Explaining a Vulnerability Vigil to US Tourists: A) They Listen and B) the Extinction Symbol Makes it Easier

So yesterday I did my 30th Human Body Project Vulnerability Vigil. I stood across from the British Columbia legislature building (the seat of the provincial government).

To recap, for a Vulnerability Vigil, I stand naked in a public place at least once a month, with a sign, for at least an hour.

Holding a sign with the Extinction Symbol and speaking with a US tourist.
Human Body Project Vulnerability Vigil, May 26, 2014.

It was a very pleasant vigil for me for two reasons. For once, I was actually warm. I was standing in the setting sun and it wasn't very windy. Usually I freeze. Victoria is a windy and often non-warm town.

And, because it happened to be a day when cruise ships stop in at Victoria's harbour, many American tourists who were wandering around came up to talk to me. Usually I am not approached. Canadians mostly blow by and are often non-warm.

It was interesting and invigorating to actually have people ask: why are you doing this? (I mean, it's a reasonable question, but people rarely ask me, including many people I know personally.) And then they listened to the answer.

Americans are often considered oafish by people of other nationalities. If I ever had an "Americans are an oafish people" thought, I must now revise it and chide myself on my ignorance.

I would describe the people who spoke to me as probably not rich (I think these cruises are often people's trip of a lifetime experience) and not super-sophisticated; if there is such a thing, they appeared to be "ordinary" Americans. The guy in the photo above is white but several people of various other races/ethnicities spoke to me too.

This was my second month holding the Extinction Symbol sign. I love the Extinction Symbol sign. It makes it all easier to explain. (Like somehow billions of people live in poverty/tens of millions are displaced by war/entrenched misogyny/government supported violence/destruction of indigenous cultures/environmental destruction/etc./etc./etc. can't be seen as urgent but the idea of a human-caused mass extinction causes people to sort of twig...)

Here is a typical conversation from yesterday. I had several conversations like this.

US tourist: Why are you doing this? Is this a protest? 

Tasha: Well, I've been doing the Human Body Project for more than 8 years. I started doing performances where I showed up naked and unscripted to be as vulnerable as possible and to share that vulnerability.
Then I started doing this street work in January of 2012. I do it once a month for an hour. It's sort of a protest but more like a ritual of "being the change." I stand naked to be as vulnerable as possible, in solidarity with the world's most vulnerable and the vulnerable earth.
This is the Extinction Symbol. Have you seen it before? 

US tourist: No, what is it? 

Tasha: It's a symbol that's meant to bring awareness to the fact that humans are creating a mass extinction. Like when the dinosaurs all died? Except when that happened it took tens of thousands of years. Humans will pretty much accomplish a mass extinction in about 700 years from, like, the time of the Industrial Revolution. Most life on earth will be extinct by 2400. So, in other words, all humans are vulnerable. 

US tourist: In other words, we're doomed. What's causing it? 

Tasha: Mostly global climate change, development and pollution. 

US tourist: I don't really see how standing naked with a sign will help. 

Tasha: Well, I believe that civilization equals domination equals ego. So humans don't understand vulnerability or how to be vulnerable. So I figure this is like a wake-up call but also like a way to kickstart evolution or change consciousness. Our brains need to change. But, hey, I feel pretty hopeless. I also do this as an outlet for my rage. I can't believe people walk around like everything is normal. This helps me not drink myself to death. I feel hopeless but I can still do something.  

US tourist: Wow. Good for you. That's gutsy.

Then they ask me, is that my husband? (How nice that he is supportive.) Do I have kids? (All parents embarrass their kids.) And whether I get arrested. (I tell them I put my underpants on when the cops hassle me and they laugh.)

I don't know. Maybe it's one of those cases, like this must be a crazy Canadian thing to do! And that's why they talked to me. But I was impressed and heartened by my encounters with American tourists yesterday.

A European Academic Who Works in the Area of Indigenous Rights Writes

I received this letter from an academic working at a European university on April 24, 2014. 

I felt very excited by the contact because of the work he is doing with indigenous people and his understanding of how my work connects with his.

To put it succinctly: Indigineity=vulnerability. Literally, as in indigenous cultures everywhere have been and are being devastated. And in the sense that many indigenous cultures accept vulnerability as a way of being and are thus able to respect the vulnerability of nature, children, emotional beingness, etc, whereas showing up naked and vulnerable goes against every tenet of civilization.

His modified letter is below.

Dear Ms. Diamant, 
   If I understand you correctly, you see a connection between nudity and the wellbeing of the planet. 
   This is exactly one of my positions. I am a cultural psychologist, [affiliated with an internationally recognized dept. of indigenous rights, teaching in Europe]. In my classes, students not only receive theoretical input, but are trained to be naked, before they are allowed to participate in excursions to indigenous peoples in Africa or other places. Each year, we spend one week in Geneva, where we attend the UN session on indigenous rights, with accommodation at the local naturist resort. 
   The situation of indigenous peoples is very serious. They are very much exposed to globalizing influence. Their cultural identity is being criminalized, they are being forced into clothes. This goes along with a loss of their closeness to nature. We are witnessing this planet to be covered by destructive global culture. 
In our work in the fields, we try to counteract these processes. When we visit indigenous peoples, we take off our clothes and thus communicate our acceptance and respect of their traditional appearance. Humankind has been naked on this planet for thousands of years. This is species-appropriate for Homo sapiens. By forcing humans into permanent disguise, psychological mechanisms of deprecating nature are being triggered, including the disapproval of the natural human being. 
   I would very much appreciate future cooperation. 
With kind regards, 
A European academic

I asked if I could share his writing on my blog and he said yes but that I would need to make him anonymous because at the institution where he is a professor and researcher his employment and tenure have been threatened. "They are looking for reasons to get rid of me. They even presented a fabricated letter of someone, who did not even participate in the field training, to impute base motives to the fact that nakedness is part of the preparation for excursions to indigenous peoples." He had to pay thousands of euros to a lawyer to save his job. Not really surprising, but sad.

Here is a portion of my reply:

   I think nakedness and vulnerability are inherently related (in what I call global industrialized culture or, simply, civilization).
   To choose vulnerability at a time when humans are so very vulnerable appears to our culture to be a paradoxical stance. 
   I.e., how can being naked and allowing oneself to be vulnerable be empowering in a culture in which the foundation is domination (over less fortunate people, animals, nature, feminine energy, women, children, etc.), a culture where we all are taught to disconnect from heart and fiercely guard our authenticity?
   I seek to "be the change" by showing up the way I believe we need to show up to survive.
   As a reluctant academic, I am always enraged at the amount of wankery in research: disembodied ideas while the world is being destroyed. Perhaps you can understand? But that's our culture.
   I'm not sure how much you've looked at my website but, for one thing, I do a Vulnerability Vigil every month, where I stand naked on the street shielded only by a sign (a gesture of gentleness to those who are deeply affronted by nakedness). This month I used the extinction symbol on my sign.
   I've written extensively about why I do the project, but the extinction symbol says it without words. In my estimation, we are beyond the "postmodern," our mutually assured extinction, to me, is post-everything: post-art, post-pursuit of happiness, post-democracy, etc. Almost nowhere in any of our cultural discourses have we remotely caught up to the reality. 
   I think of my work as indigenous, but even that is problematic. Because I am white and of European descent, I am not "allowed" to appropriate that label. But what I'm doing came a) from an ability I have to listen to my intuition and body/heart/soul and b) is deeply related to how indigenous people have lived for millennia.

I feel like I am a reverse anthropologist, taking cultural excursions into my own culture with some of the p.o.v. and beingness of a traditional indigenous person. A fraught position to be in, needless to say.

Vulnerability Vigil Mon, May 26, 5-6 pm, across from BC Legislature

30th Human Body Project Vulnerability Vigil
Across from British Columbia Legislature, Government and Belleville, Victoria, BC
Monday, May 26, 2014
5-6 pm

A Human Body Project Vulnerability Vigil is a gesture, a ritual, a practice... street performance, non-violent direct action, activism... a wake-up call... an outlet for my pain and rage...

This is the 30th Vulnerability Vigil since January 2012.

Earth Day Vigil, April 22, 2014, Victoria.

What it looks like: 
I show up naked on the street at least once a month. I do this, in solidarity with the world's most vulnerable, to share and create a space for vulnerability. I hold a sign in front of me in a gesture of gentleness to those deeply affronted by public nudity.

The sign: 
I learned about the extinction symbol last month. That's what will be on the sign. extinctionsymbol.info

Collaborators: 
I invite you to join me. I am very grateful when people do. Those who join me can be as dressed or undressed as they choose.

Collaborators Elsewhere:
If you would like to coordinate a Vulnerability Vigil in another city, please message me.

Link to the Facebook event:
https://www.facebook.com/events/881333028550863/