INTERVIEW

GLEN MOSELY,
PRESIDENT OF ECCADS
STUDENT SOCIETY

By: Laiwan Chung

L. — What is your major concern while
you are president?

G. — My major concern would be to
try to allow the students in the school
to have the interest and ability to a
greater input into the workings of the
college. To have more say to what
goes on around here.

L. — How do you think you'll go about
that?

G. — First of all there has to be a cer-
tain amount of unity among the
students in order to have their opi-
nions listened to. It’s difficult of
course because art students in general
are very individual and shy away
from any kind of unity, but as in-
dividuals their strength is far weaker
than if they would at least unite their
interests on what happens in the
school.

L. — Do you think the ECCAD Student
Soctety will join the B.C. Federation of
Students?

G. — Un, I think we’ll try it out. We
can get a two year trial basis which is
quite inexpensive and just see what
the benefits will be to join. 35¢ per
student for the first two years is what
they charge and we have all the
benefits of full members. But after
two years we’ll have to make a deci-
sion on whether or not to join fully.

L. — What ts a difficult problem you are
facing at this time?

G. — I think in communication.
Communication between students.
To get the information I’ve been
given from whatever source back to
the students and, uh, to get the com-
munications flowing freely between
the administration and students as
well. The major communication in
the past have been rumours and
rumours fly rampant around here.
People get into a panic quite easily
without getting the facts about what’s
going on. So if we could somehow
just sit down once in a while and have
a rap session, or listen to one another,
we might be able to have facts come
across instead of rumours.

L. — So I guess it will be good to have
students come to Student society meetings for
first hand knowledge?

G. — Well yes, of course it would.
But at the moment we wouldn’t be
able to handle large crowds. We are
so used to small attendance, we’d be
hard put to seat everybody if they all
wanted to show up. Mainly, we try to
get bulletin boards with specific infor-
mation on them, rather than just the
random sheet boards we have in the
halls. We’re trying to get rap sessions
with faculty set up, with represen-
tatives (students) from each depart-
ment of the school, who can take back
the information to their department.
That’s probably the best way to pass
it around . . . To speak to whoever
has the direct information first hand.

L. — How does your positon in Student
Society relate to your art work?

G. — Mn, well one thing it takes up
a lot of time and I don’t get to do as
much art work as I did last year. But
it’s also a valuable lesson for me and
I’m sure I’ll be involved in the
politics of art for the rest of my life. I
might as well get a good lesson now
about how to deal with the
bureaucracy. It’s confusing at times,
and quite frustrating, but there are
ways of going about it. It’s not a
thing that comes naturally for me
anyways. Other than that I’ve always
had political views, even before I
started doing art work, although I
never tried to put them into practice
in anyway.

L. — Do you think viable art can be made
with a view of political apathy?

G. — Well, everybody has their own
personal view of what is art so that’s a
wide open question. For me, it can’t,
I don’t do art because I like to make
pretty objects. I’m not that interested
anymore, although I was in the past,
of explorations of space, line and tex-
ture . . . that sort of thing. So now I
just use art as another tool as I would
use writing, talking or anything to try
to express and explore my ideas.

L. — I guess it depends how one defines
political.

G. — Yeah. Sure, it depends on how
you define political, or how you
define art, and there’s obviously a lot
of people who don’t want art and
politics to mix in the slightest. Um, if
they can do that and be satisfied with
it that’s fine. I’d like to see the college
running in such a manner that it’s
possible. If the government cuts back
on what they’re going to spend on
schools, (and the first to be cut back
are art schools, so problems in this
school will icnrease,) how are you go-
ing to make art without being af-
fected by the politics? But maybe

some people can. I hope so.

L. — Lauriere LaPierre came last Friday
(6th Nov.) at the forum, I don’t know if
you saw him... .

G. — I did catch bits of it... .

L. — Well, he mentioned how artists
should be more political.

G. — Yep. Well, it’s like, um, if you
look into the History of Art, I don’t
think that artists have been strongly
political since the surrealists, or the
Dadaists. I mean there was a bit of
political art in the sixties, but for the
most part the artists were reflecting
an apathy that was no where near as
powerful as the political flow around
them. I mean, university campuses
all over the world were in revolt over
political views, and artists, although I
like their work, would be people like
Andy Warhol who pretended to show
a completely non-emotional, non-
attached point of view.

L. — Well I guess there’s the politics of art
and politics of the world.

G. — Yeah, I think they can blend. I
try to make my art work, not political
in any party point of view, but
political in just a whole social point of
view. Politics happen anytime there
is more than individual.

L. — Who do you think has influenced
your outlook on art?

G. — In art history, I guess Marcel
Duchamp. What I gather from his
point of view is that art is only as im-
portant as you make it. That depends
on whether it’s a branch you pull off a
tree or a great constructivist piece
that takes three years to build. It
means nothing unless we give it
value, that’s the way I see it. It’s only
as valuable as the message it conveys.
So it allows me at one time to take a
piece of garbage and be satisfied with
what I can do with that, compared to
the fountain piece I did last year
which took 7 months to get together.
Not one has any more value than the
other.

L. — You seem to be very busy . . . how
many meetings do you have to attend a
week?

G. — Well, it’s not only me who’s
very busy, but everyone who’s in-
volved with the Student Society.
Most people who are in Student
society sit in at least two different
committees . . . sometimes three. We
have a couple of committees which
don’t have anybody to sit in. The rest
of us are just too taken up. We could
use a bit more help from the rest of
the school, if they’d like to help.