Last night, as I was putting my ten year-old son, Jakob, to bed, he was telling me about the model Winnebago Cheiftain he’d just built in Minecraft. He knows a lot about RVs as dreaming about owning one is new “thing” these days, and he’s being doing research on all of the makes and models that are out there, new and used. We’re big on camping, but we’re all getting a bit tired of tenting, and owning an small camper van is moving from the realm of dream to ambition. Jakob’s research may inform this major decision that we could potentially be making in the next year or two.

In bed last night, we chatted about his recent Minecraft creation:

This is the RV that Jakob’s dad’s family had back in the 70s. (It also happens to be the same RV that the crew in The Walking Dead use to avoid zombies in the early seasons of the post-apocolyptic show.) We were talking about how un-aerodynamic its design was, and how much gas it must have burned. Being raised as a young environmentalist, fuel efficiency is one of the key considerations Jakob is making when doing this research into camper vans.

At this point in the conversation, Jakob said how he wishes he could be having a childhood “like Daddy’s.” Mike grew up in a small town, spent days “running wild” (Jakob’s words) through the woods that backed his family home, and spent weeks on the road in the family’s Winnebago without any knowledge of climate change.

I can’t express how sad I am that Jakob, and all the kids of his generation, have this existential problem looming over their childhood. It’s a real dilemma for me as I raise Jakob: part of me doesn’t want him to know anything at all about climate change; part of me wants him to know that his parents are doing what they can to spread awareness of the need for urgent action to mitigate and reduce its effects. Today will be an example of big a part of my life climate activism has become.

Today and tomorrow, I’m going to make my first attempt at performance art. I’m going to spend an hour and a half attempting to build a “house of cards” out of the “I vote for climate action: tell me about your plan” lawn signs that EnviroCollective, Regina’s environmental initiative “hub,” has produced.

As a board member of EnviroCollective, I’ve been trying to get these signs “out there.” We’d hoped to have a table at the Farmer’s Market, but this plan fell through. I’ve tried asking a few local and sustainability-minded shops to consign them for us, but most small business owners I’ve approached have politely declined. Our provincial election is just over two weeks away, and we’ve only sold about 100 signs.

Four days ago, disappointed at how slow our sales have been, I decided to find a way to use these signs in a performance art piece with the hopes of getting more publicity for this initiative, and to say something about the ridiculousness of the situation we’re in: that the most important issue of our time is not being treated seriously enough.

What immediately came to mind was the idea of trying to build a house of cards out of them on the lawn of the Legislative Building.

Looking at different types of performance art online, I came across the term “happening.” I read about how “Happenings were the forerunners of performance art and in turn emerged from the theatrical elements of dada and surrealism” (Tate). I read how Allan Kaprow coined the term in 1959, and how “Kaprow emphasized the importance of artist’s action and the process of creation above the finished work” (Widewalls).

Honestly, I wanted to get an event “out there” asap, and so I decided to post to Facebook that I would be putting on a “happening” today and tomorrow, attempting to build a “house of cards” out of these hundreds of “I vote for climate action” signs that we haven’t yet sold, even though I’m still trying to understand the semantics of the terms “happening,” “participatory art,” “social practice art,” “community-based art” and others that refer to art performances that involve the public in one way or another.

The event description is as follows: “Reginans: Join me on the lawn of the Legislative Building between 3:00-4:30pm this Sunday and Monday (Oct 11/12) for a participatory climate action “happening.” I will attempt to build the biggest “house of cards” possible out of these “I vote for climate action” signs, and I’m challenging supporters of this campaign as well as passersby to beat me. I’ll be giving away free signs to the winners! Masks are required.”

Amazingly, Ashley Martin of the local newspaper found out about this performance and EnviroCollective’s climate action sign initiative, and within two days of posting about my event, I was on the front page of Friday’s Regina Leader Post.