‘Economica, Women and the Global Economy’ is a project run by the San Francisco based International Museum of Women(IMOW). The Picturing Power and Potential exhibition is the latest special project of Economica celebrating women as economic participants and agents of change. IMOV has teamed up with the San Francisco Arts Commission gallery to present an exhibition of work from 20 international artists that were chosen from 150 around the world. Jurors included Catherine King (IMOW), Jasmina Bojic (United Nations Association Film Festival), Linda Connor (Artist/Curator/Educator) and Meg Shiffler (SFAC Gallery). The exhibition opens on June 15th at San Francisco City Hall and will coincide with an online presentation of the work in the extensive ongoing Economica exhibit at the IMOV website. Out of 8 portraits of women from North Richmond that I selected from my Richmond v Chevron project 5 were chosen. I am honored to present these incredible people in this way.
So if you’re in San Francisco come along to the opening of what has been described by SFAC gallery director Meg Shiffler as ‘one of the most diverse and stunning photo exhibitions ever created for City Hall’. It opens June 15th with a reception from 5.30 till 7.30 on the ground floor of City Hall and runs until August 27th 2010. City Hall is located at 1 Dr Carlton B. Goodlett Place in the Civic Center of downtown San Francisco. You can take the BART or MUNI directly to Civic Center or buses # 47, 49, 31, 21, and 5 all run close. Biking also encouraged.
The International Museum of Women will launch the online exhibition on June 15th also to coincide with the physical exhibition at City Hall. You’ll be able to follow it here.
Currently I’m working on a new project that sprung from a desire to highlight one of the Bay Area and California’s dirtiest secrets. A secret which is being largely ignored by the area’s mainstream media. Chevron is California’s biggest polluter and it’s Richmond facility occupying 3,000 acres is at the center of a controversy surrounding the company’s environmental impact here in the United States. It has been polluting the Bay Area and the community for decades with toxic waste, flares, explosions and fires releasing chemicals into the atmosphere and ground water. Now Chevron is looking to expand their refining in order to process dirtier crude. The local community is against this saying that the potential impact this would have on the community has not been properly assessed. Earlier this year I began work with Dr Henry Clark executive director of the West Counties Toxic Coalition(WCTC)and other community leaders in North Richmond to help them highlight their struggle.
Chevron oil refinery holding tanks and a Richmond residence
General Chemical processing plant from which there have been several leaks over the years.
While Chevron recorded record profits in 2008 of $24 billion , the community of North Richmond currently suffers from an unemployment rate of approx 16%. Chevron does not employ local labor and refuses to release details of employee backgrounds. It is plainly obvious that the community sees nothing of the ground breaking profits being garnered just across the train tracks in the place they call home. The state of the community is akin to standards of living that I have witnessed in developing countries. Not the typical picture that America or California likes to paint of itself. Another non profit organization involved in the campaign in Richmond, Communities for a Better Environment,(CBE) conducted a survey of Richmond residents and found 46% of adults and 17% of kids suffering from asthma, twice the rate in the rest of the county.
Dr Henry Clark at work at the office of the West Counties Toxics Coalition, North Richmond.
In September 2008, WCTC, CBE, and Asian Pacific Environmental Network(APEN) brought a lawsuit against Chevron to stop the expansion project. In July 2009 Judge Zuniga of the county superior court found Chevron in violation of the California Environmental Quality Act in failing to provide an adequate Environmental Impact Report(EIR). On Feb 23rd this year I joined many community residents and the above groups for a hearing in San Francisco Superior Court on the issue. A ruling is expected in the coming months.
For a community that is constantly vilified in the media and the problems they face living under the shadow of Chevron, being largely ignored , I want to show a little of the other side of the story. A side that shows a community standing against injustice, discrimination and neglect. A community that is taking it’s welfare into it’s own hands and standing up to the large corporation because their own government and media has failed them. A community that is saying enough is enough, demanding their rights to a cleaner, healthier environment, greener energy and a share in the wealth in continuing along an alternative energy path.
Gwendolyn Powell, North Richmond resident and community organizer in her home office.
On March 20th I joined the community for Little League Day the first one in many years according to long time resident and community activist Leonard Webster who has been an enormous help to me as I move forward in the story. The last time I was with Leonard was the week before at his mother Dorothy’s funeral. Dorothy, 79 and a longtime Richmond resident and member of West Counties Toxics suffered from onset asthma and spent her later days on respirators. She experienced many chemical spills and Leonard was eager to have me interview her. She died before I got a chance.
Little league day began with a blessing of what will be a future community garden built on the strength and generosity of volunteers.
The site for the new community garden
Residents join hands to bless the beginning of their new garden.
Parents and children celebrated with each other all day long and I witnessed truly formidable young adult men and women volunteers leading kids in a parade through the community that culminated in a day of baseball.
Since beginning my project amongst the people of North Richmond and with all involved in the struggle with Chevron’s Richmond refinery, I have had the pleasure of making some new friends who humble me in their commitment to each other and community. There is so much positive energy and solidarity amongst the people there to make their lives better that to call it inspirational is an understatement. It is story of ordinary people fighting for truth and justice in the face of ever increasing corporate power. Just like the struggles of the indigenous communities in Equador,the Niger Deltaand Rossport, Ireland. It is a human story all too commonplace in our modern world.
I recently returned from the longest stretch of time at home in Ireland since I left in 1993. In the 2 months I was there I witnessed Ireland at one of the most crucial periods in it’s history. I never left Ireland because economics pushed me out. I left because I was curious for other things and places. I wanted to know what the world could teach and show me. Little did I know that 1994 would mark the beginning of the period in Ireland’s economic history which later became known as the ‘Celtic Tiger’. They were boom years like no one had ever known and Ireland bought and spent like never before. For the first time in it’s history it began to experience what was perceived and packaged as economic freedom.
In an economy driven by credit which was encouraged by the government and driven by the banks Ireland became one of the wealthiest countries in the EEC and living standards were calculated to be one of the highest in the world. The Irish who had been forced to emmigrate in the 70’s and 80’s came back in droves, immigrants flooded into the country, housing prices went through the roof, waiting lists for BMWs and Land Rovers bulged with 25 year olds with more money than sense. People borrowed and consumed and the culture and fabric of the country changed profoundly. To steal from Yeats, a Terrible Beauty was born.
Over the years on brief visits home I was quietly shocked at the changes I saw take place. Ireland was becoming a country not unlike the United States in it’s appetite for consumerism. In this respect it was quite apparent what was going on. Scandals and tribunals of government and business corruption abounded and were allowed to. When the downturn came here it was going to hurt and it was going to hurt very very bad.
In what was Ireland’s equivalent to the Enron debacle, Anglo Irish bank was nationalised in Jan 2009 after it was discovered that it’s chairman hadn’t disclosed details to the inland revenue of some €87 million in loans (ie: taxpayer money) he received. After all what is €87 millions amongst friends? Ireland was now firmly entrenched in it’s recession which many say is actually a depression. The banks have been bailed out to the tune of €54 billion. Sound familiar? Welcome to the band aid to neo liberal free market economics.
Multi national corporations that were lured here in the 80’s with low corporate tax rates are now leaving. The eastern european immigrants are going with them back home to the countries where these same companies are now setting up shop. Unemployment is soaring at 12.5% in a country of only 4 million. Joblessness is affecting a wide demographic of people and many are leaving. And on top of all this CEOs are still getting bonuses in the millions.
Despite all this and what I think was a feeling of helplessness amongst people there is a resilience there. Nov 6th I followed 20,000 public sector workers marching through the center of Dublin. Strikes are becoming more widespread and increasing in numbers. On Nov 26th last a staggering number of 250,000 workers striked across the country against the public sector wage cuts planned by the government.
Today is the eve of what will be the most dreaded state budget ever. During the boom when budgets were announced no one paid attention. There was no need to. The country was awash in money. Tomorrow’s will be very different.
If Ireland is to recover it has to seize the opportunities that recession presents and seize them now. The key element being to realize that the old way of doing things cannot continue. How Irish people position themselves now to deal with this and a new way of living and doing business, whilst living in a rapidly changing world, will be the deciding factor in the future of generations to come. Fortunately the majority now realize this.
Ireland’s future is not in it’s current government. It’s future lies in redistributing wealth and bringing equality back into the equation. It lies in innovation and entrepreneurs with their eyes on sustainability at all levels. Oh and an awful lot of resolve to see wrong made right.
In this sense Ireland’s choices are not that different from the ones most of us must make.
