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By Sid Chow Tan
Vancouver, British Columbia
Synopsis
No Luck Club did the audio track and Sid Chow Tan added the visuals,
archived by community television activists of the Saltwater City Television
Collective.
Community Television and Emergence of Video Art for the Redress Movement
By Sid Chow Tan, ACCESSTV
Often artist must use what they have at hand. This is certainly true
when locating film and video of historical events and nascent social
justice movements. When redress activists discovered community
television to be a helpful addition in publicising and organising the
Chinese head tax and exclusion redress movement, it provided a
serendipitous bonus for filmmakers and video artists.
The three elements of the Canadian broadcasting system are public,
commercial and community broadcasters. In Metro Vancouver, ACCESS TV
(Association of Chinese Canadians for Equality and Solidarity Society)
have a video archive spanning the last twenty years of the Chinese
head tax and exclusion redress movement. Including short reports and
hour long programs broadcast on community television as well as raw
footage.
Video from the archives has appeared several times in national news
reports and film documentaries, notably Karen Cho's In the Shadow of
Gold Mountain.
The archives also provided all the footage to audio tracks of Our
Story: Chinese Head Tax Mash Up by hip hop recording artists No Luck
Club and Head Tax Blues by Sean Gunn, a poet, singer, songwriter and
veteran redress activist.
Community television will continue to play a role in the redress
movement. A debt is still owed by the government to Chinese pioneer
families who overcame 62-years of racist legislation to become a
distinguished thread in the Canadian fabric. Hopefully, visual
artists, writers and musicians be inspired by and contribute to this
continuing heroic and epic struggle for justice and honour.
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