Outsiders and Others: Blackbird Singing In The Dead of Night
Kate Henderson (she/they) // Crew Writer
Jordan Richert (he/him) // Illustrator
Accessibility and art carry many meanings in the 21st century. Director and curator of the non-profit arts society Outsiders and Others, Yuri Arajs, defines this through creation-based impact rather than an artist’s training, reputation, or career history. Arajs phrases this practice as bringing “outsiders art to the forefront.” Working with Kickstart: Disability and Culture, Arajs worked to expand Vancouver’s artistic platform by opening Outsiders and Others during the 2020 pandemic. He began with a contactless window display in downtown Vancouver. Each artwork in this display was accompanied by a QR code which included details of the creator, its creation, and how to purchase said piece. From here, Arajs has expanded to an art exhibition in East Vancouver, soon expanding to a singular full exhibition downtown.
Most recently, Outsiders and Others hosted an exhibit called Blackbird Singing In The Dead of Night. This featured 12 creators and each of their unique relationships with crows. The Capilano Courier met with one of the artists, UBC Communications Specialist Clay Dixon. Sharing a digital collage of a figure with a crow’s head, Dixon brings his career in technology to a head with his passion for dadaism, creating this god-like deity. “I’ve always found their intelligence fascinating … they seem strangely good with facial recognition,” Dixon reflects on these almost introspective encounters with crows around the city.
Furthermore, artist Beth Wilks shared her interest with the black bird’s intelligence in an elaborate black swan drawing pairing with her ”passion for biology and paleontology.” Wilks works at the Vancouver Public Library, which gives her regular access to material “to heavily research the animal [she chooses] to draw next.”
The artists shared a connection not only to a crow’s intelligence, but to their material based sustainability. Artist Ian Freemantle relayed this through a set of crows sculpted from found rubber and inner tubes. He began his fabrication with material with a vast career in industrial vegetation control. “We had to make our own equipment … so that allowed me to weld things together, create things,” Freemantle shares. “I find this problem-solving around material to be what I find so interesting with art.”
Artist Jasonda Desmond shares the same interest in crows’ intelligence alongside the space they share with us in the world. “Recently, scientists have done studies about animals having a conscious experience,” Desmond points out. “It makes me think how disconnected they are flying in the sky in the way we can be disconnected from our environment,” Desmond concludes in sharing this piece as a call to reconnect with the space we occupy on this planet. She also does this through her career of selling biodegradable jewelry.
On top of exhibitions that are a general public call, such as this one, Arajs shares that Outsiders and Others hosts exhibitions based off of supporting specific subgroups, such as mental health awareness shows in May and disability awareness shows in December. With this being considered, Arajs makes sure to amplify the fact that “shows are about the art more than the individual… Whatever the artist chooses to share with you after that is a privilege.” This illustrates the beauty of the art that Outsiders and Others bring to the table; the beauty of giving an opportunity for every bird to sing their song.Wilks shares her generational song, her mother being an environmentalist and a poet, passing by the time she was nine, but sharing the influence of a love for art and birds. “Growing up, there was a lot of chaos in my home. Doing art brought me a lot of peace.” Freemantle also connects to his family in this way, “My brother works in collage, and my sister works as a potter.” Bringing their song into the physical world. Most of all, Outsiders and Others seems to conduct a choir with the freedom to connect in our voices; we can all share and celebrate without the cold conditions of discriminatory fine print, Arajs asks: “What’s your voice? What’s something that changes the way you think? When something strikes you, that’s what you’re looking for, and that’s what it’s all about!”
