs, so that
they have the infrastructure to host you and your RV/Cruiseship, plus
have eggs and espresso available.
That is my
big idea for #Canada150. I have a nonstatic post,
below, which is an
evovolving description, budget, timeline documentationing the
#SOTNWP project. Now, I would like to tell you about one of the best
ideas I ever had. :)
...
A few years
back, there was a certain piece of land that was being leased by a
NorthWestern Ontario town, from the province, or country, or local
#FirstNations. Doesn’t matter. Point is; the lease was up and it
was supposed to revert back to the local First Nations communities. I
do not know if the “ownership” of the property has been resolved,
yet, but it was in a state of mutual inertias, when I left.
The property
seemed to exist in an uncomfortable legal grey area. The public infrastructure dwindled or was removed, before stewardship was supposed to be
repatriated. The garbage was still picked-up and the roads plowed;
campground and beach on life support. Jobs, inertia.
This grey area,
however, looked like a potential “new Hong Kong” that I had heard
about in a TED talk, or something like that. “Experimental economic
zones” outside of local national laws, like the new economic zones
of China. The property is/was quite explicitly between Canada and the United
States; outside of provincial(?) Township or Indigenous
ownership.
So. My best
idea, ever, started out as the notion of having the federal
government declare the property A “Legal-Weed Zone”, (Edit: There's probably a better term for that.) including recreational, lodging, R&D and medicinal facilities, whose
stewardship and profits were to be shared by regional First Nations
and local townships as their neighbours prosper.
My vision was tainted, under the omnipresent pall of #StephenHarper,
also included the threat of circling law enforcement agencies funded
by civil asset forfeiture, but that is not the point, here, either.
My best ,
evolved version of the idea was even simpler. In the face of a few
trends/reasons:
a) Under growing
economic demand, cultural demand, medical demand and legal reforms... Cannabis legalisations and decriminalisations are occurring all over
the world, as well as in Canada (supposedly).
b) The belated,
enduring need to fund First Nations and Inuit infrastructure is
coinciding with...
c) Canada’s need
to develop rural/Northern #Canada. First
Nations and local townships are necessarily linked, economically.
Give
control of the emerging economic resource, Cannabis, over to First
Nations. Entirely.
In short: If you
want to produce Cannabis for medicinal or recreational use, you have
to rent facilities on Native land, hire locals, be a good corporate
partner, etc., or license local commercial grow/distribution rights
from the “Regional Indigenous Cannabis Council Of Elders”, or
whatever.
If you’re a
“real conservative”, then you want to give less taxes to
government and perhaps want government out of the “Weed business”,
for tax and morality reasons, maybe. You are living off trees, gold,
wheat, fish and oil. There is a new, impending resource sector that
is willing to fund what you don’t want to, give it to the
#Indigenous peoples; we will get our hands dirty and we will spread it around, better. (I go into greater speculative detail, in this
prev.post.)
Anyways. Nobody
responded back then, and time is getting short in #Canada. There are some major
legislatory and corporate gears grinding away, in anticipation for some announcement on #CannabisCanada this year. Give us the Weed, Justin.
Regardless, I would still like a few hundred thousand
dollars for myself and an Inuit artist partner (to be discovered and
named later) to design and create the first two monumental
sculptures, so that we can fundraise and beg for icebreaker ships,
solar power nav-beacon rigs and concrete to fall softly from the
heavens or NGO-space, or the federal government, for two installations, 3 years out. I would consider the
creation and installation of both pieces in that time period,
reasonable.
Thanks.
Sincerely,
:Eric C. Keast
