Ugliness and Savagery in Art as a Crisis of the Sacred in Aesthetics?: Dimitri Goossens
.. it's an interesting video ..
Tedx talks Published on Dec 5, 2012
Dimitri Goossens is a historian and philosopher. He has been a teacher at a secondary school since 1997. First, he has been attached as a teacher in history, aesthetics, art history, sociology, media and philosophy to the Royal Atheneum of Schaarbeek (Brussels). Now, he works at the College of Essen. He is preparing for his PhD in art philosophy at the Free University of Brussels under the supervision of Em. Prof. Dr. A. Van den Braembussche and Prof. Dr. D. Lesage about the possibility of a sacred experience in shocking art and images of death and its representations of the body. In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)
.. i think Dimitri, in a sense, anyway, is touching on the 'bring God back to where he was born' idea, back into the essence of our humanity .. that goes for the devil, too ..
This undated photo provided by the Oregon State Hospital shows a copper urn containing the cremated remains of Wencel Devorak, a former patient at the Oregon state mental hospital. ASSOCIATED PRESS
By JONATHAN J. COOPER Posted: 07/06/2014 9:30 pm EDT Updated: 1 hour ago
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — They were dubbed the "forgotten souls" — the cremated remains of thousands of people who came through the doors of Oregon's state mental hospital, died there and whose ashes were abandoned inside 3,500 copper urns.
Discovered a decade ago at the decrepit Oregon State Hospital, where "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" was filmed, the remains became a symbol of the state's — and the nation's — dark history of treating the mentally ill.
A research effort to unearth the stories of those who moved through the hospital's halls, and to reunite the remains with surviving relatives, takes center stage Monday as officials dedicate a memorial to those once-forgotten patients.
"No one wants to be laid to rest without some kind of acknowledgement that they were here, that they contributed, that they lived," said state Senate President Peter Courtney, who led a successful effort to replace the hospital and build the memorial.
Between 1913 and 1971, more than 5,300 people were cremated at the hospital.
Most were patients at the mental institution, but some died at local hospitals, the state tuberculosis hospital, a state penitentiary or the Fairview Training Center, where people with developmental disabilities were institutionalized.
Hospital officials have been working for years to reunite the remains of their former patients with surviving relatives. Since the urns were found by lawmakers on a tour of the hospital in 2005, 183 have been claimed.
The 3,409 that remain and have been identified are listed in a searchable online database. Thirty-eight urns will likely never be identified; they're unmarked, have duplicate numbers or aren't listed in ledgers of people cremated at the hospital.
They came from different backgrounds, for different reasons.
Some stayed just days before they died, others for nearly their entire lives. They came from every state except Alaska and Hawaii. Nearly 1,000 were born in 44 countries. Five were born at sea.
Twenty-two were Native Americans. Their remains won't be part of the memorial; they'll be returned to their tribe for a proper ceremony. Members of the local Sikh community are working to claim the remains of two people.
Many of the 110 veterans still there will eventually receive proper military burials, though some are ineligible due to dishonorable discharges or insufficient information available.
Some patients spent a lifetime at the hospital for conditions like depression and bipolar disorder that, in modern times, are treated on an outpatient basis.
"At the time, they just put them in a safe place and treated them with what they knew to treat them," said Sharon Tucker, who led the two-year research project.
Records are sparse, even for people who lived for decades inside the walls. Some suffered from severe delusions, others from physical deformities. Some seemed to be institutionalized because their families just didn't know what to do with them.
But what does survive is a window not only into who they were, but the time in which they lived.
— Mr. S. Erickson was committed on Feb. 2, 1929, at age 78. A doctor who examined him wrote that he "wanders around naked at night" and suffers from senility. A laborer, 5-foot-5, 125 pounds with gray hair and blue eyes, he arrived in New York from Norway on the steamship Norstatter on Aug. 22, 1883, according to the doctor's report.
— Wencel Devorak, a saddler born in Bohemia, was 33 when he was committed on Jan. 31, 1890 struggling with delusions that others on the road to Portland were following him and teasing him about his wife. The handful of notes in his file show his delusions continued throughout his 40-year stay at the hospital.
— Susanna Weber arrived at Dammasch State Hospital, a now-closed mental institution, on July 26, 1962 at age 82. A widower, she was committed by her sister and a friend, who had cared for her for three years, but couldn't keep going. She'd been sent to a nursing home, but administrators kicked her out because she wouldn't stop wandering and rifling through other patients' possessions, according to a social worker's report written shortly after Weber arrived.
The remains of Erickson, Devorak, Weber and thousands of others have been transferred from the copper canisters to ceramic urns that will better protect them. The old canisters will be preserved to give visitors to the memorial a sense for how they once were housed.
"I think it will be very difficult to forget them now," said Jodie Jones, the state administrator leading the hospital replacement project.
800 dead babies are probably just the beginning The former Bons Secours home for unmarried mothers in Tuam, County Galway, Ireland. The corpses thought to be in an Irish septic pit resulted from a larger problem.
Here’s a letter giving state approval of Tuam mother and baby home The letter on behalf of the Minister for Health of the day was issued to mother and baby homes who were seeking approval as maternity homes. Jun 14, 2014 http://www.thejournal.ie/letter-tuam-mother-and-baby-home-1513403-Jun2014/ [with comments]
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79% of babies who died in Tuam home didn't reach first birthday An infant’s shoes are held up at a march of 300 people from the Department of Children and Youth Affairs on Mespil Road to Government Buildings to protest about the death of babies at the Tuam mother-and-baby home. General Register Office records show 796 children died at an average age of 7.7 months Jun 18, 2014 http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/79-of-babies-who-died-in-tuam-home-didn-t-reach-first-birthday-1.1836023
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County homes took harsh toll on ‘unmarried mothers’ Candles are lit during a march from the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, Mespil Road to the Dáil, in solidarity with the babies and mothers from Tuam and all other homes. Hard unpaid labour was part of the price mothers paid for basic shelter for themselves and their babies Jun 18, 2014 http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/county-homes-took-harsh-toll-on-unmarried-mothers-1.1835973
The horror of Tuam's missing babies is not diminished by misreported details Some commentators believe the popular outrage around the Tuam story is fake, but they are wrong. Tuam's mothers and the unhappily pregnant today are not unconnected. It is time for Ireland to liberalise its abortion laws 4 July 2014 http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/05/horror-tuam-missing-babies-not-diminished [with comments]
DC Entertainment Reverses Superman Ban On Memorial For Abused Boy In Remembrance of Little Jeffrey Baldwin 07/08/2014 [...] Jeffrey was a happy and healthy child [ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/mom-of-starved-boy-says-grandmother-needed-custody-of-kids-as-a-source-of-income/article14737871/ ] before he, and his three siblings, were sent to live with their maternal grandparents, according to The Canadian Press. Jeffrey’s mother, Yvonne Kidman, said during the inquest that her mother, Elva Bottineau, only wanted custody of the kids because she lived in social housing and without them she could lose her house. Jeffrey weighed just 21 pounds[, one pound less than he did on his first birthday ( http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/chronology-of-jeffrey-baldwin-starvation-case-1.1686027 ),] when he died [just shy of his sixth birthday]. He and his sister were locked in a cold room with little furniture for long periods of time, and weren’t allowed to use the bathroom because they drank from the toilet. They urinated and defecated in their bedroom and were then forced to mop it up, according to The Canadian Press. Jeffrey could barely walk or lift his own head at the end of his life. His sister likely survived because she was allowed to go to school where she had access to a daily snack, the news outlet reported. The Catholic Children's Aid Society didn’t investigate the grandparents’ background [ http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/jeffrey-baldwin-inquest-jury-makes-103-recommendations-1.1686023 ] before sending the kids to live with them. Elva Bottineau and her husband, Norman Kidman, had both previously been convicted of abusing children in the past, according to The Canadian Press. "[The statue] will allow children to play with Jeffrey [ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/jeffrey-baldwin-memorial ], a neglected, abused child that was prevented from having any friends to play with himself during his short life," Boyce wrote. "Jeffrey was a vulnerable little boy who deserved so much more than what he got." [...] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/08/jeffrey-baldwin-superman-logo_n_5567742.html [with comments]
Pope apologizes for ‘deplorable conduct’ of some Catholics in residential schools
2014 - "Nearly 800 Children Found In Mass Grave Near Former Home For Unwed Mothers In Ireland"
By Stefano Pitrelli and Amanda Coletta
Yesterday at 8:22 a.m. EDT|Updated today at 3:42 p.m. EDT
VIDEO - Meeting with pope a 'divine moment' for Indigenous leaders from Canada Indigenous leaders from Canada's First Nations spoke after a meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican on March 31. (Video: Reuters, Photo: Reuters)
VATICAN CITY — After years of resisting calls to do so, Pope Francis on Friday apologized for the “deplorable conduct” of some Catholics in Canada’s residential school system for Indigenous children, saying he was “deeply grieved” by the stories of “suffering, hardship, discrimination and various forms of abuse” from survivors.
Echoes of Ireland: 751 graves found at Canadian Catholic school for indigenous children
The Cowessess First Nation said that the discovery at the Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan was the "most significant" to date in Canada.
Shane O'Brien @shamob96 Jun 25, 2021
"The residential school was operated by the Catholic Church between 1899 and 1997, but it is not yet clear whether all of the remains are linked to the school." iStock
An indigenous nation in Canada has found 751 unmarked graves at a former Catholic residential school in Saskatchewan, just weeks after the remains of 215 children were uncovered at a similar Catholic school in British Columbia.
In Canada, like Ireland, church and state evade accountability Unmarked mass grave in British Columbia raises familiar concerns
Sat, Jun 5, 2021, 00:30 Emer O'Toole
A red dress on a stake near the former Kamloops Indian residential school in British Columbia, Canada: The residential school system, which operated from 1876 until 1996, was designed as a tool of cultural genocide. Photograph: Cole Burston
An unmarked mass grave of an estimated 215 children has been found at the former site of the Catholic-run Kamloops Residential School in British Columbia, Canada. The bodies represent just a small number of the First Nations children removed from their parents and communities who never returned home.
Murray Sinclair, former chair of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), estimates that between 15,000 and 25,000 indigenous children died in the system. He cannot be more exact than that – not about numbers, names, causes of death or burial sites – because records that could help are sitting in church archives, and advocates say they are being withheld.
The residential school system, which operated from 1876 until 1996, was designed as a tool of cultural genocide – a means to “kill the Indian in the child”. John A McDonald, the first prime minister of Canada, and an architect of the Indian Act that led to the system, famously explained:
“When the school is on the reserve the child lives with its parents, who are savages, and though he may learn to read and write, his habits and training and mode of thought are Indian. He is simply a savage who can read and write. It has been strongly impressed upon myself, as head of the department, that Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in central training industrial schools where they will acquire the habits and modes of thought of white men.”
Children were rounded up by the state, stolen from parents who loved them, and placed in hell. You can guess what happened in those institutions. Sexual abuse so endemic that, later, the Canadian government would assign survivors a points system to quantify it. Violence was as much a part of the children’s daily routine as any schoolwork. Child labour. Overcrowding. Dilapidated buildings. Neglect. Cold. Hunger. Disease. Death. For most of the history of the system, children’s bodies were not returned to their parents. Sometimes, parents were not even told their children had died.
- Children were rounded up by the state, stolen from parents who loved them, and placed in hell -
In 2015, the TRC’s Working Group on Missing Children and Unmarked Burials recommended that Canada assign resources to research four questions: 1. How many children died in the residential schools? 2. What did they die of? 3. Where are they buried? and 4. Who are they? According to Sinclair, Canada is no closer to answers today. This, he says, is because of resistance from the churches that ran the schools – he criticises the Catholic Church in particular – as well as from the state. The government issues apologies, it announces memorial events, even a national day of remembrance, but, Sinclair says, it makes no effort to find the children, to investigate how they died or to pursue justice for their families.
Absence of political will
Does this sound familiar? The abuse. The shocking mortality rates. The missing bodies. The wall of silence. The pain of families whose children have been buried without dignity. The professed shock of politicians, where if they had listened to survivors there could be no shock at all. The official apologies paired, barefaced, with a continued refusal to listen or act. The knowledge that this is not the only unmarked mass grave. The absence of political will to find the others. I am sure that to many Irish people this sounds very familiar indeed.
There are significant differences between Canada’s residential schools, which enacted cultural genocide, and Ireland’s mother and baby homes and industrial schools, which erased and abused the children of unmarried mothers and of the working classes. But today, in both Canada and Ireland, the children lost to these inhuman systems are refusing to stay hidden. They are forcing a reckoning. Hundreds of small bodies, found lying as if unloved, have shocked nations to attention. The placating whispers of apologists can’t withstand the testimony of those small bones.
First Nations communities want accountability. At a ceremony last Sunday at Kamloops, survivors told stories of the family members who went missing, of the powerlessness and pain when no one did anything about it. Ojibwe reporter and storyteller Tanya Talaga asks, “Where is the list of children’s names? Why didn’t the police investigate? What in God’s name are they doing now?”
Manny Jules, former chief of Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation and a survivor of the Kamloops school, calls for concrete solutions – not platitudinous talk of “healing”. He and his community want forensic analysis to investigate causes of death. They want DNA testing to reunite children with their families. Jules calls the deaths criminal and believes the Catholic Church must bear responsibility.
‘Fog and noise’
In Ireland, the Tuam Home Survivors Network has been asking for almost identical modes of accountability. In January, it called out a government hiding behind the “fog and noise” of the leaked mother and baby homes report while pushing through legislation preventing inquests into the deaths of children at Tuam. Meanwhile, the families of the missing Bessborough children have had to fight developers in court to halt building on the land where they believe their loved ones are buried.
- There are people and institutions that will do everything in their power to keep these histories hidden -
On Wednesday, Prof Mary Daly, a member of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes, told an academic seminar that the testimonies of over 500 survivors who spoke to the commission’s confidential committee were effectively ignored in formulating the final report. This means that very little survivor testimony informed the commission’s findings .
Daly recounted that when draft reports were submitted to Catholic congregations for response, the order at Tuam claimed that the mass grave was not, in fact, as ordinance survey maps indicate, a disused structure for the management of waste water, but rather “a purpose-built vault, like those used to inter the royalty of Europe”.
Accountability, justice, truth: in Ireland as in Canada, this is what survivors of church- and state-perpetrated violence are asking for. It is what the children lying in mass graves deserve. There are people and institutions that will do everything in their power to keep these histories hidden. But as Tanya Talaga says, “It is time to find our children. Show them they are not forgotten. That they mattered and are loved.”
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