Needs satisfaction and the emergence from poverty

What can I do? Artists Needed

Category: Poverty

When: 10:00 AM October 26, 2007 to 11:59 PM October 26, 2007

Call For Proposals –
in collaboration with the Collective for a poverty-free Quebec

With this call for proposals in collaboration with the Collective for a poverty-free Quebec, we are pleased to launch our new focus LEVIER/In Our Lifetime. Informed by our experience over the past 6 years, we have decided to center our attention on the singular issue – however vast in scope – of a more equitable control and distribution of resources. With our commitment to this problematic comes an imaginative and critical engagement to reduce the gap between the economically wealthy and the financially impoverished in Quebec and beyond.

In keeping with this shift we have come up with a new process related to sharing the resources available to the LEVIER Project. Rather than continue to receive applications directly from artists we have opted to associate ourselves with community groups and organizations who themselves have committed to the struggle for equality and a poverty-free world. The LEVIER Project’s role from hereon in will be to support the efforts of these community groups and organizations by bringing creativity and art into the process. Some, like Fredrick Ouko, Co-director of the Creative Arts Promotion (a project of the Kibera Community Youth Program in Nairobi, Kenya) would actually go so far as to say: “The arts are the only way left to go if we want genuine and effective community development.” Working in this manner will provide us with what we consider a stronger potential for our continued learning about the personal, social, political, economic, and spiritual implications of poverty.
 
CAMPAIGN:
Needs satisfaction and the emergence from poverty

Beginning at the end of November or early in December, the Collective for a poverty-free Quebec will launch its 2008 yearlong, province-wide campaign Couvrir les besoins et sortir de la pauvreté (roughly translated to mean Needs Satisfaction And The Emergence From Poverty).

Why this campaign? 

According to the campaign strategy as articulated by the Collective: “The goal of this campaign is to increase our political weight through popular mobilization in order to make further inroads in the struggle with poverty.” 
With this campaign the Collective aims to solicit as much support as possible (amongst the general public and within the different sectors of Quebec society) for their vision of ending poverty. This vision includes the following three principles:
1. A guarantee of universal public services
2. A minimum wage that makes it possible to live above the poverty line (10 $/hour)
3. A public guarantee of no less than 12 000 $/year for a single person – the minimum needed for survival

In order to reinforce the efforts of the Collective for a poverty-free Quebec, LEVIER is inviting all interested artists to propose a symbol/object/gesture that would be integrated into the Collective’s 2008 popular mobilization campaign. It is anticipated that this symbol/object/gesture could contribute in a powerful way to the advancement of a more equitable society.

Recent history has shown how effective such an artistic intervention can be. While here in Quebec we are most likely familiar with the red square from its use in the 2005 students’ strike, how many of us are aware that its first appearance was initiated by the Collective for a poverty-free Quebec as a symbol of objection to impoverishing governmental measures? The red square’s re-emergence at the time of the student strike was remarkably effective, extremely popular and very widely sported.

Although the time is short, we invite you to consider what could galvanize attention for the current campaign in the struggle against poverty. Please send us a brief description of your idea along with details of production and a strategy for dissemination keeping in mind the goals of the 2008 Campaign as articulated by the Collective for a poverty-free Quebec. As well, please include a brief biography along with your proposal.

In addition to providing an artist’s fee, LEVIER will assume the production expenses for the selected project. We encourage you to critically reflect on working within an economy of means as you consider an appropriate symbol/object/gesture to accompany the Couvrir les besoins et sortir de la pauvreté campaign.

DEADLINE: OCTOBER 26, 2007

You can send your proposals electronically to the following email address: levier@engrenagenoir.ca
Alternately you may send your proposal to our postal box:
C.P. 223, succ. Delorimier, Montreal H2H 2N6

For more information on the history and work of the Collective please refer to their Website: http://www.pauvrete.qc.ca

For any additional information about this call for proposals please address your questions to us at LEVIER (and not directly to the Collective). You can leave us a voice message at (514) 523-5700 or email us at levier@engrenagenoir.ca

In celebration of the resilience and creative potential within each of us,
Johanne Chagnon and Devora Neumark

Contact information: Johanne Chagnon and Devora Neumark (514) 523-5700 levier@engrenagenoir.ca

Web link for more information: http://www.pauvrete.qc.ca

Source: Collective for a poverty-free Quebec

by LEVIER