So I covered my first event tonight!!! Okay, well it's not official yet, I just got back from opening night of the exhibition and haven't written anything yet, but it's due tomorrow at midnight, so by then I'll have it done and it'll be published for Tuesday!
Okay, so there was some good and some bad, a litlte bit of disappointment but I made it out okay...here's how it went:
So myself and another writer (I was sent to cover the artistic/political side of it, other mystery news guy was sent to cover the news aspect of hte event) were sent from the Link (Concordia's indie newspaper) to cover opening night at the Dazibao studio for Darren Ell's new exhibition called "Between States" -- it's 12 nearly life-sized photographs of refugees seeking Canadian status who have been detained, arrested without access to evidence, incarcerated, etc. mostly because they are accused of involvement with what the government has labelled a terrorist organization (ie. Al-Qaeda or the FARC in Colombia). A truly interesting night, it was so good! Darren's renowned for his work abroad, primarily photojournalism in places like Haiti and the Middle East. So yeah, he spoke, some of the refugees actually attended and spoke, one lady's husband has now been cleared through the Immigration board so he lives in Canada "free", under 24h surveillance, can't leave his house more than 3x/week, can't go near airports, underground parking lots, taxi cabs, phone calls and mail is intervened, must give 48hours notice prior to going to any events off of his property and can't be away from his home for more than 12 hours. Oh yeah, and he has to wear a GPS monitoring bracelet at all times or else he'll get deported. So yes, he wasn't able to come to the exhibition but his wife was there, great lady. Members of the Solidarity Across Borders group were there, they spoke a litlte and at last, Darren spoke. He's a popular man! I had to wait around for over an hour before I could even get close to the guy.
So I finally introduced myself and him and I got to sneak to the back room for an interview!!!! It was great, he had to disappear once or twice because he kept getting called back out, but we managed to get in some 10 quality minutes of one-on-one. Yep, so I had my minidisk recorder onhand (and anybody who knows me KNOWS that me and technology are fucking nemeses). So of course 45 seconds into the interview the battery dies (and this is after I checked the equipment before renting it at hte depot, the battery was dead so I returned it...guy switches the dead batter for, well, ,a fucking dying batter, which totally caught me off guard). But I had my notepad with me, so we made due with that.
His past and current work his powerful and what he had to say was profound - what can I say, I fell in love!
Well, the article is only like 400 words. It's nothing, and I have little charge, but I'm glad in a way. I want to do this piece justice, not botch it up, and being slapped with a 2000 word feature story is no way to go about it for my first time. So hopefully I'll get in some good stuff. And Darren told me to save him a copy of the article...litlte does he know he was my first interview. ever.
Aside from the recording fucking me over HUGE I had the best time! I didn't know where the studio was located, hopped on the metro and tackled it like a champ. I felt so alone and yet so independent and sufficient, showed up by myself, set up my notepad, had my recorder, took some pictures, wrote a bunch, enjoyed a glass of Yellowtail, it was great. I know I have a long ways to go but I can't blame myself for being a little excited. I'm mostly happy because I enjoyed doing it, and I can feel that I've got an interesting future ahead of me. (well who knows if I do, but if I want to have an interesting career the first step is telilng myself it's gonna happen, right?).
Although my coverage and story contribution isn't really all that significant, I felt like I was getting closer to the position of an actual journalist; someone who's going to be one. It was just a great feeling, and the topic was so interesting.
Right right...so now is the...actual going about it and...writing...and okay 400 words, I'll DESTROY this thing!!
All of you, go to www.darrenell.com ---RIGHT MEOW!!
Okay, so there was some good and some bad, a litlte bit of disappointment but I made it out okay...here's how it went:
So myself and another writer (I was sent to cover the artistic/political side of it, other mystery news guy was sent to cover the news aspect of hte event) were sent from the Link (Concordia's indie newspaper) to cover opening night at the Dazibao studio for Darren Ell's new exhibition called "Between States" -- it's 12 nearly life-sized photographs of refugees seeking Canadian status who have been detained, arrested without access to evidence, incarcerated, etc. mostly because they are accused of involvement with what the government has labelled a terrorist organization (ie. Al-Qaeda or the FARC in Colombia). A truly interesting night, it was so good! Darren's renowned for his work abroad, primarily photojournalism in places like Haiti and the Middle East. So yeah, he spoke, some of the refugees actually attended and spoke, one lady's husband has now been cleared through the Immigration board so he lives in Canada "free", under 24h surveillance, can't leave his house more than 3x/week, can't go near airports, underground parking lots, taxi cabs, phone calls and mail is intervened, must give 48hours notice prior to going to any events off of his property and can't be away from his home for more than 12 hours. Oh yeah, and he has to wear a GPS monitoring bracelet at all times or else he'll get deported. So yes, he wasn't able to come to the exhibition but his wife was there, great lady. Members of the Solidarity Across Borders group were there, they spoke a litlte and at last, Darren spoke. He's a popular man! I had to wait around for over an hour before I could even get close to the guy.
So I finally introduced myself and him and I got to sneak to the back room for an interview!!!! It was great, he had to disappear once or twice because he kept getting called back out, but we managed to get in some 10 quality minutes of one-on-one. Yep, so I had my minidisk recorder onhand (and anybody who knows me KNOWS that me and technology are fucking nemeses). So of course 45 seconds into the interview the battery dies (and this is after I checked the equipment before renting it at hte depot, the battery was dead so I returned it...guy switches the dead batter for, well, ,a fucking dying batter, which totally caught me off guard). But I had my notepad with me, so we made due with that.
His past and current work his powerful and what he had to say was profound - what can I say, I fell in love!
Well, the article is only like 400 words. It's nothing, and I have little charge, but I'm glad in a way. I want to do this piece justice, not botch it up, and being slapped with a 2000 word feature story is no way to go about it for my first time. So hopefully I'll get in some good stuff. And Darren told me to save him a copy of the article...litlte does he know he was my first interview. ever.
Aside from the recording fucking me over HUGE I had the best time! I didn't know where the studio was located, hopped on the metro and tackled it like a champ. I felt so alone and yet so independent and sufficient, showed up by myself, set up my notepad, had my recorder, took some pictures, wrote a bunch, enjoyed a glass of Yellowtail, it was great. I know I have a long ways to go but I can't blame myself for being a little excited. I'm mostly happy because I enjoyed doing it, and I can feel that I've got an interesting future ahead of me. (well who knows if I do, but if I want to have an interesting career the first step is telilng myself it's gonna happen, right?).
Although my coverage and story contribution isn't really all that significant, I felt like I was getting closer to the position of an actual journalist; someone who's going to be one. It was just a great feeling, and the topic was so interesting.
Right right...so now is the...actual going about it and...writing...and okay 400 words, I'll DESTROY this thing!!
All of you, go to www.darrenell.com ---RIGHT MEOW!!
Save me a copy