Artist-performer-activist Michele Kazakos
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“I ♥ the Tar Sands” at Bath’s Gallery 262 was a multi-media installation by
Michele Kazakos that included pottery, animal skulls, bird feathers, iron work
and frames of reclaimed wood. At the “Evening Salon” reception in September 2014,
attendees chatted with the artist and performer, seemingly pleased
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The artist's comments about the installation piece
shown at left in the photo at the top of the page.
Born in Ontario, Michele Kazakos is a professional clown, a “dark” clown at that, who is often seen at political events in costume and using the name “Aunty Political”. To give proof to the pseudonym, her recent art installation at the Bath Meeting House gallery spoke volumes about how she sees our country today and our own role in Canada’s evolution. Interestingly, Facebook recently took down her page without explanation; undaunted, she has migrated to Twitter.
Michele, tell me a bit about your background.
My training is in theatre. When I was in Victoria, I went to a Fringe Festival performance by UMO Ensemble. They practice a traditional clowning style called “bouffant” or dark clown and I found it was a wonderful way to tell stories. A workshop with Cirque du soleil led me to develop a clown troupe in Ontario before we moved here in 2007.
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| “When Trudeau spoke at Bath, I tried to go to event as myself but I would have been invisible,” says Ms Kazakos photographed here with federal Liberal foreign affairs critic Dominic LeBlanc and Brian Gallant, now the Premier of New Brunswick. |
Speaking as a dark clown, our job is to just sit and observe the madness and press a little. Joining many others, I talk about politics and what’s happening under Stephen Harper that has disturbed me so much. The Navigable Waters Act, the Supreme Court , the Senate mess ─ this is not Canada and these are not our grandparents’ Conservatives. We deserve better.
You also dress up in costume as a suffragette and attend political rallies. Why?
Because of my theatrical background, I just get out there and represent women in this visually clichéd way. I wear this costume to try and get the vote out… I walk around and people ask me, “What’s the point?” The point is, I’m representing what was fought for by women years ago: the vote that we are not valuing now. It’s the only voice we have.
made me do!”
Which brings me to the oil sands issue and the title of your installation here at Gallery 262, “I ♥ the Tar Sands”. What’s that all about?
We should worry when we sacrifice a region for economic gain because there is an expense. When the Conservatives had their convention in the spring, this button was spotted there and I grabbed it off the web. I was bilious! So my interpretation is this installation. It includes horse hair human hair, tar paper and a deer skull. Ultimately, I ask, how much are we willing to accept?
So Aunty Political, are you anti-oil, anti-progress?
In Alberta, I worked in the oil camps as a cook in the 1970s. So I’m not anti-progress but that wasn’t the tar sands. One viewer here today was disgusted by that tar sands button and another asked me, “Have you lost hope?” Hope without action is far too weak for the issues that we have to deal with in this global environment. We need to be prepared for things like Hurricane Arthur and find new solutions. Let’s use our imaginations.
What about the recent New Brunswick election?
This election was basically a referendum on shale gas and the public spoke. Hydraulic fracturing is kind of freaky... I’ve been reading about those little earthquakes that come with fracking. Now we have work to do, all of us. The best news is that (Green Party leader) David Coon is in our Legislature. It’s a breakthrough. The Greens are smart, they’re thoughtful.
What about the next federal election?
I think maybe I’ll take out the costume as a nod to the suffragettes and talk to youth who say “nobody speaks for me.” There’s nothing like a cliché to make a point.
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| Also on view at the show were a few more traditional artworks by Kazakos such as this 2010 acrylic triptych, Belle Ville, which she never completed because, she explained, “people seemed to like it just the way it is.” |