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Sook-Yin: Not at all. I’m interested in asking questions and answering them because it helps me understand the interview process, which I'm passionate about. It can be challenging answering questions. I was recently on the Jack press junket and journalists kept asking me the same questions. At one point I was in a ring of hell and trapped in a closet for three hours, having to answer, literally, the exact same questions in a succession of radio interviews. I tried to make it interesting for myself by answering the same questions differently, I also tried perfecting identical answers as if it was the first time I was asked the question. It was a strange kind of performance. This interview is weird because you're in Berlin and I'm in Toronto and we’re communicating online. You're Canadian and you haven't been in Canada in over a year. Your editor wants us to talk about Canadian topics and politics, to get me to say something provocative. I’m wondering if this is possible—but I’ll answer your questions.Whenever I look on my Reuters app to catch up on Canadian news, there is rarely any coverage. From an international perspective, why are Canadian politics so boring?
They're not boring, they're interesting. But you have to pay attention and care about Canadian politics to be invested in it. A Reuters app on your phone is a condensed version of international news headlines. Canadian politics can seem boring compared to provocative sound bytes and flashy images. I wonder sometimes if Canadian politics are purposefully presented in a dull fashion so that you don't pay attention. Controversial bills are passed and important information concealed when no one's paying attention. It makes it hard to sustain interest and keep the conversation going—when you're distracted by sensationalistic news, life, and other interests.
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C10 is a recent example. I'm also glad there were those with the curiosity and patience to decode Jim Flaherty's 2013 Budget, identifying passages intentionally added in and left out. On the culture of boring, recently, I wanted to get a sense of Stephen Harper's personality and came across a fascinating Christmas interview in an ornate holiday setting with a roaring fire, baubles, and a lit-up Christmas tree. In the middle of the room hunched over on a wooden chair, sat the Prime Minister going on about numbers and statistics and being about as dull as a math teacher. He's an unapologetically charmless man, which is an anomaly among the flashy scene stealers. I think his mundane personality is a part of his winning formula. He's easy to ignore and he hangs in there. He is our country's leader, and yet this interview garnered less than two-thousand hits.He’s not a very electrifying man. Is there any chance there will be a Jack sequel?
I doubt it, but maybe Jack Layton returns and joins forces with Olivia in a zombie musical.That’d be cool. Is it bullshit to ask if you think Olivia Chow should be the next mayor of Toronto?
It’s not bullshit, but I wonder why I'm asked that so often. Is it because people are sick of our current mayor Rob Ford, or do they want to know if I advocate Olivia Chow's political views? I can’t say she should do anything. She has a passion for politics, and if she wants to run for mayor she will. May the best person win and lead well. What is bullshit is when people ask me to do her accent, like it's some kind of party trick, or when I'm asked to show up at a function and impersonate her. Uh, no.
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I look forward to the day when there's another female Canadian Prime Minister. I'd like to see an evolution in government towards more effective, and humanistic ways of making things work better. I like Pam Palmater. She’s a force behind Idle No More. Pam’s a Mi'kmaq lawyer, teacher and activist. She came up outside of a system that denied her aboriginal rights and she went toe to toe with lawmakers and leaders and now she’s helping to improve that system with new ideas that transcend wholly right or left-wing thinking.What are your thoughts on Idle No More?
I'm excited about Idle No More. It offers an avenue of expression, communication, and exchange of ideas. Visibility is key. It's important to see that there are others like you, who share similar passions and concerns. I appreciate the way Idle No More encourages peaceful and respectful communication. There is joy in and energy in the events I've attended. No doubt, there are complicated challenges facing Canadians and Aboriginal communities that will take time to process and improve upon. Idle No More gets the conversation going.

I’ve been making art for my entire life. I was raised in Vancouver’s underground music and arts scene in the late 80s, and thrown into the public spotlight when I started working at MuchMusic and now the CBC. Initially, my curiosity as a performance artist led me to mainstream media. I wanted to see what I could get away with. My part in the controversial sex comedy Shortbus made headlines, and Jack brought on a wave of media interest in Canada. Media and movies are part of a larger machine with a bigger audience compared to my less publicized undertakings, but they all fit together and inform one another. It’s exciting. Being referred to as a contemporary artist is a relatively new way of describing what I do. It coincided with my exhibiting work in an art gallery context. I’m up to all kinds of experiments in hybrid-narrative performance, music, movie-making, video, and photography, that not as many people know about. That’s okay by me. You have to seek it out. But it is the genesis, and it's the seed.
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How Can I Forget? was a response to shooting the movie, Jack. In losing myself in the role of Olivia Chow, I experienced the mutability of persona and realized there is no finite identity. Who we think we are changes depending on set and setting. In private moments, when I stood in front of a mirror, without makeup or disguise, unable recognize myself, it was pretty terrifying. I was spooked for months, but eventually I got used to it. It was a valuable experience, realizing there is no self. Self-portraiture is a creation, of reality and not. The stories that make up the fragmented narrative of How Can I Forget? came from specific personal experiences, but there is also confabulation, imagination, documentary and fiction thrown in the mix. I was influenced by Carl Jung's notion of the inner anima and animus, and a Japanese creation myth about brother-sister lovers in an egg that gives birth to the universe. In the performance, Benjamin Kamino and I embody aspects of the same person; it’s a playful co-operation.Cool. So, the last segment you did on MuchMusic in 2001, you mooned the fucking camera and the audience. WTF!!! If you had the chance, who would you moon today?
I can’t think of anyone. Mooning an individual pales in comparison to mooning the world.Follow Nadja on Twitter: @nadjasayejLearn about Canada:Enbridge's Sketchy Pipeline Reversal Plan Affects Most CanadiansWhat Does this Blocked Terrorist Attack Mean for Canada?We Spoke to B4-4 about Bullies and Blowjobs
