Artist statement

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Why would anyone lock themselves in a room for days with 3 hens after traveling through downtown Toronto in a transparent cube van?

Art that can not shape society and therefore also can not penetrate the heart questions of society, [and] in the end influence the question of capital, is no art.

-Joseph Beuys, 1985

Joseph Beuys, artist and activist, locked himself in a room for three days with a Coyote, to make peace with what North American indigenous peoples thought of as a God and teacher, but were mere pests to the inhabitants of the New World.

Bryan Belanger intends to modernize Beuys performance by suggesting when “we” killed the mythological tricksters, North Americans took on their persona and we've tricked ourselves into working against the land and it inhabitants, to the extent we treat our farmers like pests.

Although one may find it difficult to compare the dangers of living with a coyote compared to a hen, with the threat of H5N1 and Listeria looming being our obsession with quantity (certainly not quality) there is no animal more dangerous, and not until we hold those who bare food, land, animal and farmers, will we ever reach our potential.

After listening to the CBC program “Diet For A Hungry Planet”, I realized how ignorant I am where my food comes from and wondered if other Canadians were as disconnected as I.

http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/hungryplanet2.html (episode 6 in particular)

Last year, while 2 of 3 Canadians became overweight, 30,000 farmers in Karnataka, India, committed suicide using pesticides, unable to afford the food they grow. Meanwhile, our farmers are going out of business. How is it food cost have risen 3% yet farmers receive 35% less income? Something is not adding up.

I'm not a big eater though I am aware food can in some sense be a drug or a source of pleasure to many North Americans. So I will give up beer, coffee, casual cigarettes, and my physical freedom to exercise my freedom of choice, by living off local produce as well as my own product, art.

In a thriving society people and their products flourish and their surplus of positive, creative energy yield extras beyond basic necessities, such as art, craft, and music that enrich the lives of a community.

I'm suggesting if we moderate our luxuries now they're less likely to be taken from us in the future.

During this time I call on the creativity of anyone at all interested to share their views on farming.

Is Canada a better place to live because we save 20 cents an apple buying abroad? What happens when Canadian farmers shut down and we becoming increasingly more dependent on overseas farming?

“It is not necessary to paint a man with a gun, an apple can be just as revolutionary.”

-Picasso