{"id":27235,"date":"2020-08-13T18:34:01","date_gmt":"2020-08-13T22:34:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=27235"},"modified":"2020-08-21T10:33:36","modified_gmt":"2020-08-21T14:33:36","slug":"dont-take-a-single-breath-for-granted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/dont-take-a-single-breath-for-granted\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cDon\u2019t take a single breath for granted\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Take a moment to stand still and hold your breath as long as you can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you feel the struggle? A surge of strength? A wobble of weakness?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you can\u2019t hold your breath any longer, exhale, and take another breath in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That simple action can be a precious thing, says artist and architect Roxana Farrell, and one that shouldn\u2019t be taken for granted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is the simple but potent message Ms. Farrell wants people to leave with when they pass by her Larmont Street home, just east of the historic Aurora Armoury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There, on her front lawn, Ms. Farrell has installed \u201cI Can\u2019t Breathe\u201d, a public art display in memory of George Floyd, the Black man killed at the hands of police in Minnesota earlier this year which sparked global waves of demonstrations against anti-Black racism and in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Made from wood, the abstract piece ebbs and flows, as it spells out words gasped by George Floyd as a police boot pressed down on his neck: \u201cI can\u2019t breathe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI chose wood for a very specific reason,\u201d says Ms. Farrell. \u201cWood has an evolution of life. I thought, in relation to George Floyd, wood has this element of rebirth. It grows from a seed, it is used in lumber and timber, but it drops its seeds and gives life again. In a way, with George Floyd, his death wasn\u2019t in vain, it brought life again; it has brought an attention towards this very dark issue that has been around for hundreds of years and it still isn\u2019t resolved.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Ms. Farrell\u2019s perspective, it was Mr. Floyd\u2019s begging for air that helped galvanize the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re begging for the most fundamental thing of life, I think that drew people,\u201d she says. \u201cHow can you not just take your foot off a person\u2019s neck? It is also the fact there\u2019s cameras now. There were so many cameras and with the internet, it goes viral and everyone can know about it very fast.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Farrell knows the reality of anti-Black racism after living on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The situation is much the same on either side of the divide, she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is not just in the States, it is right here \u2013 the tactics might not be as brutal, but it is still there and it is almost to the point of, \u2018We\u2019re going to fight for that cause, just as long as you don\u2019t come to our neighbourhood.\u2019 That is the reality and once you enter into the neighbourhood, so to speak, then you are watched.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aurora, she says, is not immune to this way of thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She gives what she describes as a \u201cmiddle of the road example\u201d as the \u201cworst and the best might be a bit too much.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That middle road came approximately eight years ago when she began work on her century home, now known as The Blueprint House for its bold blue paint with white markings inspired by architect drawings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was taking off the [old] siding \u2013 a homeowner can do that \u2013 but, in the course of me taking off siding I had nine government officials [come by],\u201d she says, before pausing. \u201cI can barely say it because it is almost fresh. I couldn\u2019t believe it. They were questioning me. Because I am an architect, I know good and well there is no bylaw that says you can\u2019t take off your own siding. People will say, \u2018Oh, that is a coincidence,\u2019 or \u2018Oh, that has nothing to do with skin colour,\u2019 but it absolutely does because that would not happen to another neighbour that is not my skin colour. I was shocked and dumbfounded, but I just kept plugging away because I knew very well there was nothing anyone could do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, did this challenge galvanize her forward or cause her to shrink back?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the thing about racial equality,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen you\u2019re born with a pigmentation, you learn very early to fight,\u201d she says. \u201cWithin this community, I have been told, \u2018You\u2019re angry,\u2019 and they put these titles on you. The reality is it is really unfair that because of your pigmentation you have to go that extra mile. You have to stand taller, you have to stand your ground, and when that wrong is thrust upon you, you have to stand tall and say, \u2018No, this is wrong.\u2019 Did I press on? Of course!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The resulting Blueprint House stands just a stone\u2019s throw, fittingly, from Town Park, which was the site of a thousand-person Solidarity March inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement. Ms. Farrell says she was thrilled such an event was able to take place here as it is important for people to understand, \u201cIf injustice happens to one, it happens to all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, her art stands as testimony to that sentiment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cArtists have a very important responsibility for changing the human condition and I find that, through art, you are able to speak change in a more gentle yet strong way,\u201d she says. \u201cIt has that strength and softness. People can enter into art a little bit easier than through an all-out confrontation. It is not necessarily just through speaking and yelling, but maybe it is easier entering through something like art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI want people to take away the urgency, that we need to unify our differences, unify our ethnicities. We are a multicultural society and all our voices need to be heard.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Local artist sends powerful message through public art<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":27237,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-and-culture","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/2020-08-13-01.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-75h","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-04 01:58:45","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}