112 CANADIAN A RT • SPRING 2016 canadianart.ca 113stone walls, whose organizing force was
eminent Mexican artist Francisco Toledo. It
aims to show the interaction of plants and
people. Benner’s gardens invoke a similar
interaction, with their overlay of political
and ethnographic themes.
Hassan and Benner have been together
for decades. Hassan comes from a large
family, whose Lebanon-born parents, owners
of hotels and groceries in London, played
a major role in establishing the Arab community. “If you were Muslim
from Albania or Yugoslavia or Lebanon and landed in London, Ontario,
you turned up at our door. The bar was set high for activism, and we kids
were always pushed to do more.” An organizational dynamo, Hassan
negotiates the human and bureaucratic intricacies of installing work
around the world. Benner is often in charge of the technical aspects, and
thus they work as a team. Unlike her partner, Hassan has an extensive
post-secondary education: the Rome University of Fine Arts, Académie
Libanaise des Beaux-Arts in Beirut, the University of Windsor and the
Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. In 2001 , she was awarded the
Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts.
Hassan recalls growing up in London across the street from the Dewdney
household, a hotbed of intellectual and cultural life at the time. Selwyn
(an author, pioneer in art therapy and pictography scholar) and Irene
Dewdney “adopted” her unofficially and she watched First Nations artist
Norval Morrisseau working on a show in their living room. Painters Greg
Curnoe and Jack Chambers were in and out of the house, and Curnoe
became her friend and supporter.
As activist-artists, the couple notes that when they turn up at political
meetings in London, they are usually the only artists present. They continue
to work with the Unity Project that advocates for homeless people, many
of whom can be seen hanging around downtown London. A city that used
to be prosperous, it is less so now. Benner and a small crew have recently
been “guerrilla gardening” on top of the slabs erected as bases for com-
munity mailboxes—a clear protest to the government threatening to end
door-to-door postal delivery (the measure has since been suspended).
Hassan was a founding member of the artist-run Forest City Gallery, and
as we drive around town, the couple points out former sites of the gallery.
Hassan says, “I wanted more women involved, but it was hard to achieve
any kind of parity. It could be a cruel boys’ club, cruel toward women and
the younger-generation artists.”
Brian Meehan, executive director of Museum London, describes by
email how the pair are a force in the London art scene: “Beyond theirof these edible. A photograph of the parasite clinging to a cob appears next
to a poem written by Benner, marking a “list of opposites that indicate the
perceptual differences between us and Native Americans,” he says. Opposites
such as: “Your disease our delicacy.”
Benner’s work traces the migration of Native American plants around
the world. His installations map these “vectors” using photography, gardens
and text. “My work rarely deals with issues of Art,” he points out. The
corn-eating students are intrigued by the set-up that has landed in their
university commons. After the first hiccup of puzzlement, they enter into
the spirit of the occasion. It’s all about the interaction, the eating of corn
that was brought to us from Meso-America, understanding origins of our
food and freely taking what is offered. “These exchanges are what matters,”
Benner says, wiping his hands on his apron.
Born in 1949 in London, Ontario, Benner comes from a family of railroad
men and worked as a brakeman and conductor himself, thus witnessing
the transport of food across continents. A year studying agricultural engin-
eering at the University of Guelph convinced him that he did not want to
become a corporate-style farmer. Extensive travels to Latin America woke
up his political conscience, and seeded the idea of tracking where food
comes from and where it ends up. He has no formal art training, but in his
mid-20s he rented a studio in downtown London and “proclaimed myself
an artist.” Toronto curator Barbara Fischer has pointed out that in his
combination of text, documentary photography and research, his work
belongs to the legacy of Conceptualism. Benner readily agrees, and refers
to the work of German Conceptual artist Hans Haacke, whose practice is
overtly political and, at one time, dealt with live animals and plants and
physical systems operating in real time.
I first met Benner and Hassan in Oaxaca City, Mexico. Benner was sitting
at the table in the shared courtyard, rolling cigarettes and drinking espresso
while Hassan typed on her laptop. The pair were in town to install a
collaborative show at the local library, a beautiful Colonial-era building.
Part of the installation involved their watercolour paintings of the botanical
gardens. This is a world-famous ethnobotanical garden surrounded by highOPPOSITE: Jamelie Hassan
Nur (detail) 2 014 – Paper
mounted onto archival board,
ink, paint and glass lamps
Dimensions variable Installation
view at the Library of the
Great Mosque, Xi’an, China
PHOTO STONE PHOTOGRAPHYJamelie Hassan Could we ever
know each other...? 2 013
Colour photograph mounted
on Masonite, recycled
neon light and electrical
components 9 9 cm x 2 .13 m x
12 .7 cm COLLECTION IVEY BUSINESS
SCHOOL AT WESTERN UNIVERSITY
PHOTO RON BENNERHassan-Benner_ sp16_14TSLR.indd 112 02/03/16 10:18 AM