The Reception of Lorna's Head - Projecting meaning into an empty receptacle Jordan Singer Carleton University

When the strike began I knew that I would have to become actively involved. Over the last 5 years I have been on strike three times. The first time as a social worker, the second as a teacher and now as both a T.A. and a G.A. at York University. I joined what became know as the CUPE Art Collective or what I liked to call The Guerrilla Art Collective. Over the course of the strike we were involved in many endeavors from making signs, to performing plays, all of which were aimed at increasing public and CUPE member awareness regarding some of the deeper issues and political machinations behind our struggle for Tuition Indexation and a fair first contract for the oft maligned unit three Graduate and Research Assistants.. I will leave the in depth analysis to others and I will focus here on the personal testimony I have to offer as a member of this artistic collective. One particular piece of art that transcended both the duration of the strike and its foreseeable function during the strike was the infamous paper-mache head of Lorna Marsden. This was no ordinary head to be sure. It was unflattering in a manner that could only be achieved by a large scale caricature. The head was contentious: for some as it was perceived of as a potential 'object' which could contribute to psychological and social-political reductionism, effectively reducing the complexity of the issues behind the strike to a simplistic exercise of demonization, while for others more specifically, the significance of the head did not focus attention on the Board of Governors where it belonged. Lorna, many of us were aware, was not the soul purveyor of the strike maelstrom, although she did have the power to end it. Also, initially I too was concerned that the projection of hostility toward an identifiable human art object might be a simplistic and regressive use of aggressive impulses. I wondered whether the the head would contribute to a dissipation of the limited physical and psychological energy available from our members and other supporters both inside and outside the York community. Should not this essential vital energy be directed toward the academic and political issues of the strike and not focused on a base and petty, scape-goating exercise? After some thought about the use of similar art objects in other democratic movements I suspected the head would become a silent witness, a doppelganger, and even an objective personification of the 'Board of Governors' behind Lorna Marsden. The head was a symbol that signified these aspects and carried the significations of much more. As I mentioned, I do not want to become too analytic in this short piece. I am attempting instead to convey an interactive testimonial. This piece was something I needed to write. The instance within an incident that has sparked the necessity for me to write this piece was a particular moment in space and time that has become for me the fulcrum of all of my memories of the strike. Within this one encounter there lies for me a connection to all of the rallies, speeches, performances, analysis, meetings and victory celebrations. The moment occurred when the head and Ms. Marsden were both confined to the same space as the members of the university senate, CUPE executive, and student senators as well as members of the Guerrilla Art Collective and supportive CUPE workers. . I, unbeknownst to myself would be the harbinger of this surreal circumstance. The head would become a representative of far more than anyone could have surmised. It was four weeks into the strike and an important senate meeting was scheduled. Great care had been taken to transport the head to the meeting. Several of the members of the Art Collective were caught in traffic and would be late. The meeting was about to begin. I waited several minutes. Then, swallowing my latent and theretofore silent wish for anonymity, I decided the head must be a presence for those in the room. I walked in several minutes late and was attempting to quietly wedge the one and a half by one meter head in the back corner of the room between a chair and the wall. My attempt to be quiet was betrayed by the ominous presence of the head. Senators turned their heads to view the head and recognize it in all of its significance. It was our representative. It was all the members of the strike who could not attend. It was all of the students and merchants who were suffering under the globalized glare of this disembodied opportunist. Some laughed, others who sat literally and figuratively-political on the right hand side of the room ( Lorna's side of the room) sat seemingly dumbfounded. The CUPE members were clearly proud of the presence of the head and rejoiced at the doppelganger's entrance. The head had essentially silenced Lorna's ability to appear as a genuine person and for her speech to be heard as anything but disembodied. I finally propped the head into a stable position and turned around. At this precise moment Lorna rose to speak. She could not possibly have made any sense so close to the presence of her doppelganger, her nemesis, the cranium reflecting a silent verisimilitude of her TRUE agenda. Her eyes met mine after they had glanced at the head. The eyes were cold, distant, dismissive as though she recognized something but was unsure what it was. I wonder if this recognition was something catalyzed by the head. I suspect it was the processing of my image to catalogue and add to her ever-expanding list of PEONS to wreak vengeance upon.