11-01-2023
Yesterday morning, at the orthopedist who was giving me a shot of cortisone for a bad shoulder pain, I had time to read [in the Diplo’s review of books, under the ‘Asia’ chapter] about a most famous Japanese thinker, sociologist – Mita Munesake. I am unable to find an English translation of the title of the book in question. Very unfortunate. The French title is almost untranslatable: l’Enfer du Regard.
I really like what I read around his pun on the consumption society which he calls the consummation society ! A society which he sees as the inextricable interlacing of relationships between individuals … to a point of auto-combustion, self-destruction maybe. He calls the whole thing an EXISTENTIAL EFFERVESCENCE.
When I uttered this phrase at the Creative Sync, later on, Victoria got interested enough to write it down with the name of its author.
Indeed, these words are highly descriptive of the achy fever we all suffer from, when confronted with the despicable violence deployed everywhere in the Palestine-Israel conflict and the constant condemnation of the Hamas which makes Israel the victim. Literally an unbearable paranoid split from the basic societal expectation that violence calls for the condemnation of its perpetrators, whoever they are and without exception. Paranoid the split, because (1) there are, at this moment, so many other sources of violence around us that doom seams to be closing in. (2) there is, in reality, an immense flow of empathy from every continent, for the weaker party, the victim – mostly unheeded and unpublished. (3) this gap between events on the ground and their representations elsewhere is so vast that it can only generate deep anxiety at best, (im)moral hallucinations and loss of basic intelligence at worst!
—–
In the middle of this EXISTENTIAL EFFERVESCENCE, Gwylène is asking me to write a text backing ‘ENSEMBLE 15′ of her present work “YOU COMIN’ TOO”, a monumental artistic experiment in praise of the highly coherent process ART IN/WITH COMMUNITY has proven to be – despite its apparent formal heterogeneity – and of all those who made art with JEMAGWGA since we started our common, collaborative, art carriers!
[JEMAGWGA is the collective name of GWylene GAllimard and JEan-MArie Mauclet]
Such a brouhaha is not a metaphor, however. Nor is YOU COMIN’ TOO a retrospective. It is art alive, art live, a life of art-making, as it still unrolls and as we reflect on its collective history.
All this seems to parallel Munesake’s purpose! … Both, him and Gwylène are intent on bringing meaning to the jungle of their realities. Yet, when sociologist Munesake reveals how a saturated world brings saturated perceptions and mental blindness, when he writes books with untranslatable titles [maybe ‘the hell of what we see’], Gwylène’s own intent is to handle her art as a tool for emulating Munesake’s ‘EXISTENTIAL EFFERVESCENCE’ as the terrain of her liberated perception.
11-02-2023
As I read over what I wrote yesterday, which is not something I necessarily like to do, I understand better how the development of my thinking revolves around and fully depends on what is happening in day-to-day life, hour-to-hour actuality. I am surely not a sitting philosopher, a desk writer. Only a sculptor, who drives Gwylène mad when – after a morning of diary scribbling and an afternoon of editing with her one of her own texts – he deplores the passing of yet an other day “without WORK”! Because, for a sculptor, only physical studio exhaustion qualifies as work!
For sure, today has not started as an other WORK day then! I decided to send Darryl a copy of two of the pages of the diary: 10-28 and 10-29, in response to a conversation we had after Rasha’s Tiny Investigation of the 23rd. Whatever! It is 12:45 PM and I am not ‘at work’. I am only re-reading before sending to Darryl! Obviously, I needed to make some adjustments! This is called editing, self-editing, and it is where amateur writers, diary writers become real writers. A curse I say! But also a dream being fulfilled. Truth be told, before anything else, I have always wanted to write! To write, not necessarily to be a writer! Because, in my youth, the act of writing was the closest I could get to satisfying my creative urges … Encouraged through High School by the French teacher, Mr Burnouf. But fully discouraged to pursue literary studies by my enlightened parents, who had dreams of a moneyed son!
I should not complain about ‘not working’ much but editing more and more. Since Gwylène and I retired from the café, I have been able to both, do steady studio work and spend much time writing this diary. The most important thing to understand though, is that there would not be the writing without the sculpturing. At this point, they feed on each other very creatively. They complement each other into a challenging body of work. Case in point: all this elaboration on the newly discovered work of Munesake, with his inspiring phrases: “the consummation society” … A society which he sees as “the inextricable interlacing of relationships between individuals” … and their actvities.
Calling the whole thing an EXISTENTIAL EFFERVESCENCE is genius! Doesn’t the play on the word consummation to describe over-the-top social relationships suggest some return to a stone age of primitive sexual rites and mythical customs? For sure a perversion of any self-control … around consumption, of course! But what is the difference? Aren’t women the final victims of such confusion?
—–
Gwylène has been feeding a new website youcomintoo.org, to complete the major presentation she installed at 701CCA. It is organized into ‘Ensembles’, of which there are 15. We are editing her language right now.
ENSEMBLE 15 is the place she has chosen to implant this diary into YOU COMIN’ TOO, as an intrinsic part of her life work, so to speak. Because, of course, for the last 40 years or so, the practice of our art(s) has been mostly collaborative. From the Per-Generated Opera to the Running Dog, to Fast&French – Gaulart&Maliclet French Café, to Holy City, My Journey Yours, The Future Is On The Table series, Olympia, conNECKted/TOO and finally, so far, TINYisPOWERFUL, now placed in the hands of the young generation … we have for ever attempted to deepen the implications of collaboration in the making of art as a foundational field of research towards the building of collective intelligence and imaginaries: an open call for belonging, a constant resource for the making of art tools and for the expansion of the SPIRIT OF THE ARTS.
Again! This has a taste of EXISTENTIAL EFFERVESCENCE!
11-05-2023
Yesterday was the deadline Gwylène had given me to deliver my text for Ensemble 15.
I decided not to make it a metaphor of what Munesake’s Existential Effervescence could look like! I simply wrote a sentence or two on each of the topics raised by the photographs on the page.
Here is the text:
Table-scapes: multifunctional props, designed – in Ensemble 15 – to carry 3D artifacts and offer visitors an open surface where to consult documents, write comments or gather around – why not with the artist(s)?
Question-Relay: mode of dialogue designed to prioritize active listening over cross-talking. Audience members are invited, in a game of musical chairs, to sit in one of two designated seats, take a question, answer it and return to the listeners circle.
Gentrification: a mode of urban development which, left in the hands of private investors, favors luxury habitat over affordable housing. The economic impossibility for local populations to live where they work forces their displacement, creates discriminations and inequalities.
Elevated Common: an accessible public space, urban or not, (re)designed to remain well above rising waters, and destined to accommodate general socio-economic needs for shared community activities, to facilitate belonging, in a collective spirit of citizenship.
Charleston Soul Food Culture: one of the prime victims of gentrification in a city built, fed and emotionally shaped by enslaved African-Americans. Soul Food restaurants in town are, one at a time, succumbing to high rent, luxury tourism, a general insensitivity to the vernacular and ordinary discrimination.
Urban Farming: an updated way for urban environments to augment nature in their neighborhoods. Neglected parks, empty parcels, abandoned industrial sites become opportunities to plant fruit trees and vegetables, to build fisheries… in the spirit of a local, circular economy. Buy Local!
Martha Lou: In Charleston, a soul food institution serving Low Country specialties “to the world”, as the owner herself wrote on the public notice she pinned on the closed door of her condemned restaurant, after 37 years of steady service. She was 91 . She died three months later.
—–
Today in the Guardian, Kenan Malik proposes an article on ‘the Oresteia’ where blood flows in an endless sweep of revenge killings. With Aechilus, he asks: “When will this end?”…
<<“The Oresteia begins with the return home from the Trojan war of Agamemnon, the leader of the triumphant Greeks. He is brutally murdered by his wife, Clytemnestra, in furious revenge for his having ritually sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia on the eve of conflict to placate the gods.
To avenge his father, Agamemnon’s son, Orestes, kills Clytemnestra. Pursued by the Furies, ancient deities whose role is to exact vengeance for major sins, he seeks refuge in Athens. The goddess of wisdom, Athena, convenes a jury to try Orestes. With the jury split, Athena votes in favor of acquittal, and in so doing opens up the possibilities of a world beyond that governed by the Furies.>>
This tells me how much l would love to read a good, digestible version, in French or English, of this trilogy. But, I cannot do everything! The autobiography of Angela Davis is fascinating enough right now! I realize that what she experienced when she was a teenager (as far as racism in Birmingham, and her daily life in the late fifties and early sixties), I discovered, 10 or fifteen years later, in my mid-twenties, when I arrived in the States. By that time, she had launched into her political struggles, and we shared the same daily news of ‘the Movement’! She was a maker of news and I was a devourer of news. It did not take me too long though, despite my very reactionary education, to understand that I was on the wrong side of politics and history! I veered way left and never turned back.
11-06-2023
It has been a while since I found an inspiring Archdaily issue. To design such a building, Chinese architects and engineers seem to work well together. Also, how well they have learned their basic Le Corbusier lessons! Yet, to call it a chapel, with all the religious connotations, makes it even more intriguing! How come this structure, as small as it is smart, can accommodate only so few visitors, although it is siting right next to a cluster of hyper-populated apartment towers. Privilege?
The same day, on same site, an other example of how the Chinese authorities treat the art of music nowadays: an other very small and smart urban space, atop a historic building, with room for a piano and at most 20 seats. My instincts whisper, in French: “on n’attrape pas les mouches avec du vinaigre”! Meaning: one does not catch flies with vinegar. Or: one does not appease the people of China with cheap mass entertainment any more. It takes music for a selected few. More privilege?
11-13-2023
Wednesday, I (we) invited Millicent Brown for lunch. The purpose is to expose to her my dilemma with ‘a Tale of Charleston’ and its relevance.
This morning, as I was answering a mail from Jean-Pierre, I launched into explaining why I may not go to France with Gwylène in January. Here is an excerpt of the mail and a quick translation! All of a sudden,I was having clear thoughts about the Tale quandary!
Je n’aime plus la France sous le régime présent. Mon travail me rend de plus en plus conscient de l’insupportable précarité légale des citoyens soumis aux incohérences du corps politique. J’ai appris mes leçons. Je déteste l’arbitraire. La corruption me déconfit! Que ce soit ici ou là-bas.
J’en suis, dans mon boulot en cours, à écrire un conte, une fable en trois dimensions sur le futur de Charleston … alors qu’il a déjà été déterminé, dessiné, chiffré et mis entre les mains de développeurs immobiliers! Ce nest pas de la désillusion. Ni de la dépression. Ni de la démission. Pas du tout. C’est de la mise en poésie! Mais c’est aussi un nouveau métier que j’ai du mal à apprendre.
I don’t like France under the present regime anymore. My work makes me more and more aware of the unbearable legal precariousness of citizens subjected to the incoherences of the body politic. I have learned my lessons. I hate arbitrariness. Corruption defeats me. Whether here or there.
I am at the point where, in my present work, I am writing a fable, a three-dimensional Tale …
on the future of Charleston … knowing full well that it has already been determined, designed, evaluated and placed in the hands of developers! This is not disillusion. Nor is it depression or demission. Not at all. It is a transition to poetry! But it is also a new trade which I have a hard time learning.
… a transition to poetry – a translation into poetry … couldn’t do better than this so far. It will bug me until I find a more accurate way of saying, in two words, how to transform the actual, yet invisible reality into a visible, poetic unreality.
Obviously, I am preparing myself for the lunch with Millicent!
An interesting detail: at the burial of Auzheal, last Saturday, who was there, among the thirty people present? Millicent! We shook hands but did not exchange a word! It was freezing. Our jaws were frozen shut!
Also, I just purchased a book by Kim Stanley Robinson, the Ministry of the Future, where this famous climate-science fiction writer seems to foresee a better world! Worth trying, no?
11-15-2023
Today is the day Millicent Brown is coming!
Today is the day she may have forgotten to come!
Today Gwylène and I may have an unusually healthy/fancy lunch.
It is 12:49 – no Millicent. We wait until 1:30.
People you respect you are civil with.
Older people always have issues they need space for, time for.
This episode of inviting Millicent Brown for lunch, to show her the Tale and to talk about its relevance, has pushed me to work a bit harder on it, in the studio. But it is so tedious, for me. I have been used to building rather large and rough installations, inspired by the input of others and built for and with others. ‘a Tale of Charleston’, turned into ‘a Tale for Reparations’, is mostly a solitary adventure at this point. And, don’t forget, without the support of any words at all.
Unfortunately, since I cannot fully count on the quality of my detail work either, what may save the effort is the diversity of materials, colors, imageries tempered by my sense of minimal design. For observers, it may be very puzzling at first. But I am still pretty sure that a long and engaged walk among the multiple ‘stations’ of “a Tale for reparations” will reveal a coherence, a unity of purpose, reinforced by the available reading of the Diary. I hope the freehand-like design of the 3D pieces, their spacing, their visual correspondences, the archetypes they invite, will together create an operatic landscape of optimism!
—–
It’s a miss!
Millicent is not showing up.
She has, nevertheless, forced me to synthesize my thinking around ‘a Tale’.
I will be better prepared for the next time we invite her for a meal!
Let’s eat!
11-17-2023
Yesterday afternoon, there was a first meeting of the new Union Pier design task force. Obviously a concerted effort was made to stress the importance of listening to Charlestonians, to be their agent in a development meant – they said – to reflect the history of the site and the city. However, close to the end of the meeting, when the floor opened for questions, I realized that only some chosen observers, siting at a desk, could ask questions. So much for openness and transparency!
One question was about ‘the worries’ the public may have about the process so far! For sure this got my attention! I had a remark. But when I tried to go to a designated chat box, (the only way for the general audience to participate), it had been disabled! Again, Zoom showed its shortcomings when dealing with large groups! Too bad because I was about to state my worry:
I see Union Pier as a potential SPACE FOR REPARATIONS.
I am worried about tonight’s format representing a missed opportunity to address the process of Reparations Charleston needs.
Whatever my disillusion, I was now inspired to meet with the team of community engagement specialists for the Pier project. One of its members, Thetyka, of the Asiko group, was Victoria’s guest at the latest TINYisPOWERFUL OhmRadio podcast. I had found a good angle to engage with a stakeholder and possibly present the Tale of Charleston, aka a Tale for Reparations, aka a Space for Reparations, as of now!
Gwylène did not share my enthusiasm. She had an idea though. She advised me to refer to Tecklenburg’s speech where he apologized for Charleston’s participation in the slave trade. I was adding my voice to his and that of others. A momentum was being built … As an artist, my proposal would be taken more seriously in this context, she said. Besides, it may give me a hook to get back in touch with Millicent Brown. I could go back to the studio with a lighter heart! It is pretty solitary out there. Not that Gwylène does not participate. She does. But I still need to build up a level of collaborative energy beyond the two of us and none of the collective members is really available, for reasons of time or geography.
11-18-2023
Yesterday was important for the studio work on the Tale.
I had physically cut open the clerestory windows on the axonometric drawing of the living unit, and now I just finished a slatted tray of cherry wood, which will carry the fish and fruit cornucopia now visible through said windows.
Truly, the gesture of cutting these clerestories open liberated my vision for the next step. It am inaugurating a palette of living color. They suggest a hopeful future. I needed a change of direction from the memorial side of the Tale. I found it.
—–
Now I have to write a memorial note for Auzheal Oubré, who was buried last Saturday.
Auzheal was the brother of LaShea Oubré, our dear partner in art and activism, who left the Charleston Rhizome Collective around 2018.
Auzheal died in October of this year. We were present at his funeral last week, along with Pam and Arianne. We represented TINYisPOWERFUL.
Auzheal worked with conNECKted in 2016 and 17 for the conception and the making of the City Gallery experiment which launched the next step of our in/with community art.
Although his participation was short, it proved to be very fruitful and important. Among other things, he is the one who knew about the presence of the only memorial to Robert Smalls in Charleston at the time, sadly hidden under a bush at the foot of the back stairs to the gallery. This inspired the first Monument to this hero of the Civil War, who, now, has been widely recognized as such. Auzheal also researched the history of the Charleston Mosquito Fleet. He interviewed Captain Joiner, the last surviving member of the fleet. He developed the idea of a Memorial Sail. He worked on it with Gwylène, using an image transfer technique she taught him and he later used as a source of income. The sail was part of the City Gallery show. He also presented at the Avery Center gallery and worked on boats with students of James Simons middle school, in an apprenticeship program.
We present LaShea and all her family our condolences and the support they may need to see through this period of sadness and mourning.
11-25-2023
It took me a while to finish the “Fish and Veggie” part of the Tale! But, considering that I never even dreamt of ever carving animals, veggies and fruits out of Styrofoam – of all materials! – and that I am satisfied with how I painted them … this must be celebrated! And, truth be told, it is the carrots made by Morgan for the Veggie Bin model, before covid, which lit up my inspiration. Had she not done it, had l not subsequently bought a cheap electric styrofoam cutting set, l would never have thought of this! Something to be said about collaboration even way a-posteriori, no?
Now, I have varnished every fish twice and kept the veggies and fruit as is, rougher.
The tray I have built for them is a rather precious piece, with light cherry wood slats, which I cut from the last of Cary’s porticos! Precious for its color and the quality of the material, unusual in my work. Even the craftsmanship is almost acceptable. That is because, in the Tale, I do not want faulty details or misses to distract from the understanding of the intent. I actually believe that there is really not any part or detail of the installation which, so far, presents enough weaknesses to be distracting. And now my mind is ready to imagine next steps … It tells me that I can still indulge in 4 separate ‘stations’ to complete the whole installation:
– an urban fishery/farm – urban greening
– a library – knowledge
– an amphitheater/agora – civic dialogue, belonging
– a parliament, politics – reciprocity
The difference between civic dialogue and politics is clear. But they have much in common. This subtlety must be translated visually. Not clear how yet. Same for a visual expression of the independence of the legislative from the executive. So far, I count on their translation into architecture.
This kind of mental jumping from the art of sculpture to general knowledge is what keeps me going! It is all in the translation from one language to an other. An exercise Gwylène and I taught in Art School! I can even affirm that, as an art in/with community project, FAST&FRENCH Café was the translation of a political vision into a physical reality.
—–
Yesterday, late afternoon and after a final sprint, I finished the paper to be published on the TINYisPOWERFUL WebApp, about the Palestinian situation. It was so delicate to convey my passion and not assign blame.
After I had finished the first draft, I realized that I had only named Jewish people and lauded them for their insight, praised them for promoting HOPE, although, at the same time, the Jewish state has but vehement contempt for Palestine and Palestinians and blames them for everything. I felt I was like floating above the fray! A very good feeling after all. In a way I was achieving a state of moral candor! But this was not satisfactory. It is not because my writing was going to risk being seen as the collective’s position that I had to remain neutral in front of such an asymmetrical situation. That is when I thought of Mahmoud Darwich and the intimate warmth of his praise for his beloved Palestine. An artist he is! I am an artist too … both in/with community.
IN/WITH COMMUNITY artists are not zealots. We are mindful of violence, physical, moral, or verbal. Mindful of the history, the roots of communities. Mindful of what violence does to communities: it destroys them thoroughly … Mindful of hope.
Below, the result of my tribulations!
_________________________________________
October 19, 2023 – from Jean-Marie’s diary
Israel-Palestine: IT TAKES TWO TO HOPE
Twelve days after the breach of Israel’s invulnerability, I am still learning further about the massacre of more than a thousand Jewish citizens by the Hamas and the capture of more than one hundred Jewish hostages. I am reading about the horrible death of Bilha and Yakovi Inon, burned alive that day, in their wooden house, next to the isolation wall encircling Gaza.
Yakovi was a retired entrepreneur with a powerful sense of “the social”. For example, he created three hotels where guests, tourists or not, were exposed to the realities of his country: the daily reality of Jews and that of Palestinians. A few days earlier, Maoz, their son, had asked Yakovi what the best way to eliminate the Hamas would be. He gave a very succinct and clear answer: “… the only way to eliminate the Hamas is to give hope! … Really, the only effective weapon we have is hope … based on the principle of a shared territory, a shared society …”.
Somewhere else, in the article where I found the present material*, Yakovi told the journalist who was questioning him: “… I feel you think I am naive. But I am not naive, even if I believe in the power of optimism. The real naiveté is to think that anything can be resolved by war.”
As a cerebral, practicing artist, informed and inspired by this glimmer of HOPE in the deep gloom of extreme violence, a phrase formed in my mind, summarizing, enlightening, making obvious that, if hope there was, it would take both parties to look forward together. It would take them two to hope. Meaning that there was still one possible way to achieve livable conditions for Jews and Palestinians: to negotiate common principles of social, economical, political equity, defined as the unrestricted access to everything it takes to live in peace, together, as neighbors can, in a diverse society, on a shared, geographically limited territory. Listening to Yakovi, trusting his wisdom proved to be my ticket to hope. Yakovi was right: IT TAKES TWO TO HOPE. As a matter of fact, reversely, can solitude also be a major source of despair and despair one of isolation? Quid?
I understand that, for art, to be relevant, its makers must be of the world, aware, eager to update and contextualize their knowledge. Not zealots, proselytes, opinionators. In this essay, although I deliberately use the first-person pronoun to engage my own knowledge, I also choose sources which overcome my own limitations. I choose Yakovi’s experience, tragic as it is.
I also choose an unavoidable source of wisdom, philosophical and political – wherever the Palestine-Israel situation is on the table: Hannah Arendt. Her undeniable knowledge has been conspicuously silenced in the present debate although “the Origins of Totalitarianism” and “Eichmann in Jerusalem”, are so fully relevant. As a political thinker, Hannah Arendt knows the centrality of political thinking as a tool for approaching the “existential effervescence”** of the daily life of common people.
I am, still today, struck by Arendt’s integrity and integrality, her principled stands, the depth, the wholeness of her research, in philosophy, in history, in political thinking. Concerning directly the present Israel-Palestine conflict, I am still thankful for her phrase “the banality of evil“, and how she comments, somewhere else: “evil is not radical. It is extreme” … Richard J Bernstein, who taught at the New School as she had earlier, elaborates: “evil is not a fault deeply rooted in humans; it rather is like a fungus, it spreads on the surface, extremely rapidly.” To me, this says that Arendt does not see, in the human species, a core deficiency, an original sin of sorts, which would predestine us all to extreme violence. What a difference this represents with any contemporary forms of fundamentalism and their condemnation of Others!
In 1948, date of the now called ‘First Nakba’, Hannah Arendt wrote, (an exact quote): “there will never be peace in the Middle East as long as Arabs and Jews do not sit down and negotiate together.” Prescient, wise Hannah Arendt: she had HOPE.
There is an other quote I cannot miss to note here: “No one has the right to obey”. This one has to do with keeping one’s humanity and respecting that of Others. Meaning, to me, that as an intelligent being, I must use my discernment first, check my values, when given and asked to follow any order. Order to do something I may consider from dubious to unconscionable. For Arendt, I believe, this was in reference to Eichmann’s obedience when ordered to proceed with the extermination of Jews. He was a banal man and his evil – following orders, from whatever source – after all, was banal.
Indeed, mysterious, ominous, these words … “No one has the right to obey”. “Niemand hat das Recht zu gehorchen” … They resonate like a gun shot penetrating the soft flesh of a victim, hostage, or refugee.
I am an artist. An in/with community artist. One who tries to model his artistic language along that of the people he works with. Today, I have a chance to model my artistic language around the word HOPE. It evokes dialogue, equity, access and why not beauty***? … Sorry about the beauty part … and the moral content. But, there is more to beauty than fleeting pleasure – there is transformation. There is more to morals that rectitude – there is integrity. So here is my daily redundancy:
As an in/with community artist, today, I have a chance to model my artistic language around these words: beauty, equity, access, integrity, dialogue and hope … What about you, and you, and you? ______________________
However long it took me to write this piece does not matter. What matters is that, so far, I have managed not to name or quote a single Palestinian person, or victim. I am not blind. I am informed. But this huge miss, unfortunately, may well represent a mirror reflexion of how the Israel-Palestine conflict is mostly portrayed in the Western media. This deliberately asymmetrical war translates into scandalously asymmetrical reporting. Have I fallen for it? Then I ask myself: is it actually possible at all to, symmetrically, react to and report on an asymmetrical situation, without first establishing solid premises, historical, ethical, contextual and otherwise? My HOPE is that quoting Yakovi Inon along with Hannah Arendt for their insight gives me enough space, enough legitimacy, enough credit, to evoke Mahmoud Darwich – an ever living voice for Palestine, whose poetry, if it does not succeed to convey, of any past, any present and any future Palestinian the full force of their humanity, will transform my sweet cries from reading his poems into tears as bitter as death itself. Unfortunately, I have not read Darwich in Arabic. And I only have pieces of his prose poetry in French. So, let me offer you some of the very last sentences of his “Chroniques de la tristesse ordinaire” – Journal of an Ordinary Grief: “… those who made a refugee of me, now, they have made a bomb of me. Period. …. I know that I am going to die …. Palestine is not a land anymore, honorable judges. It has morphed into bits of flesh. They are coming back to life! Now, they are processioning on the highways of the World, singing the song of death ….” (my translation).
May this invite you all to encounter Mahmoud Darwich further!
________________________
* in Mediapart – 10-19-2023
** Existential effervescence – how Mita Munesake qualifies social relationships in a consumption society, renamed by him a consummation society.
*** Beauty – a controversial word for artists. Here illuminated by the meanings it takes with Cannupa Hanska Luger, native American artist from New Mexico who says: “What makes an artist is the beauty of his/her life”. [In an ART21.org video piece]
________________________
11-28-2023
And now I am back with one of my recurring topics. In this case Public Spaces, Commons… On ArchDaily I discover how amazingly diverse the architecture of Vienna is. And formally rich. As much as that of Berlin or Amsterdam or Hamburg… and Paris although Paris is still hesitant to break with the rigor of Hausmannian perpectives.
But what interests me most in today’s issue is: Why Public Spaces Matter, by Setha Low. It looks like it could be a good source for me to articulate better the significance of Public Spaces in ‘a Tale for Reparations’. Because, more than a positive presence in any urban geography, the Public Space, the COMMON seems to open itself to the concept of Reparations, where everything is, at least should be, an experiment, social, political and architectural, artistic that is. I am further interested because Setha Low proposes a process for getting the people’s voice heard and listened to before and during the design phase of a project.
For example, she presents 5 points which are defining a Public Space:
- Physical aspects
- Ownership
- Governance or management authority and funding
- Control and influence, rules and regulations, and access
- Symbolic/historical meaning
- And political activity
Of her process, she also writes: “It is not a design toolkit, but an ethnographic one developed to enable you to become your own social scientist and get directly involved in public space activism to improve cities for the future.”
Now that Charleston has elected a Mayor-Developer, where the former two executives were only Mayor-RealEstate Agents, we should be ready to brandish Setha Low’s visions at him as an offensive instrument! At this juncture, my worst joke of the day would be this riddle:
– Why has Enough Pie decided to disband now?
– Because it has accomplished its mission! Now Charleston will be ruled by a developer, after all! (Cogswell is the owner of the Cigar Factory, among other landmarks).
11-29-2023
Seriously though! Charleston had not elected a democratic mayor since 1864, Reconstruction! Of course, democrats then were not what they are now. But still, this represents quite a shift. Who knows what will happen to the latest Union Pier Sasaki plan? And more precisely, to the Asiko group, the three Black women hired by Sasaki as urbanists and ‘Engagement Strategists’? The only 3 Black members of the team, by the way … for engagement strategies which may prove very necessary indeed! One of them is Thetyka Robinson. I was supposed to meet with her and Victoria, at my studio, this Monday. I wanted to show her that TINYisPOWERFUL has something to communicate! But now, the new political landscape will force new strategies…
Last minute: Whether accidental or planned, Victoria has managed to invite Thetyka to the next OhmRadio podcast! And she asked me to participate as well. Very timely, Victoria. Very timely!
I need to ask Thetyka about the unavailability of the chat function, in the Zoom set up of the last Union Pier session, to answer questions of the facilitator. To “What are you worried about in this presentation, so far?”, I would have answered:
– I am worried about the missed opportunity to address the needed process of REPARATIONS in Charleston, in which Union Pier could be a SPACE FOR REPARATIONS.
—–
Interesting though that, last night, in the middle of the night, I concocted a new approach to the last section of the Tale. There were to be four separate parts, possibly scattered around the installation, including a public meeting space, a parliament, a public theater space and possibly a maze. Now, I prefer to see them paired, clustered on either side of a visual partition of sorts. Not sure yet. Maybe a people’s assembly side with a bleacher or a set of benches. And a performative side with a Punch and Judy puppet theater – thus opening the Tale to children.
There is significance to doing so.
I am freer today than I was yesterday!
I am now being carried away in the layout of Japanese theaters, particularly Kabuki theater architecture, where the parterre is divided, low on the ground, into pen-like spaces in which spectators, standing or sitting, socialize, are served food and drinks by ambulating servers. Very much the way the public was handled – without the pens – in European theaters until the 18 century, when theater was still a wholly popular art.