Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

Industry panel asks are museums in crisis? By Stephen Weir : The winds of change are about to begin blowing through the boardrooms of public art galleries and museums in Ontario. On Thursday a panel of art experts will be meeting online at the  Ontario Museum Association’s  (OMA) annual meeting to talk the talk about the lack of diversity at the top! The  industry wide discussion is self-titled “ Are Museums in Crisis ” inspired by a number of recent articles in both the  Canadian Art Magazine  and the Toronto  Globe and Mail.   These well-respected publications have published articles that report that the vast majority of people running public art galleries and museums are white while employees and cultural consumers alike want change! A panel discussion about having more exhibition and shows by  non-white artists? No, right now the issue is diversity in terms of who is running our public cultural organizations - curators, executives and bo...

Egypt's newest tombs come with eels, lion fish and grave robbers GLOBE AND MAIL TRAVEL  27/10/2017,  DIVER MAGAZINE By Stephen Weir A black and white portable television hangs in the black water above the scuba divers while a sharkless remora glides unconcerned through the glare of the underwater lights. The torches illuminate a ship’s hold filled with the luggage of hundreds of dead pilgrims. A  wheel barrel is all but covered by a mountain of ripped  and torn soft back suitcases. Cotton bundles of clothing, still bearing stencilled Mecca slogans, have crushed  a baby’s  stroller and a companion crib.  The dust and grime from a month long desert pilgrimage  has left this jumbled mountain of  abandoned possessions and now clouds the water inside Egypt’s newest tomb -- the wreck of the Salem Express. Like the hundreds of other tourists who come each week to dive on the remains of this Red Sea shipwreck, our team of divers is touring a...

Spectators at last year's Caribbean Carnival Festival parade in Toronto Media manage to quickly link Eaton shooting with North America's largest Caribbean Canadian festival Late last week I joked with my associate Craigg Slowly (@ThatTDotGuy) that it would be only a matter of time before CFRB right wing on-air host Jerry Agar would link the Eaton Centre shooting with the Caribbean Carnival Toronto (the carnival formally known as Caribana). Don't know if Agar has taken a run at us yet, but, other media outlets have indeed made the tenuous link between an inner-city gang shooting at the Eaton Centre and North America's largest Caribbean cultural event. The Globe and Mail on Saturday did a feature on public safety at Yonge and Dundas and somehow managed to use the Caribana name.  The reporter, Kelly Grant, listed some of the murders that had occurred near the Dundas / Yonge intersection. In that list was the 2005 murder of a Brampton man in Dundas Squa...