Face to Face: The Artist & Activist

By the time I arrive in front of 918 Bathurst Street, an arts and media hub for the West End community, the night is already in full swing. Tonight, the former Buddhist temple that now acts as a performance space is filled with audience members, poets and musicians who are enjoying the evening with R.I.S.E (Reaching Intelligent Souls Everywhere) — an organization dedicated to supporting youth to express their creative voice, develop innovative and artistic leadership skills, and work from a place of love, social-consciousness, and political awareness. R.I.S.E, which normally operates from Scarborough, is being co-hosted by Faduma Mohamed: a long-time friend, poet, playwright, and activist who shared a bit of her story with me tonight. We talked about many things, from the art and young people, to our favorite music and how she got involved in playwriting, as well as her activism work with people who live on the autism spectrum and their families. 

We moved quickly into talking about Art: we talked about her experience with playwriting and how that opened up a whole other avenue of artistic possibilities within her craft. 

Art acts as a number of venues for me: firstly, it is a creative muscle and its an opportunity for me to exercise a part of me that will always be a part of me. Secondly, art functions for me as a venue for healing and that’s probably the most important part. Everyone needs their avenue to heal from whatever it is they are going through. Art is my thing. Poetry, playwriting, acting is my thing.

Healing is an interesting concept to connect to activism: Faduma’s exploration of playwriting connects to socio-political issues that are most important to her and the act of writing her first two plays connects healing, activism, and art all together.   

I was able to take activism and disability and autism/autism awareness and combine it with art in the two plays I wrote. There was Oughtism and then the sequel Golden Mind, which follows the life of Tar, a black, non-verbal, autistic Savant and how he journeys through love, society, and family and a world that wants to exterminate autism. I thought I was just a poet. I thought all I could do was write poems but she (D’bi Young, Artistic Director of Watah Theatre) broke through for me what I never thought I could do—never mind write a one woman play but act in a one woman show.

Speaking about plays like Oughtism and Golden Mind out there, not only as artistic material but also learning material about the world of Autism, prompted me to direct Faduma towards the next topic of our conversation: what did she think about the educational aspect of art? and what barriers do young people face in having their art produced and distributed? 

Learning through the arts is the only method I can think of where you’re learning without knowing you’re learning. There’s a particular approach to learning in a school or academic setting, a formalized shield between students and what they are being taught, but that shield is removed when learning through art and I think that’s why young people will always be attracted to art. 

While we both agree that an artistic approach to learning is both necessary to deinstitutionalizing the education system, not to mention addressing other styles of learning, producing art is no easy endeavour: especially if your young and may not have the economic independence necessary to pursue cultivating your artistic practise.  Faduma is well versed in the trials and barriers young people face when it comes to creating an artistic practise and has experienced her own struggles with producing her art.

When we talk about barriers young people are facing in either the production of art, the access to resources to produce that art, or the sharing of the art, it comes down to so many things but I think class is a big thing. If your art-craft is expensive, like being a videographer, and you need a good camera and don’t have it, you’re less likely to do it unless someone gives you an upper hand. 

As a poet, I didn’t need money to write a poem but I did need money to go to the places where I could perform. My diet was horrible when I was younger because I would budget out the day—I was like, I have ten dollars and I’m going to have one meal I will eat at 4:00 pm so that way I’m hungry enough to survive the day and full enough to get through the night. 

Faduma, however, is quick to point out that the restrictions on young artists look different depending on where you come from. There is no universal experience to define all the barriers facing youth artists: There are a number of factors that affect artists and they don’t affect all artists equally. 

Another thing to consider is intersections: does your family support your art? Are there some cultural barriers that prevent you from pursuing your art? But that is also to say, whether you are born and raised Canadian or whether your a Somali refugee, art seems to be one of those things where everyone is afraid to follow their dreams because people think there is no money in it. In this regard,  the psychology around us making futures as artists can be a barrier. Intersectionality, I think helps answer that question around barriers.

We move onto lighter topics: favorite music, for instance, is met with enthusiasm. When I ask what song speaks to her most in the moment, she replies with singing a small refrain from Damian Rice’s The Blowman’s Daughter. 

It’s just the lyrics, you know? I’m a huge fan of Damian Rice and Dallas Green. I also love the fact that most of my friends hate my music.

I ask what is the best piece of advice she’s ever received.

It’s my voicemail actually. Jim Carrey’s quote: “So many of us choose our path out of fear disguised as practicality. What we really want seems impossibly out of reach and ridiculous to expect so we never dare to ask the universe for it. I’m the proof you can ask the universe for it.”

 Favorite quote in the whole wide world. Everyone thinks about living his or her life the safe way or the comfortable way or the practical way. Not a lot of us think about how we live the most fulfilled life or the happiest or the most joyous and what does that even look like? So for me, when he says ask the universe for it, even though I believe in Allah as my God, I still frame it as ‘ask’. Ask and do the work and you shall receive.

In the distance, I can hear people applauding. While we have been talking, I can intermittently hear poetry and music floating over to us from where R.I.S.E is still holding their event. Prior to speaking with Faduma, I had a chance to listen in on the poetry being recited on stage. It never ceases to amaze me how personal these artists’ stories are and how beautifully articulated through their words. The human experience is why, I think, we create art in the first place: art is, in my view, our own worlds reflected back to us in fragments. I want to know what parts of Faduma’s interior world inspire her and drives her to create her art in the first place. In the past, when we worked together in theatre creation, all of our material came from our most poignant moments in our lives at the time. With this in mind, I ask Faduma what she can define as her most joyous moment. 

My most joyous moment is when my nephew said eedo, which means Auntie. I was like, ‘what? What did you say?’ Oh my Gosh, I was so happy it hurt. But now it’s funny because my nephew is three years old and my mom and I go see him together. In Somalia, grandmother is ayeeyo so he squishes us together so it’s always ‘ayeeyo-eedo’ or ‘eedo-ayeeyo’. He just combines both our names and calls us that whenever he sees us, never separate[laughs]. 

Whenever I hear Faduma’s poetry, it always strikes me as both deeply personal but crafted with attention to lyricism. I always wondered how she got there: my assumption, based on the intensity of her poetry,  is that she must enter some sort of deep meditative state, a quiet place to retrieve the memories that inform her poems. When I ask, without mentioning my Sitting-Under-A-Bodhi Tree theory, what her access points are for writing poetry, the answer is surprisingly straight-forward.  

My entry point for writing poetry…Driving. Music. The shower. When I’m walking away from someone I love. The driving and the shower mostly! I am also so thankful that, in my practise, I do a lot of different things. I can’t do the same things all the time. To be honest, it’s not the Arts stuff, it’s the Oughtism Fundraising stuff that kind of fuels me the most. It’s also the thing I do the least often: Meeting families that need money and the community helps me make sure that happens. We have an annual fundraiser where people on the spectrum, siblings, and families come and share their stories and for me that’s so important because I just wish when I was in my teens, as a child, being where I could hear other people’s stories would have changed the trajectory of my life had I known we’re not the only ones—because my brother lives with autism. It’s funny, its not the art, it’s the activism right now.

As we move towards the end of our conversation, I ask about role models and politics—especially considering Ford’s recent cuts to arts funding and how we now know the results of the Federal election and what that could mean for the arts community. 

Thomas Sankara is definitely my role model. He was the president of Burkina Faso, an African country. He was a feminist before any politician thought of being a feminist. He was thinking about environmentalism at a time when no one was thinking about environmentalism. He prioritized education in ways we had never seen. He was a young leader and I think if he had time to live out his days, he would have learned from his mistakes.

While theatre and art can be political, with many theatre artists and scholars arguing art is inherently political, Faduma is thoughtful about the role politics plays in artistic communities and the social changes that art can address.

Especially as an artist, it is also important to look up to people who are making a change in policies. In that arena—because as artists we can make changes socially but we can’t deny the other changes that need to be made politically. I didn’t vote for Trudeau but I understand why people did the strategic voting thing. Pick your poison type of thing—I’d rather people vote who they believe in rather than it being based on who they don’t want to be our Prime Minister. I would say he got lucky.

As a final question, I ask what her dream project would be.

Definitely write a film. Now that I know I can write a play, I want to try my hand at writing a film. You know, I want to be in a film. It’s so funny because you start as a writer and a spoken-word poet/performer and a playwright and actor in theatre and then you’re like: hmm, I’ve done those things, those were fun. I want to try that now too.

And after speaking with Faduma, I know that she will pursue this the same way she has pursued her other artistic projects: with fierce determination and a premature wisdom that has been characteristic of her since we met. 

As we say goodbye and I cut across the lobby of 918 Bathurst street to head back into the windy, autumn night, I can’t help but feel warmed by our conversation. This was the first time in a while since Faduma and I spoke in person but to be in the room with her, you would think no time had passed at all. I am thinking about what will come back to me when I transcribe my recording of us later tonight, what will resonate and what will piece together when I listen a second time. I am thinking about the room of artists and poets and musicians who are still celebrating each other’s company long into the night.

“I am thinking about the universe and what would happen if we all dared to ask for what we really want.”
-Meagan after a face to face with Faduma

Meagan Gove

This article is a “Face to Face” feature, an online Arts and Life event that allows young writers to spotlight the people in their lives that they want to share with the world.

Check out all of the posts in this series at: https://home.blnkpage.org/category/artslife/

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Please note that opinions expressed are the author’s own. They do not necessarily reflect the views and values of The Blank Page.