08-03-2024
At the mid-July Sync I told the group that I would inquire about Humanities grants and see if we could apply to some of them and expand our range of research for needed money. I got quickly discouraged because of the similarities with art-oriented grants. So many meanders into irrelevant questions. And the specter of competitiveness and aged, established credentials …
This morning though, I found the site above. The Humanities Truck! Reminds me so much of the MLK Map project of Gwylène and conNECKtedTOO. So much so that I may attempt to write a mock grant around it. We shall see. Why not? It is claimed right and left that we are in the middle of a huge cultural war where the arts have an essential role to play. I will try. Just let me settle my mind in that territory. I will think, explore and write a Humanities grant!
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An other subject gets me thinking now! Adèle Haenel’s plea for justice after having been sexually agressed, when she was under age, by the director of the movie she started in at the time. Old story she obviously had time to turn inside her head, over and over. To the pint where she is such a powerful advocate for women’s rights and integrity. Her most impressive line is to say that sexual violence against women will not be fundamentally challenged as long as women are undervalued – as in the “Value – Dissociation” paradigm, by men, in all social and economic systems based on exploitation and extraction. It is not the concept of Justice, it is not a blanket reprimand of any Justice Systems, which will do. It is, among other aspects, the basic sense of belonging socially, which is corrupted by the binary analysis of haves and have-nots, meritorious or not. The fight for women’s rights is one of equality for sure. But even more importantly one of liberty. The fundamental rule that no one can impinge on anyone else’s ability to perform as they need to, want to, in the pursuit of their goals and dreams.
This insistence on liberty I get from reading the ‘New History of the World’ by Graeber and Wengrow. A rather overwhelming book for its size, its al-over-the-place feel, its determination to hammer down clear points/choices. Overwhelming for sure.
And as a matter of fact, in the model tribe Graeber focuses on, the Wendat, the idea of ownership is puzzling. And if one ‘owns’, so do others. Here this sense of existential equality applies to leadership as well. And there are plenty of ways, in a liberty-equality-minded society, to share leadership. I remember an instance where Graeber notes that, if a Wendat accumulates goods, has more than (s)he needs, it is understood that the purpose, here, is to get ready to give away in times of shortages. This is leadership at work, not the exceptional behavior of a designated ‘leader’.
Of course, a space of overriding liberty precludes equality. This goes fully in the direction of Haenel’s visions as well. Graeber insists and shows how, when Wendats talk about equality, they mostly mean equality of the sexes. To me, this is an a-contrario proof that, were equality of the sexes be achieved, liberty may flourish. Wouldn’t this be something!
08-05-2024
An other trove! https://abnormalstory.com/
“… bridging disciplines to redefine contemporary design …” as the link says, except that in our case, at TINYisPOWERFUL, we attempt to defy local expectations! But the vision is the same. The integration of different fields of knowledge around one project give it a better chance to break unexpected grounds and, most importantly, I believe, gives members of the collective a unique opportunity to witness the instant expansion of their acquired experience. This makes any project an educational opportunity. Of course there are enlightened innovation businesses in Charleston, but never have we been approached to contribute. I was hoping that the Union Pier challenge would be an opportunity but, clearly, all hopes were promptly crushed. Unconventional knowledge and its applications are a privilege, left to universities in large metropolises.
Most intriguing is the observation that, despite the opportunity gap, there is a strong filiation between our diverse aesthetics. Some gestures are identical, centered around identical questioning based on identical values. Wha it tells me is that it is exposure and access which are miserable in the provinces!
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Now, we are sort of anxiously waiting for the city to flood under Tropical Storm Debby! There is a curfew in place and after 11pm no car will be permitted to enter Charleston! At least from the highways! Interesting way to force a definition of inside and outside – insider, then and outsider! Reminds me of Jackson Mississippi, where the police could place the city in lockdown just by closing highway entrances instantly … in case of race riots. (Words of a Jackson resident, in charge, at the time, of a small Black civic and daycare center – It was impressive to see her draw a quick map of the city highways and show how easy it was to block them off.)
08-06-2024
Kamala Harris has chosen a good partner. Tim Walz is the no-nonsense governor of Minnesota and he has a sense of humor! This should make a difference with he cold-piss and pretentious Trump-Vance team.
The storm is still tormenting us. But still appears to be less threatening but more lingering than I understood the Noaa maps to show. I just cannt coordinate the multiple variables which may coincide or not to make a storm so dangerous and unpredictable.
—–
This morning, at the check-in for our weekly creative sync, I was blunt in saying that the agenda was bringing circularity to our work … Today, I am signing off. I’ll be back but no, thanks.
My world is too full right now. From politics to storms, to health, to art and related work, l am saturated. The last thing I need to move the Tale forward to a conclusion is a circular experience. A rehashing of TINYisPOWERFUL’s answers to Morenga or Rayn bringing up the Zine Fest. I am still under the letdown of reading their zine production. Not the graphics of it. The content of it. A repeat of last year, in fact. They need to feel the burn of time and to evaluate objectively the urgency of the moment. I am afraid though that Victoria is not strong enough right now to energize them. And to extract more relevance from Markus. I wish he would drag some of his activist friends into the collective. I wish there would be a date set for a Community Lab. I sure wish the city of North Charleston comes through with a whole or a part of the program they talked about with Victoria. I am thinking out-loud now: practical mind is not a forte n the collective. The only tinkerers were Morgan, Arianne and I, I’d say. Arianne and I are older. Morgan is gone. It leaves young folks who are, in a way, paying the price of their virtual education … And I praise the curriculum I went through at age 10-11, when, at my boarding school, there was a weekly afternoon of ‘éducation pratique’ – practical education. Four hours of tinkering, making, making things from nothing but scraps. Then, the next year offered an afternoon of art making. Then, the year after, there was an afternoon of sport, with a shorter repeat on Thursday after 4. Privileged education? Yes, but away from family! There lied the true privilege of that education.
Just got a call from Victoria. She is tired. She told me she appreciated my not being at the meeting. And still wonders how to get Markus more involved. My take, I told her, is that we are paying for not meeting in person ever. We would be so much more direct, become friends or at least have a chance to get closer to each other, joke, and also have more personal exchanges. This may be a price we are paying: the virtuality of the collective. And Rayn does not have any place for it in her accounting ledger! A liability for sure, but one they do not see, Rayn, who is very important for the group but is virtuality personified, if I may!
08-12-2024
I just erased a full page of useless verbiage.
When I have nothing to write, I just should not write!
There is a reason for my blank mind. I just don’t like to analyze why, sometimes, there is nothing to say although life is full!
Today, we drove to Asheville and we are at ROOTS WEEK.
08-13-2024
This morning though, there was something to say!
The Donnelly Foundation seems to have some doubts about the value, for community(ies), of the work TINYisPOWERFUL does. The letter they just sent to Victoria about showing the worth of our work was not reassuring. But, surprising as she is, and rather unexpectedly, she developed, for the group of us at the Creative Sync, how she understands we can put together a Community Lab – as Donnelly suggests we do – if , for example, we federate the works of some of the arts groups Redux (old affair!) and give them the opportunity to show their extremely varied, local talents.
So, it took months for the idea to crystalize in Victoria’s mind, as Gwylène had warned me it would. Now, she is there, and she can describe the process much better than I did after Redux. At the time, we had discussed how to seize the opportunity of having met such a creative and self-controlled group of young artists and to organize a second meeting before too long. Originally, the gathering was an initiative by a friend of hers, founder of the Asiko PR Group, which had invited me to the Union Pier Stakeholders meeting. Thetika Robinson is her name. So, I knew her already and I thought it would help for future developments … It did not, but she still is friends with Victoria, I am sure she can facilitate an other meeting. If need be, we would do without her. The idea is to reconvene all or some of the participants.
Thus can TINYisPOWERFUL become a hub for the practice of art in/with community. At least, it is how I see the future of the collective. And, if it is too late, if the Redux group has already started such a venture, why not join it? To federate is not to lead, it is to be one among equals.
08-18-2024
ROOTS Week has ended. Having gone to about 20 of those ‘camps’ I knew there would be no way I would find the time to put pen to paper! It is endlessly stimulating, emotional, exhausting. And more now than ever. Age counts when you are solicited all day and asked to rush from one location to an other, meaning many walks up and downhill, freezing conference rooms and bad food for sustenance!
Our adventure was cut short though. Gwylène tested positive for covid, for which we had to test every morning before any convening. We exited the camp prematurely and headed back to Charleston. Today, she still is positive and I am negative so far. However, this shortened camp gave us the opportunity to meet lots of new ROOTS members, to reconnect with both the old guys, (our friends in art and activism), to appreciate the staff again and again, and to elect the new EXCOM (executive committee). Besides, there were three very special occasions: the unofficial revelation of the new executive director, the encounter with the great talent of some new members, principally KC Ashiney, a dancer who literally “ajouta le geste à la parole”,
amplified movement with speech*. It may be one of the strongest performances I have seen at ROOTS ever. Third occasion: a zoom with Rasha Abdulhadi from an undisclosed location, where they are trying to beat a terrible case of long covid, as they advocate for Palestine, with extremely powerful, harsh words, a damning judgement on today’s US-Israel policies, and an encouragement to pronounce the word ‘PALESTINE’ out loud, at every occasion, at least once a day.
At the end of one workshop where we were asked to collectively relax, breathe, dance together and reflect on the experience, when my turn came, I uttered this: “I wonder whether it is my French education which makes me so stiff or if it is my 20 years at ROOTS, which make me realize how stiff I am! Sorry but I just cannot contort in public” … or something to that effect. Also, at an other workshop, when I walked by Bob Leonard to an open seat, he asked me: “Jean-Marie, why are you always so serious?”. I responded to the effect that serious circumstances require serious attitudes.
How can I say it: I have never really accepted how, at ROOTS, every group event has to end in ebullient manifestations of joy. Hopefully due to the influence of the unfailing collective joy practiced by the African-American membership … not to a natural American lightness of being. There is very little space for denial at ROOTS.
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I regret that Linda Parris-Bailey did not give credit to the Charleston rhizome when she presented a short film about Yankee-Bejan, the play she brought to Charleston for Moja 2023, and for which she asked the rhizome if we knew someone who could, in emergency, build three props to replace the original ones. She had to leave behind in Barbados. Of course we knew someone! jemagwga ! … and of course we delivered! I still wonder why she missed the opportunity to underline the solidarity aspect of the ROOTS network. Although she, I think, is a founding member of the outfit!
There was an other instance where I could perceive a trace of defensiveness concerning the ownership of a work of art (or not). Why is it that, as Rooters, we cannot, symbolically or in reality, surrender all we have to the collective, as far as art-related tangibles and intangibles? To create a space of full open source, collective ownership, all-encompassing reciprocity. As far as art-related tangibles and intangible, I repeat. Of course I am not advocating for the romantic and ungrounded notion of some Fourierist phalanstere! That experiment turned into a tyrannical prison anyway! No, I am advocating for, say, a serious and severe debate around the idea that – in the spirit of the arts – and within the framework of ROOTS, the question of ownership of a creative work be put on the table.
* Respectful of the unadorned persona of Misty Kari and of the performance offered at ROOTS – “A Process To Prepare For The Crossing” – I will be unadorned myself. As a dancer, Misty does not fit any norm of svelte classical beauty but matches all expressions of classical grace. You cannot expect how flexible this dancer’s body is and how complex and sculptural some of its postures are. They remind me of the best Henry Laurens’ post-cubist pieces of the 1940’s and 50’s. So organic and dynamic, in-the-round and lyrical, Misty adds her life’s breath to the sculptural bronze. Classical beauty? Absolutly but anti-cultural for its plain but deep and mysterious, ambiguous proportions. There is also this voice-off, music, and these repetitive, obsessive hand gestures, as precise as words. Together they define an other language, decipherable but untranslatabled which proves how powerfully the blending of media can express a crossing and prepare for it.
08-20-2024
Covid keeps my nose so stuffy that, last night, I believed I would not go to sleep.
No problem! I stayed up and watched the first day of the the Democratic Convention in Chicago. If any undecided voters staid up till 12.30PM, they could only appreciate the vast difference of disposition with the Trump campaign, which is not a campaign but more like a rosary of bitter prayers to Fatum! Repeated over to convince Americans that – this sounds so familiar – there is only one way. The Regan-Thatcher trick, actually the first Big Lie of financial capitalism, delivered on a bed of caviar, for whoever is seeking survival, to drool over. Bastards.
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The Creative Sync was all about yesterday’s Donnelly meeting.
Altogether a good meeting which gives Victoria some hope that they will consider funding TINYisPOWERFUL a little longer. I believe Amy understands what we are trying to accomplish. She repeated a few times that our work was very different and I feel she did not discourage us to seek such difference. As for the new Charleston boss, he was very silent and removed, until he apologized and said he had to leave. Looks like a believable guy, however!
Our difference comes from seeking collaborations, promoting autonomy, reciprocity, and knowing that we cannot ‘do everything’! We are ready to pass our knowledge and experience on to other groups, after, say, having had a few Question-Relay sessions: a good format to open up and be genuine. Then groups do their work and we will present it together in a Community Lab … or something like that! Obviously, a possible next step is to collaborate in one common project. Victoria said it so well the other day. Why does she seem to hesitate to implement? Remembering what Gwylène says: who is going to organize this process, launch it and follow all the way through?I think it can be as simple or as intricate a collaboration as partners choose.
08-24-2024
The 08-20-2024 entry was introducing KC Ashenay to this diary. Again, such a deep work of art. Unusual at ROOTS.
KC was the name on the ROOTS week program. When she sent me her email for further conversation, she presented herself as Misty. This explains that.
Anyhow, I feel compelled to support such quality and my extended note was sent a few minutes ago. Here it is!
Misty,
Sorry about the delay. I had some work to finish.
Difficult to launch into a commentary about a work which impressed me so!
The best is that, for a start, I just cut and paste what I wrote down in my diary the day after your performance. Here it is:
Respectful of the unadorned persona of Misty Kari* and of the performance offered at ROOTS – “A Process To Prepare For The Crossing” – I will be unadorned myself. As a dancer, Misty does not fit any norm of svelte classical beauty but well matches all expressions of classical grace. You cannot expect how flexible this dancer’s body is and how complex and sculptural some of her postures are. They remind me of the best Henry Laurens’ post-cubist pieces of the 1940’s and 50’s. So organic and dynamic, in-the-round and lyrical, Misty adds her life’s breath to her sculptural bronze. Classical beauty? Absolutely but anti-cultural for its plain but deep and mysterious, ambiguous proportions. There is also this voice-off, music, and these repetitive, obsessive hand gestures, as precise as words. Together they define an other language, decipherable but untranslatable, which proves how powerfully the alchemical blending of media can express a crossing and prepare for it.
***
Your performance defies expectations because it addresses in-depth issues without caricaturing their ever-changing nature. You are not afraid of complexities, so intimately experienced by you that the only way to convey them is to just expose them! Your work is not a commentary. It is a first-hand proof of your reality. It is edifying, I believe. It proves that art is a tool for knowledge, education and the collective sharing of individual experiences.
* I changed the KC Ashinay of the ROOTS week program to Misty when I started this answer to you. I hope it is respectful of your process. Although I am straight as a 10 penny nail, it is thanks to the strength of art works like yours that old folks like me are learning to support the revolution you represent. Congratulations.
Not sure if you will be interested at all in further exchanges. Feel free to call or write but, for sure, send Gwylène and me progress reports on your work!
For the sake of reciprocity, from my end, I will give you updates from Charleston! This will take a while though. The project I am working on presently started during covid! Like yours, it also has to do with transformation and liberation: that of Charleston into a greener, fairer, equitable city. Originally it was called ‘a Tale of Charleston’. Now, circumstances have transformed my impatience into defiance! The installation is now called ‘a Tale for Reparations’. Wish us all luck!
Be well. Jean-Marie Mauclet
08-26-2024
We shall see how Misty interprets this note! I say this because I remember the way Brooks Emmanuel, a dancer, reacted to my remark about his own dance piece when he presented it, right after Misty. Brooks work was an outdoor, night time projection, on a low, grassy area, below the main road which crosses Lutheridge. On this video of himself, he is crawling, also on a grassy area, also at night. He slowly lifts his tired body on his forearms, barely propels himself forward and, clearly exhausted, lets his weight flatten him down in the green grass again. He rests, immobile, until he moves again. When you approach the piece from the right or the left of the straight-on projection, it is distorted beyond recognition. It actually took me a while to identify any human form at all. I could not but be reminded of an exaggerated, live, 3D, Francis Bacon painting; a feat in itself. As you walk closer to the point of projection, the weighty body can only suggest that of a prisoner who just got shot and desperately tries to escape his executioner. Extremely powerful in our times of uncontrolled violence, my interpretation was amplifed by the whole mise-en-abime, image of an image in an image. Story in a story, in a story. A recurring agony, I thought.
When I could talk to Brooks and passed on my strong impressions and my enthusiasm, he seemed surprised, maybe a bit annoyed. “I was just filming myself dancing” he told me in substance. As if any reference beyond his own intent, was irrelevant, whether art or war-related. Also, he loved the optical effects of the reflective blades of grass on the actual grass (itself reflective from a passing rain!). I remember also congratulating him for being able, as a dancer, to renew his imaginings … In a way, this was the result of a full carrier and a renewal. He liked that better. But I remain puzzled by this episode which I see as an other instance of anti-intellectualism. Art is all ‘personal intent’ and emotion-ridden. No wonder then, that “I like it/I don’t like it” comments are final. But where is all this beautiful work done by Liz Lehrman, a dancer herself, with the Critical Response Process? Didn’t she so badly want to bring some objectivity to artistic judgement, to go beyond an ego scale of aesthetics? Speaking of Liz Lehrman however, after his presentation of a collaboration with Tambra Harris – a remarkable
dancer – Jeff Mather had asked for a Critical Response. I went to it, hoping to observe how much Jeff’s work had been changed by the experience of collaboration. Well, major disappointment: he himself, from the get-go, undercut the spirit of the whole process and decided that, this not being a work in progress, the Lehrman process did not apply!
This really got me going and when someone touched on aesthetics … I had to open my big mouth and tell the group about Jeff not giving the critical process a chance; needing, always, to bring a level of objectivity to one’s own views and asking whether there could be aesthetics without ethics. This drew a blank … and brought me back, yet once again, to the very first class I took in Political Science, at SUNYAB, in 1970 or so! I can remember being shocked by the passivity of suntanned, barefoot, Coke-sipping students, as Glenn Thorrow, the brilliant professor, was trying to wake them up with provocative, hypothetical statements without a hint of a rebuke. His redesigned process of Socratic questioning was not really working on what I saw as an indifferent or sleepy , for surely blasé audience.
Here, at ROOTS, in the midst of an amazing episode of transformation, it seemed to me that the pressure of change was not operating the same way on everyone. The staff was deploying treasures of energy to keep the membership moving but the membership – a membership of practicing artists – was not, as it should, providing the spirit of change and actualization required for relevance. And when good work was presented, its outer dimensions were not recognized, maybe not even by their authors. Plus, the few workshops I went to were either emotional or rather unimaginative. Certainly not on the research side of art. Altogether, it seems to me that ROOTS is consumed by its own success at accumulating major grants and organizing its money, at the expense of stimulating the creativity of its membership.
Whoever reads the above should do it with indifference though. Because I know I will not get involved much further. Presently, my interest is in concluding ‘a Tale for Reparations’ and, maybe, finding a way to end this very diary. Meaning editing it from page one. This will take everything there is left in me … out of me!
08-29-2024
Damned covid. It persists in me after now 9 or 10 days. I had to call the doctor and hear what she says. No fever, no coughing, no symptoms. Only the continuing problem with sinuses, ever since I fell on my nose 6 months ago.
It forces me to shake up my torpor a little more vigorously and head to the studio and advance what may be the final piece of the Tale. After hesitating for weeks about what meaning to give it, and the form it would take to convey it, I have been sort of able to come up with a very minimal architectural structure adorned with what I hope to be the very decorative, cheerful and colorful, nebulous fabric Saleha brought back from Algeria – visual tension. The piece is a man-size, open-ended, double-entry, angular, funnel-shaped construction, mounted on a basic post-and-beam base. The small end can accommodate a sitting person, the higher end a standing person. The adornment frames the larger entry which is wide open. The opposite end is also open but barred with a horizontal board, at waist heigh. The front and the back openings are visually separated with a black curtain in the middle of the funnel.
With this piece, I am occupying a space between the functional and the symbolic, again.
It can be read as an open-ended proscenium stage, a performance public space for adults here; for children there. The decorative aspect ties it with the cornucopia and other manifestations of collective joy. The dark, stripped down architecture belongs in the world of reflexion and restraint. Altogether a rather conceptual finishing touch … “Maybe”, Gwylene says, who knows better! It is harder to end a work after months or years of concentrated thinking and making … than it was to start it from a blank slate, with a mind full of passing images.
08-30-2024
With Gwylène, we talked about the erosion of the federal government’s agency, its ability to be an initiator of policies, in view, that is, of its rather tepid reprimand of Trump, after his intrusion in the Arlington National Cemetery. Not very reassuring – Why? Because we the people are the State and a loss of agency by the State means a loss of People Power.