Bruno de Oliveira Jayme: Art, Activism, and the Power of Creative Dissent

On this episode of Humans, On Rights, we sit down with Bruno de Oliveira Jayme, a Brazilian-born artist, educator, and community arts practitioner who has spent 25 years making Canada his home. Now a full professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba, Bruno brings together curriculum theory, arts-based research, and a deep commitment to social justice. His work explores what happens when art stops being decoration and starts becoming dissent.

Bruno introduces us to the concept of "artivism" — the intersection of art and activism — and makes the case that creative expression is not a softer substitute for protest, but a distinct and powerful tool for surfacing stories, building collective identity, and opening space for conversations that more traditional forms of advocacy often can't reach.

We're discussing:

• How Bruno's upbringing in Brazil during the end of a military dictatorship first opened his eyes to art as a political force

• The roots of community art and artivism in the social movements of the late 1960s and '70s — from the Black movement and second-wave feminism to the landless movement in Latin America

• Why art is uniquely capable of addressing difficult issues "in a light manner" — and why that accessibility matters for movements like environmental justice

• His advice to aspiring artivist students: start with what you know, what you're struggling with, what you're hopeful for. Bring that to your community, and think together, collectively, about what you can do next.

  
  

Bruno's website

Episode Transcript:

Stuart Murray 0:00

This podcast was recorded on the ancestral lands, on treaty one territory, the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe Cree Oji Cree Dakota and the Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Metis nation.

Speaker 1 0:20

This is humans on rights, a podcast advocating for the education of human rights. Here's your host. Stuart Murray,

Stuart Murray 0:30

what happens when art becomes a form of protest large scale community mosaics to classrooms and public spaces? How does art confront injustice. Image alternatives participate in collective acts of resistance and hope at a moment when human rights are under pressure around the world, art can surface hidden stories, redistribute power, open space for possible futures. Today, on humans on rights, we're going to have a conversation about artivism, responsibility, risk and quiet courage of creative dissent. To do that conversation, I am thrilled and delighted to welcome Bruno de Olivia

Bruno de Oliveira Jayme 1:14

Hami, you wore charmingly clothes. How about that?

Stuart Murray 1:20

Okay, then you know what Bruno for? My listeners Lay it on me. What's the proper way to say your name? I'm from Brazil,

Bruno de Oliveira Jayme 1:27

and Brazilian Portuguese is it's we talk almost like music. It's very musical. I love it. Go for it. Oh, it's Bruno. G, G, Oliveira, Jamie, you can say that way.

Stuart Murray 1:39

G, Olivier so. G the Oliveira, yeah, yeah. Olivia Jamie, one of

Bruno de Oliveira Jayme 1:45

the beauties of the Brazilian Portuguese is, of course, it's Portuguese, but we have so much influences from from African languages as well as South American languages that it's all infused with this movement. There's a lot of movement in the way that Brazil, yeah,

Stuart Murray 2:05

I love that. Yeah. I love it, yeah. And, I mean, you know, I just, I love how you you present that and, and it's why I'm so delighted that you're able to find some time to have this humans on rights

Bruno de Oliveira Jayme 2:15

conversation with me. Bruno, thank you so much for the invitation. I'm very happy to be here.

Stuart Murray 2:18

So Bruno, just, just kind of set the stage a little bit. You've got a very impressive bio, but it's I've always find it interesting if the person whose life it is can share their life with the listeners. So tell us a little bit about you and what you're doing these days, and then we're going to get into our whole conversation about art and protest, and what does that look like in in human rights language,

Bruno de Oliveira Jayme 2:41

perfect, perfect. I was born and raised in Brazil, and I moved to Canada in in 2000 and I came for the when I came, I was, my intention was to learn English, but I was so enchanted and involved and loving my new place and being with Canadians and being with in Canada that I like. And I start as stay longer, learning English, and then going to grad school, and then another grad school, and then start teaching and working here, and that idea that one job led to another and led to another, and, you know, and I blinked. And 25 years went by, and I'm still here. Really, really loved, in love with this place. I was in Vancouver Island for for 20 years, and in 2019 I came to Winnipeg to start working here at the University of Manitoba in the fact of education as a full time, full time professor, yeah, in curriculum, curriculum, theory and arts and education. And very quickly, I got really involved with academic life and the Human Rights Museum and Art Gallery and, yeah, slowly but surely, establishing my community, something that we're going to talk later on, how important community is for for the work that we do.

Stuart Murray 4:06

So right now, you are a professor of you have a doctorate. I think you're a PhD in your teach at the University of Manitoba, yes. What? Just give me a sense of of what was your day like today? Just so we can start that, put in position. Then let's, let's get

Bruno de Oliveira Jayme 4:21

into the conversation. Oh, fantastic. So I got up today, in the morning, have my coffee, and came to to campus. I leave downtown, and I often bike to work, even when it's winter is biking is once something that I I really cherish and I really care about and and something that I work as well to create safe environments for cyclists. Do you know?

Stuart Murray 4:45

Do you know Patty weans? She's the, she's the she, she goes by the mayor, she's the bike link, Mayor of Winnipeg, and she's a Brazilian, yeah, yes, yeah, yeah. I know, yeah, yeah. Because I figured you know, you would have the same passion as biking for. Her so, so you, but you bike to work even in the winter? Yeah, I do.

Bruno de Oliveira Jayme 5:03

I do bike to work even the winter. So I had a class this morning, and for the be ad program, most of my students, not most all my students, they come from the fine arts department, and they want to be teachers. They want to be high school teachers. They want to be art teachers. So the class is very much about experimentation and open spaces for for experimental materials, lesson planning, yeah, and how, how we can create brave and safe space for high school teachers, for for high school students. So that's what I did today. And then over lunch, we had a meeting with pre service teachers, because there's a big teachers conference coming up soon in February, and a lot of our students are presenting at the for the first time in a conference at this conference, and that's going to be here in Winnipeg. So just have conversations about their projects, what is it that they want to do and and bring the idea that we teachers, we are also researchers. There's no difference between researchers. Are those people who collect data and write a paper and present at a conference, but we teachers were constantly involved with research, with research all the time, every day, finding new new materials, new books, new strategies, new pedagogies, new materials to bring today's students. So so we work with that over lunch with with students, and here I am with you, and later on tonight, I'm also, I'm teach, I teach ceramics. I teach pottery. So I have a group meeting, a group for some fun and the pottery studio. And that's, that's my Friday that's my Friday afternoon.

Stuart Murray 7:00

Yeah, yeah, fantastic. Sounds amazing, you know? I mean, the reason I ask it Bruno, is that, you know, you've, you've got a very deep and eclectic background in in a lot of areas of art, you have traveled a lot of the world and and so, you know, when you bring that experience to the classroom to talk about what you talked about today. I'm fascinated to know when you first discovered the beauty of what we will call art. And you know, my definition of art, your definition of art, may be two different things, but at some juncture, there was something that drew you in and art started to speak to you in a way that perhaps you hadn't realized for a while, or maybe you realized it immediately. Just tell me your experience about when you discovered that

Bruno de Oliveira Jayme 7:51

I am and I was always a very curious person. I'm still very curious about how things are made. How, if I see an artwork, I wanted to know how this person create this installation. If I go for dinner someone's house, I want to know how they made their wonderful food. What is this spice that it smells so good? So I'm always very curious, and I've been making art since I I understand as a human but fun thing is, I was born and raised in a time in a country during dictatorship, and when I start school, was really at the end of dictatorship. So Brazil was in the beginning of the in the 80s. Was in that rush for that, for searching for identity. We're in the rush to establish a democratic country, and in the rush of that nationalism and finding identity. And I come from a very artistic family, my father was was an engineer and architect, and my mom works in the fashion industry, and she showed us and art was always part of my life, but at that time that I went to school, it's almost something that I that being an artist was something that was never really discussed because was totally out of the table. Because at that time, the school and the school system in Brazil was focused very much in reestablish the country as a democracy. And I remember so much emphasis on teacher education, teacher education programs and and and the formation of new teachers because. During the dictatorship, the teacher were the military. They're not really teachers, right? We still have a few military schools in Brazil up to this day that is taught by military people from the army, right? So at the end of the in the 80s. So we have this okay, we need teachers, and we need teachers formation and and being a kid, I I always play being teacher, Play School and pretend I was marking exams. And being a teacher was something that I really, really wanted to do, and I was still very passionate about art, but I was very focused and being teacher, until I learned that teaching was not what I thought would be. I thought teacher. I would come into a class and being stand in front of my students and telling them what is right and what is wrong, and they have to write that in exam, and I have to give them a greater band. It was very late in my when in my life, when I start my my teaching degree in Brazil, that I start reading Paulo Freire and learning about critical pedagogy. And I was like, huh, so the type of education that I received growing up from the militaries. That's not the type of education that we're talking about here in the university, and we've been prepared for so So, so that's when I really realized that how important the making things. They making together. Not me standing in front of the students, but me with the students, with my students. I remember doing my practicum and and bringing what they already know. They're They're what they already know about art and and making together. So the art for me really took form during my school years at the university, because I was a I slowly understanding how much we we could use art to learn together. So it was very much in my in my university, is that the art really, really I stopped being a hobby, and to start being like my pedagogical tools in my class, when I was teaching social justice, when I was teaching something else that was not but using art as as a bridge, as a mechanism to talk about very sensitive issues. So that's when I start, okay, there's something here. I need to take art more seriously. So that's when I was like, Okay, so let's do that.

Stuart Murray 12:44

And Bruno, you know, coming from Brazil, you know, just, you know, going through the issue having a dictatorship that's going into democracy, you know, the the people in the streets. And, you know, from an art perspective, did you or were you aware, or did you witness something that you would say, wow, this really gave me a sense of how art can be used in a form of protest.

Bruno de Oliveira Jayme 13:07

Absolutely, absolutely because I was very young and my father, my biological father, I hear him talking about dictatorship a lot, so much so that my mom keep making fun of my fight him and his your father and you're just sound like your father. Brun so when she's mad at me because they're divorced, when she's mad at me, she was like, she says, You're just like your father. You talk about dictatorship anyway. So he will talk about dictatorship very much because his family, my that side of the family, are very political. They are very involved in the politics. They they run for mayors. They were mayors. They, they, they really navigate the Senate quite a bit. I didn't have much contact with them, but just my hearing my father talking about politics and dictatorship. I have no idea what dictatorship was, but I remember when the first the election, the first elections for the President, for the first democratic elected president in Brazil, I watching the news. It was called gietta Ja something like, like, how can I translate that? But people are voting for direct vote, so that people are direct voting for their for their representatives, right? And I remember seeing on television, big banners and big pamphlets, very colorful and and murals and graffiti and people spray painting and and I was like, that's what the hell is going on? There's something important in my country happening, something that has to do with dictatorship, because I see the word there, and something that I heard from my father, and something very colorful and very lively and very loud. But I couldn't quite. Articulate what it was until very late, very late. So that was my first contact of the power of of the arts.

Stuart Murray 15:09

Yeah, Bruno, would you have a sense what you've seen and through your research, when you talk about art as protesters, do you get a sense of when art stops being an expression and can then start to become a form of protest. Or do you see them as the same?

Bruno de Oliveira Jayme 15:27

It was very much in the 70s. And there's a course that I teach here that is called Community Art. We talk about so much the evolution, how and when art became a form of protest. It was very much. And I asked my students, so what been the 70s that you that something major happened the world in the 70s that really changed the way that we we navigate, and we start talking about the War and Vietnam War and all that. And then it was very much at that time, I believe that the academia, the sociologist, the artist, who was back here in this walls of the university, writing their papers about the war and watching the world outside. And I think that's why that time that they start, they look outside and say, well, there's something more happening this, the colors, the banners, the puppets, the marionettes. So I think it has to do so they start paying more attention to it. So it was very much in late 60s and the 70s that we see emerge community art, arts based research and other type of research, participatory action research, community based research, those, those, those areas are very interconnected, I believe so. It was due to and of course, it's not something that change from like nine today, but emerged from second wave of feminism, the black movement, the hippie movement, and so forth and and in Latin America with with social movements as well, the landless social movement Latin America, which is one of the first social movements in the world, as so powerful the environmental social movement as well, that they really go back to to to the arts, to To convey their message. Something that I find fascinating about about that in Brazil, I don't know if you ever experienced a march or protest something like that in Brazil, if for the first time, if you're there for the first time, experience that you don't know if it's the carnival starting the Carnival parade, or is the circus coming to town with all the puppeteers and magicians, or is a teacher's protest So, or they're rehearsing some kind of concert because it's so loud and lively and beautiful, and I think that's a very important aspect of art and activism is to bring people's get people's attention through the colors, through, through, through the messages and the banners and posters,

Stuart Murray 18:31

yeah, and so Bruno, you know, from from that perspective, I'd love to to get your your feeling about when you when you look at Art, and the importance that art can do for community. You know, one of the things that people will when they look at protests, they think about things like speeches, or there's reports, or perhaps there's laws that come forward. But you know, from your perspective, do you see how art can, you know, sort of what can art do, that that potentially speeches and and and laws and reports cannot do. How do you think art can play a role in human rights that is separate from those other categories

Bruno de Oliveira Jayme 19:15

the arts? It's the only tool that can help us to talk about difficult issues in a light manner. That's one thing. The second thing is, it's a language that we all share. I'm not saying that everybody's an artist. It takes so much work to be an artist, but as humans, we have the aptitude to make art and make things out of curiosity, of our necessity. So craftsmen, right? So we are always making things. So the making of things is a shared language that we. All do as human, as human. So it's a shared language. And art bring people together. Community Art BRING IT people together. And I think it's very important, especially first talk that I mentioned. It's very important because one something that we talk so much in in around environmental justice, is the idea of eco anxiety. People are just so torn up about all the environmental crisis that people just freeze and they don't know what to do so. But I think that arts help us to talk about climate change, climate mitigation, for example, in a light way and in a language that we all you all can understand each other.

Stuart Murray 20:51

Now, can you give me an example of that? What you're saying there? How art can sort of do that in a light way? How do you just give us a sense of what do you mean by that?

Bruno de Oliveira Jayme 20:59

Yeah, for example, the the murals, the mosaics that we we've done so many, and I think we already did two or three, and there's another one booked for August, the Human Rights Museum, for example, one of the last projects that we worked there was about epistemic reparations. Epistemic reparation is such an important and heavy theoretical concept that if I'm going to go to explain to people, what is epistemic reparations, for example, how can I create safe spaces for people to to have the right to be known. For example, it's a heavy topic. It's a very heavy and theoretical topic. But when we work with the mosaics, for example, and the mosaic work in this way, people come. They're invited seats, and anyone who wants to participate in our events. They receive a little bit of a little piece of canvas, 10 by 10. It's small. It's not scary, because art can be scary too, and it should be scary. Art should be scared. Shooting, shooting.

Stuart Murray 22:16

Why? Why do you say that? Why should it be scary?

Bruno de Oliveira Jayme 22:19

I think art should be scared because it should. It should spark. It should spark critical thinking. Should spark more questions than answers. If artists is giving all the answers that I don't think it's moving moving too much forward, but when art gives you more space for more questions and more critical thinking, then it's doing the right thing. So the people come to the new to the events, like, for example, the museum, and they receive a 10 by 10 liter square. Not very intimidated, because when you ask adults to aim something to make art, it's scary. Something happened. Something happened after grade four, grade five. That's something I don't know. Art is scary, so, but when you ask them to paint a little something in a little square, that's less intimidating, right? Or because it's not so big. And I give them a prompt, for example, the last one, I asked them, What when was the last time you had to have a very brave conversation with someone how that place look like? What does that look like to you? Can you just show me with maybe a poem, maybe a drawing, made some scribble, how that how that look like for you. So they did. So they did. And then we once, after they did, we assembled the pieces together, and the larger collective image formed, but it was, was so not scared, scary because was just a small piece that was that they were able to tell that their story in just a little 10 by 10 centimeter square. But their story, although it's more that little the little square, it's so important for the collective because if one square is missing, I'm pointing here to my to my because I have a big one right here. So if that square is missing, the whole story, the whole story going to be compromised. So that's what I'm saying. That art do help us to have those difficult conversations in a very light and in a light manner. When we did the mosaic. There was food involved. There was informal conversation involved. There was like people looking and pointing to each other's work and acknowledging. So what is that coming from it and making your friends? So it's something the idea of community. Community. It's very important. Community, for example, that is to me, it's an art on its own. Am I going to explain why I realized that the concept of community when I moved to Canada and I started teaching at the university, and I started teaching a course called Community Art in Brazil. I gonna say Brazil, because I'm that's where I'm from. But I believe in Latin countries, it's like that. And talking to my colleagues and other artists from African countries, they say the same thing, too. In the southeast Asia, too, the idea of community we don't have to think about it in Brazil, for example, because we are born in community. What I mean is, when a woman, a pregnant woman, gonna give birth, birth to the to her child, there's a whole entourage that goes to the hospital or come to the house to help her give birth, the aunties, the grandmothers, the nephews. So a child in Brazil, it's born in community. When that woman go home, the grandparents move home with her to help that woman raise that kid for the first weeks, or, you know, for the first month or so, teaching that woman how to breastfeed, how to bathe. So we're both so we never question that. So there's a whole interaction of that falling, falling us. But I realize that's different here when I actually had to teach my students how to be in community, not not to what a community is, but how to be in community. So that's when I'm teaching courses on community art. For example, I spend a lot of my time teaching them. How does it feel like to be in community? The food, there's food, there's music, there's informal conversation. I really struggled for during covid, when I had to teach online courses. I don't know how to not be in community, because a lot of our conversations, a lot of the art ideas, happens in those, those moments when, when I think of artivism, I cannot imagine art separate from the community. I cannot imagine art separate from social movements.

Stuart Murray 27:55

Yeah, so, so Bruno on that file. I mean, you've explained community extremely well and and I thank you for that, because I it kind of led me. One of the questions I was thinking of asking you was around the issue of protest. You, you have say, a poster comes up and you're protesting, whatever it may be. So you read the protest, you read the poster, you're you're interested in learning about it. So you go and attend that protest, and I look at that as a way of participating, but I'd love to get your thoughts about the community participation. When you are one in making the poster, you are one in making whatever the event is. So it's not a matter of just showing up, but you as community are participating in the whole endeavor of what it is you're trying to to change and and how do you, how do you feel about the difference in in that aspect, from, from a kind of, I'll just put around it, from a human rights in, a protest standpoint,

Bruno de Oliveira Jayme 28:57

yeah, there's something very magical about social movements, for example, about protests, it's the idea of shared responsibilities. When people get together for the for a common goal, there's a sense of a shared responsibility, and the mosaics that we do is a metaphor for that, just like I said earlier, if one piece is missing, the whole piece is compromised. So people showed up, sometimes, most of the time, they show that they showed up for themselves, but mostly for the people that they're representing. So in the same manner, making art together, especially it's especially with people that they don't have a professional training in individual art is very important, because. I love working with people that don't have professional training the arts, because they don't have preconceived ideas on how think, how things should look. They think they do, but they they don't, especially with young ones, especially because they're so brave. So making art together creates that space for the shared responsibility, one helping each other. How did we do that? How can What does that mean? And, and, and the art as an artifact within, within a social movement, for example, it's something very important, because, first, it's something that they create. They can point their finger to it and say, I did that. And that illustrate of if that's an illustration of who we are as a community, it creates a sense of community identity. It's a visual representation of of our identity and when, when we are, when we are participating social movements or in a protest. Having an identity, it's very important. Having a visual language is very important because you have a you have you have a a message that you want to communicate. So that identity is important. I love

Stuart Murray 31:27

to come back to what you're saying about that message, about that a message to communicate. Because you know, quite often, when you think about, you know, protest, and you're look at what's happening today in Iran, and you look at different places around the world, you know, it's on the street, there's it's very vocal, it's very loud, it's very determined, it's very emotional. And I just wonder, from your perspective, as as an artist, as somebody who's an educator, can you see how you can achieve the same kinds of goals through art, through a different form of protestation, through art, than being sort of on the on the street and having the loud voices and the megaphones. Can you see a way that art could play the same role to get the same outcome?

Bruno de Oliveira Jayme 32:15

Yeah, I think so. Because again, the idea the identity, the idea of of share identity. There are few wonderful visual artists. They are they. They are working alone in their in their studios, but their work is so effective. We have poets, we have filmmakers. We have we have photographers. I have friends from, from, oh my God, so many indigenous art artists from, from here, from from Vancouver Island. They're doing amazing work from their studios. And because the thing is, to me, in the same sense of the idea of social movement and learning, is that even when people are not part of a social movement or a protest, they learn just by the news about that social movement, just by hearing about it, just by seeing a poster about it. So much so there, there are many symbols that have been created by social movements. They're recognizable all over the world. For them, the fist for the black movement, the recycling symbol for for the for the the recycling social movement. So that was done by artists, by designers in their studios, and yet they helped to create this identity for the for the social movements as well, something that the Greenpeace does so well. They work with withd mapping, and I think it's a brilliant way of visual representation. So what they do? They use specific computer software. They go into the world, they map, they measure with this computer, a building, for example, and then they use another software to create an image to embrace that building, for example. So this happens a lot in Brazil, especially lately, when the protests in Brazil against like Bolsonaro and all that. So they would go in their little vans, no one knows about it, and then they project that image or that message massive on the building, and then when the police arrives and they still have to find out where is this coming from, they're already gone, long gone. So it's a different it's a different and very effective urban art. You. Yeah, yeah. Like graffiti, for instance, I call it as, like a digital graffiti, yeah,

Stuart Murray 35:05

but on, just on that Bruno, that's fantastic, because I was, again, just to have got scribbled some notes here and, and one of the things that, you know, I have a, I have one of my daughters lives in Amsterdam, and, you know, they're very visual over there, in many different ways, very creative. And of course, they have a graffiti gallery that is specifically talks about graffiti art. So when you look at street art, and you look at graffiti art, you know, would you say that that kind of was sort of the ground zero of trying to sort of creating protest

Bruno de Oliveira Jayme 35:35

art, I think it's that's, that's, that's, that's when we all you always started with with the beginning in the 70s and 80s, with pop art and in New York and Sao Paulo as Well Amsterdam and in Germany as well. German a little bit later, but yeah, I think that's when it started. That's how it started. And one of the things that I love about about about that there's a wonderful documentary, Brazilian film called tissue spells, B, i, x, O. It's free on on Vimeo. It's about, it's about the graffiti in Latin America and how they start, and how it start as as a language in which different gangs communicate with each other, and the war between gangs happened through through the graffiti, and they're giving their message through the graffiti. And let's say someone, some whatever gang graffiti in the 10th floor of this building, the next one will go and graffiti in the 15th floor, which is even higher and more difficult. So it starts with that, that creating that dialog between between groups of people in Brazil, often asking about, asking government about social inclusion, social issues in general, black movement and feminism, second wave feminism in Brazil. So it starts with, start with that, at least in Brazil, that how they start? They start with gangs, communicate with each other, and then social movement taking momentum, the hippie hop movement, the black movement, expanding on that and really, really leaving their mark and their communication in on the streets that are interesting exercise that I do with my students, like called, there's actually like a whole feud that studies that. It's called, How do I say this in English, latinalia, graffiti, graffiti made in bathroom. One of the research projects that I signed to my show this in the past was they had to to visit public bathrooms or the university, the community center at the bar, the nightclub at the restaurant, take photographs of those graffiti, and bring that, what people graffiti in the in the doors of bathrooms, and bring that to that class, and start mapping the messages. And it became very clear the difference, for example, I did this in Victoria, in BC, was very different between the graffiti that was happening in Oak Bay, the rich area, and the graffiti that was happening like in the outskirts of the city, for example, the kind of message that people live in in the bathrooms was very, very different.

Stuart Murray 38:53

So can you give an example? Bruno, it's fascinating. What can you sort of compare the two?

Bruno de Oliveira Jayme 38:58

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Some, some of the of the more affluent area graffiti was people being very vocal, very racist and very vocal about about indigenous people, about immigrants, especially immigrants, whereas in in the outskirt was more about people wanting or talking about like public education or indigenous well being. So so two groups communicating totally different, very polarized messages about the same topics, for example, and yet, using the same the same platform, a bathroom door. So to answer your question, I think that that art as a form of protest and communicating a message emerges from from that time in the 70s and 80s with the emergency of graffiti art.

Stuart Murray 39:56

So when you when you think Bruno, you know the issue around. Human Rights and art as protest. And you know, the issue about building community, you know, I think one of the one of the challenge always is, you know, if we look at in Canada, we're dealing with truth and reconciliation. And you know, what does that mean? And you know, obviously everybody is looking at issues. And I think people are having conversations about, at the beginning of meetings, we have land acknowledgements, and you start to say, you know, what is the value of the land acknowledgement? Is it? Is it the fact that we're reading it off a piece of paper? Do we understand what it means? Do we have any passion for bringing forward reconciliation? And, you know, there's a number of amazing, incredibly intelligent Indigenous artists, poets, writers, you know from your perspective, now that you've spent some time in Canada, how do you see the opportunity to embrace that community through art, to to to advance the conversations around reconciliation.

Bruno de Oliveira Jayme 41:05

I think land acknowledgement is so important. It's so important because I think land acknowledgements are public pedagogy. We learn so much about where our water comes from. We learn so much about the treaties and the territories. We learn so much about the language of indigenous communities in different territories. So I one of the things that I always pushing forward is, how can we make land acknowledgement? How can I make this land acknowledgement leave the paper and become something, an action that is embodied? What is it that we can do to leave the idea, to move from Atlanta, knowledge being a protocol. Oh, I have to do it just because it's a protocol and become something body. I had a student. She's a brilliant grad student. She just finished her PhD. Now here with us. Her name is Katya Ferguson, and she does soil art, and she collects soil from from the river, and she creates this beautiful and intricate drawings with with the soil, as she does the land acknowledgement. She explains about the soil, she explains about the water, she explains about the relationship with the land and with the ancestors. And as she speaks, you see her points, her ideas about the language, like taking form and shape, it becomes something tangible, the witness blanket that is true at the Human Rights Museum, that's a very important land acknowledgement where you come from. What what is it that we experience that inform the ways in which we navigate today, and how this the way that we navigate today inform how we see truth and reconciliation for the future. So the arts does that. The arts does that it materialize. What's on the paper, the witness blanket, the soil. Art give me an object again, that I can point my finger to it and say, What, and explain what, what I mean by this. So it's an it's an embodiment. It's embodied. So the land acknowledgement is embodied. I think, I think that the art answering your question. I think the art contributes to this embodiment of truth and reconciliation, land acknowledgement. I when I do, I my land acknowledgement. The beginning of my classes I would I talk about how the land that I'm walking today forms what I do, the land when I where, when I, where I spent 20 years of my life, in, in, in learning from, from those indigenous communities, in, in, in Vancouver Island, how they form what I do today, my ancestors from Brazil, from my grandmother's side, what is it that they did and they do that inform the ways in which I do the things that I do today. How can i What is it that I learned that inform what I do today?

Stuart Murray 44:53

I've just seen many times Bruno that you go to meetings where it's almost like somebody you know will hold up a piece of. Paper, read the paper verbatim, and then kind of say, Okay, we've done a land acknowledgement. So that's our bit for reconciliation. You know, the way you've explained, it has much more meaning. And I appreciate that. And I'd love to witness the artist or the student who does the land acknowledgement with the with the soil and with the water. And I mean, that that has some, some real you get drawn into that, right? I mean, you can feel it so, you know, as we kind of start to draw our conversation to a close here, Bruno, I wanted to just get your thoughts about, if you had one of your students come up to you and say, Bruno, I really feel strongly about I want to protest something. And let's just say that that's something is I want to make sure that my voice is heard on reconciliation, but I'm unsure how to do it, and I want to become an artist to do that. What? What advice would you give to somebody who's looking at a way to make an impact, but they see you, your experience, your value, your lived experiences that you've had, and they want to get you to sort of mentor them. What kind of advice would you give them? Say yes.

Bruno de Oliveira Jayme 46:10

Just say yes. Just say yes. And work with your elders from your communities. Bring what you already have to the table. What is it that you you already know? What is it that you already are good at? So start with that. Start with the individual like, what is it that I already know? What is it that I'm struggling with? What is it that I'm hopeful for? And bring that to your elders, bring that to your community, and talk about it, and dialog about it, and then, together, collectively, you think, you think ways in which you can deal with that struggle, achieve that hope, understanding what that comes from, learn from, learn from your elders, learn from, from your seniors. Listen. This is very this is very, very powerful. It's the dialogical methodology. Starts from our curiosity, is our personal experience with the world, and then we name the world. What is what is it? What is it that you're saying? What's the name of it? Is it? I always ask my students, especially when they're starting their their I don't know what is my research topic, but it's like, I don't know what. What are the encounters are you having lately in your life? What is it? What do you mean by encounter? Print, like, what is it that you will watch on Netflix that disturb you a little bit, or the news or on the way here? Oh, I witness a, b and c. Okay, so what is the name of that? How? How can we call that that world? So start naming the worlds. Start learning from your elders and and just say yes. Just say yes. And listen. One of the things that I've noticing so much in the classroom is people are not listening anymore. Interesting people. Let's listen. Let's listen. Let's listen to what indigenous people are saying. Let's listen to what the black movement saying, the environmental movements say, I teach in the teacher education program so preserves teachers mind show that's from the class this morning. This is the last class. This is the last course in their teaching program, September. They're going to be in classroom. They're going to be classroom teachers. And to this morning, one of the students asked, what's their biggest advice for us teachers like to me, you're going to come into a classroom full of students that they most of them, maybe they don't have an adult to listen that to them without preconceived ideas of what they should be doing or thinking. Well, they have their parents, but we are parents. We We are educating, you know, like we are parents, we we want our our our kids to be this and that so or school principals or teachers. So you're the you're you're the first contact with your students out of their house and out of their group of friends that that can listen. So your work as teachers, it's less about content delivery and more about listening. If you listen to your students often, that's all they need. Content. They have content. The content. They have the content the palm of their hands, with AI, with with Google, with whatever. So they have information that talk, that the palm of their hands. Your work as a teacher is to listen to what they're saying and to help them decode. Now that's important, and you have to help them decode what is it that they're seeing that is important, that is relevant, and help them to make sense of everything else they see in the media. So I don't know if I answered the question, but that was, that was my that's

Stuart Murray 50:38

your answer. That's all right. No, I just curious to see you know, that's fantastic. So So Bruno, thank you for spending some time on this humans on right podcast. I I'm delighted to be able to to meet you this way. I'm delighted to be able to hear about your thoughts and get a sense of of how art and community and different elements of protest, and how we can, how we can share some of those elements. And so I thank you very much for for taking time to speak with me today, and I wish you continued success on your on your professional and personal journey.

Bruno de Oliveira Jayme 51:10

Thank you so much. I really appreciate the invitation. The fact that you invited me to be here today make me feel very special. So thank you so much for making me feel special today.

Matt Cundill 51:22

Thanks for listening to humans on rights. A transcript of this episode is available by clicking the link in the show notes of this episode. Humans on rights is recorded and hosted by Stuart Murray. Social Media Marketing by Buffy Davey, music by Doug Edmond. For more, go to human rights hub.ca produced and distributed by the sound off media company the.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai