Freedom Lost
On Economic Crisis and the Suppression of Dissent

The precarity of the global economy, combined with the increasingly precarious state of modern wage-labour, has led to a wave of dissent and resistance, one that has materialized in both mass protests and increasingly critical political art from Canadian artists. Toronto artists Carole Condé and Karl Beveridge are important in this regard as their sustained interest in addressing labour issues continues the dissent that is often otherwise suppressed. Their work Liberty Lost (2010) addresses a number of the most significant political issues facing dissenting Canadians at present, and a critical analysis of the work, employing some of the political and aesthetic terms used by French philosopher Jacques Rancière, reveals voices that address both specific political issues and ontological divisions that limit who can speak and what can be said.

G20 and the people hushed

The 2010 G20 Summit in Toronto was intended to improve and further international economic relations, open up the global market, and provide a forum to discuss ways of responding to the ongoing global financial crisis¹ 1 - “Opening statement by the Prime Minister to the G20 Sherpas’ meeting,” Prime Minister of Canada (website), March 18, 2010, (accessed August 20, 2012). www.pm.gc.ca/eng/media.asp? id=3209 . Given the concentration of political power at the Summit, with representatives from twenty of the world’s wealthiest countries, it attracted widespread protests that enflamed the streets of Toronto. Despite being predominantly non-violent, this dissent was significantly, and at times violently, suppressed, and the ensuing flurry of arrests and convictions has been a point of contention in Canada’s alternative media ever since.