November 10, 2005 Source: Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design:
http://www.eciad.ca/www/whatson/newsDetails.php?id=225 Honorary Degree + Emily Award Recipient Speeches - 2005 Michael Audain
Honorary Doctorate Recipient
Emily Carr Institute Graduation Ceremony
May 7, 2005 I would like to thank everyone responsible for me receiving this honourary degree. Thank you fro welcoming me, a businessman, into the midst of so many artists. I am particularly pleased to be here to day in the company of you new graduates, many of whom I am sure have overcome significant challenges to obtain your education. Some of you will be returning to your homes elsewhere or seeking careers in the other places. Good luck to you. Bon Chance! But, for those of you who elect for a future in British Columbia, I have a feeling that some good things are starting to happen on the local art scene – partly stimulated by the 2010 Olympic Games, but also because of a growing recognition by those in government and the business community that the future of our province will be more related to the creative use of the mind, rather than to the chainsaws and pneumatic drills of the past. I wonder if the faculty of this institute are really aware that the person on whom you are bestowing a degree today, unlike his illustrious colleagues on the stage, has absolutely no artistic accomplishments to his name? I never studied art beyond Grade 5, and all I can remember about those art classes was getting a mark 4 out of 10 because my maple leafs were not realistic enough to satisfy the teacher. I also have a job which is rather low on the social status scale – you know that thing that is compiled by sociologists which ranks job prestige based on survey research. It usually starts out with judges at the top and then physicians and university presidents. Well, somewhere down at the bottom of the scale are real estate developers. Yes, that’s me. No wonder my kids never told their friends at school what job Dad did! Actually, I really wish that I could delude myself that I was being awarded this degree for the over 15,000 homes that my company has built, but, I suspect that it’s probably more to do with having some good friends who are aware of how much I care about art….people like Gordon and Marion Smith. Yes, I may not know much about art, but I do care about it. My wife, Yoshi, shares that passion and we are fortunate enough to live with quite a few works created by Emily Carr faculty and alumni. My first encounter with the arts was at the age of 10 when I had an opportunity to attend the children’s programs at the Provincial Museum in Victoria. Afterwards, I used to wander around for an hour or so amongst their wonderful First Nations artefacts. In those days, you could actually pick up and handle a mask carved by an artist of long ago. As a child, I read what I could about the mythic world of the original peoples of this Coast and marvelled at their ability to translate the spirit world into art forms. What I learned from the First Nations is that art making can be an integral part of life. All the implements that we use for our daily existence, if we think carefully about them, can have an artistic function in terms of relating us to values and patterns of belief that supercede the ephemeral, that allow us to transcend the banality of everyday existence. Thus, there is no doubt in my mind that good design is an art form. As Bill Reid put is so succinctly, "Joy is the well made object." It has been my good fortune through travel to gain exposure to the artistic traditions of many cultures. But in the latter stage of my life, it’s back to the art making of the First Nations people who dwelt for thousands of years at the water’s edge between the great cedar forests and the sea, that my focus has returned. I love walking the territory where the cedars grow dark and moist. The artist after whom this institute is named – as she struggled with her craft in the midst of the coastal forest – wrote in her diary, "Mighty cedars, primeval, immense, full, grand from roots to tips. Under the cedars you sense the Indian and brave, spiritual things. The Indian used the cedars, and shaped beautiful things from them….. It was his tree of trees." How has a real estate developer like me become an arts groupie? It may sound banal, but let me just say that it’s through an association with the visual arts that my life has become more meaningful – both because of the magical paintings, photographs, and sculptures that I live with daily, but, all the more so because I harbour a dream that one day art making, in all its forms, will become the most noted activity of those people who choose to live on the West Coast of Canada. I also believe that, before too many years go by, British Columbia shall give you artists the respect that you so richly deserve as transmitters of culture from one generation to another. Finally, I would like to express my fervent wish that this strange and wonderful Emily Carr Institute that is now celebrating its 80th year of operation, will continue to go on from strength to strength in graduating men and women who are destined to become the leaders in the art world of tomorrow. May all you graduates live in peace and have interesting lives. But, don’t forget the turtle. The turtle only makes progress when he sticks his neck out. Thank you again. ==================================================== Jason DaSilva’s
Emily Award Recipient
Emily Carr Institute Graduation Ceremony
May 7, 2005 When I started at Emily Carr, I really had no clue what I wanted from the institution. I started at ECIAD. I was in a program called Intermedia. A program not here anymore, in fact, it was disbanded within the same semester that I started. While most of my peers from my program went into other degree programs, I was a self-imposed Emily Carr roamer. So much that I decided to try out most all the different degree programs possible. I think that instructors got to know me as the floater, but embraced this. By third year, I needed environmental change – I asked if I could create a project that compared the day-in-the-life of a youth in India with one of an Indian youth living here. So I went in my third year, with the support of Peg Campbell and Dennis Burke, and shot my final grad project. It was originally going to be an installation piece, but I got lazy and turned it into a film. After the grad show, it was picked up by Moving Images Distribution. Three days after my grad ceremony, I went back to India and worked in Bombay as an assistant director. Feeling like a tool, I left and went traveling. In Yangshou, China, my mother emailed me and told me that the film was in the Vancouver International Film Festival. I returned home, just a few days before September 11th. During the film festival I approached the National Film Board of Canada to create a documentary looking at the affects of 9/11 on the target enemy communities. I left for New York for what was supposed to be a two-week film shoot and ended up being a two-year production. Here is a clip of the finished project, which I feel is a good example of the open education that Emily Carr gives you. Within this clip, I worked with HBO DEF POETRY JAM artist spoken word artist Suheir Hammad, DJ Spooky, and all the subjects of my film. Truly a multi-disciplined collaboration, this is the education I received at ECIAD in action. Now I live in New York – I’m a practicing filmmaker and working toward my first feature film. 1. There’s a big world outside of the Charles H. Scott Gallery. Emily Carr taught me how to be an independent artist. With the quality instruction of Emily Carr you are equipped with not just the skill set, but also a mindset that is challenging and expanding, and embraced in the world as both. I cannot reiterate the importance of this – malleability to the processes of creation with a strong backbone and foundation in the ideas that will guide you through your career. 2. If I can leave you with anything, it’s a philosophy which is quite simple. If Emily Carr allowed you the ability to be an independent artist, then hone this in your unique talent. I do have to use this – a term that I’ve learned from my high school students in the South Bronx: "do you". No one knows yourself better than yourself, so apply your uniqueness to the world that you’re about to enter.
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