Versions, Perspectives and Ox-Goring

When is the impassioned work of an artistic talent politically compromised? When, obviously, that artist undertakes to portray through her artwork the pain and suffering of an identifiable group and when the background is painful violence and intrusive social politics.

So an exhibition of paintings whose purpose, the artist claims, is to highlight the undeniable fact that women of aboriginal descent and women who sell their bodies are neglected by society, to the extent that no one cares if they disappear, if they are dispatched by a serial murderer has been cancelled.

The series of paintings memorializing the mysteriously and unaccountably vanished and the obviously slaughtered as a comment on Canadian society's willingness to be disinvested in the safety and security and humanity of certain groups, is now being discounted as self-availing for the heightened reputation of the artist, Pamela Masik.

Her work in assembling a group of portraits of missing and murdered women from the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver, was originally acclaimed and destined for an exhibit at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia.

The connection of the exhibition to the notorious serial killer Robert Pickton, and the social blot on Vancouver relating to the astonishing fact that dozens of women who worked on the squalid streets of the Downtown Eastside as hookers whose working presence was tolerated, and whose peculiar lack of physical presence was simply ignored would be certain to elicit notice.

The series of paintings by Ms. Masik collectively labelled The Forgotten, accurately identified the issue and the social pain. "I saw my role as an artist to bear witness to the 69 women who were marginalized, went missing and many, ultimately, who were murdered, not just by the hands of a serial killer but by our society viewing these women as inconsequential", Ms. Masik explained.

That explanation isn't washing with her critics. "The Forgotten does nothing to stop the violence against women in this community. It exoticizes them and turns them into commodities to promote the 'Masik brand'", accused an organizer of the annual Women's Memorial March in the Downtown Eastside, as she brought pressure on the university and the museum to cancel the event.

The author of this accusation seems intent on having her dedicated group remaining the sole recognized authority on the dreadful fate of these women.

The claim being by a Memorial March Committee member that by mounting the show the university and the museum would be helpfully instrumental in making the artist, Ms. Masik, the effective "spokesperson" for aboriginal women's issues. Whereas it is the aboriginal women themselves and the Downtown Eastside Women only who could legitimately claim that title.

With the Memorial March Committee enabling them, as their representatives.

It is not to the credit of the University of British Columbia and the associated Museum of Anthropology that the decision was summarily made to cancel the show. This is a show of art and delayed social conscience and consequences which may, according to the artist, now be coming to a venue in Ottawa. Which will be Vancouver's loss and Ottawa's gain.

"There are still missing and murdered women all over Canada and it's going to continue to happen until we acknowledge our role in making this happen. How do we create change if we can't even talk about it? [The museum is] kind of manifesting exactly what happened in the Downtown Eastside: We don't see it, we don't talk about it." Pamela Masik