10-02-2023
Finally, I did not send any invitations for Yankee Bajan to anyone after all. And I am sorry for that. I just forgot, in the fog of a flue I caught from Gwylène! The antibiotic acted more like a sleeping pill! Too bad though. It was a good play, obviously put together by a professional with social activism in mind. Linda Parris-Bailey the writer-director, is a founding member of Alternate Roots. She is clear in her purpose; in her values and mission! She is accountable. The way the movable/foldable skrims I made were choreographed was beautifully, despite their size. Only the big plywood cubes were a bit clumsy. Actors and text kept us curious for two hours. It was a treat. And the way the cast presented itself at the end was very friendly and personable. Half of it American, half Barbadian, Bajan that is – accent and all. Gwylène and I even got our share of thanks for the skrims! I took the compliments with a bit of humor though. From the start, I could not believe that the original ones were not collapsable, foldable … something! How could anyone imagine transporting 8X8 frames from Barbados to Charleston without having to pay a ridiculous price? So, to me, there was a basic goal: portability. That’s where the challenge was. And the fun. But that’s also where it (the fun) ended though! It exhausted me. 8’X8′ is not 2X4 or even 6X6! It is huge and very hard to maneuver, even in my big studio! But … now it is done and done well, I think. Linda can collapse everything and carry it away by herself in her van. It actually was transported, from my studio to the Dock Street theater in the Volvo. And rebuilt on stage, in about one hour.
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Taking advantage of the presence of many ROOTERs in Charleston Saturday and Sunday to see Yankee Bajan, there was a rhizome at the African-American Museum yesterday. It was a typical ROOTS blend of stretching, singing and concentrated work. Too bad Rayn and Pam did not make it. Very good that Marcus did though. And Arianne, and two folks from Columbia, and Omari, and Elise, who spent two nights and one breakfast at the house. I believe Victoria did well, wooing the bunch into the Charleston rhizome’s peculiarities. Too bad we could not find a time for an open invitation on Devereaux. Everybody has gone already. Only Lauren, the stage manager from ROOTS will be back later to organize the move of the Yankee Bajan set to Florida.
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Yesterday we had the pleasure of receiving a WhatsApp from Phinias! He seems to be doing so well! It’s great, after the very hard time he and his family had since covid hit South Africa. I am back to dreaming of a long journey which would lead us, Gwylène and I, from Charleston to Japan, via Cape Town – of course!
Imagine! Phinias came to Charleston as an artist, invited to participate in ‘The Future is on the Table’! He is the one who had middle school students make clay models of African huts, then had them imagine, together, what to do with the huts. He guided them into creating a circular village, so real and symbolic at the same time . It was one of the best pieces in the installation at the City Gallery.
10-05-202
In passing, two sites – among so many – among more and more really – exposing thoughts and research about sustainability, circular economy and such …
These topics cannot be ignored anymore and I still observe that most newspapers are not yet giving them the spotlight they require. Will extractive/abusive capitalism have to altogether collapse, go broke, dissolve, in order for us all to rush to the task of salvaging the planet? Please note that this is not the language of collapsology! For sure all military-industrial-related models will have to disappear but with all the alternative models in development presently, it is not as if the end of capitalism means the end of the world!
Actually, the pressure to conform to the capitalist model is still so powerful that very few of us can hope resisting successfully, even for the shortest time. You know, time is a luxury. ‘BUSY’ is the mode of the world. “Sorry, my schedule is full for the next ten days” is the default posture … Except that there is a fringe which does not equate time with productivity. There are artists who are finding ways to ridicule the whole thing. Case in point: I just finished reading the magnificent book by CRISTINA MORALES: Lectura Facil, in Spanish. LECTURE FACILE, in French. EASY READING, in English. Let me try to summarize: in Barcelona, a bunch of young women, victims of the time-productivity system, have decided to – masterfully – game it. They understand it intimately, in its motivations and in its modes. They reject it in/with their bodies. They are therefore administratively branded, classified and marginalized as retarded and asocial! Fed, clothed, sheltered, given a regular bit of pocket money – institutionalized for mental disability, that is – they have enough smarts to think collectively, organize and successfully lead a parallel, solidarity-driven life of dance and sex that few authors have ever described with this much spirit!
Because the reading (lectura) of the book is easy (facil) – to the point where the central chapter switches to the slapstick/photo-novel mode – I can well imagine its message spreading and starting a revolution! Literarily, anyhow, it is a revolution, una revolución latina at least!
—–
Yesterday I worked on a clapboard for the James Simmons Montessori group which is shooting a video with Daniel, Victoria and Pam. It diverts me from ‘a Tale’ again. But as I keep finding more and more articles about the urgency of tackling climate change, I clearly realize that dreaming – the non-act of dreaming – towards a different future, is a legitimate, urgent and fruitful endeavor. There is a full cohort of architects who have built and are still building their carrier on dreaming and drawing from their dreams. Let’s say: their imaginings. This is where art and architecture meet again and again. We knew it long ago, we forgot it for a time and we remember it again today. I am tempted to call this present trend ARCHITECTURE IN/WITH COMMUNITY!
Why not … It justifies my stubbornness. It keeps the Tale current. Now, in transition, ‘a Tale of Charleston’ is morphing into ‘a Tale for Reparations’. Because there will be no salvation without access and equity.
I much prefer to use the phrase ‘Access and Equity’. Justice or even Social Justice are now worn down, overused, abused by bad actors. They have been dehumanized. Where Access and Equity, to me, seem to still have a bit of agency left in them.
Dehumanized also needs mention. In this moment of obscure history for the world, in all its corners, nooks and crannies, palaces and refugee shacks, oceans and puddles, is dehumanized anyone who is denied equity and access by anyone else. An excessive definition? Can there be excess in defending anyone’s humanity?
10-08-2023
An other day which will make history.
Israel has been aggressed by Hamas.
At the Creative Sync, I ask for a minute of silence in support of Palestine.
Israel has been aggressed by Hamas for sure, Hezbollah maybe and other unidentified armed groups, to show the Jewish state that there are limits to its contempt for the existence of its subjugated neighbor. I want to say ‘for the REALITY of its subjugated neighbor’. Because this is what their subjugation means to Palestinians: to be, collectively, stripped of their reality. Dehumanized, erased.
For certain, they have the right to resist such colonial violence, all that blind hatred. To defend themselves, meaning to attack their torturers. The rape of Palestine must cease. So does the support for Israel by the US and most European countries. It smacks so much of pure racism, at this point! And how much it confirms the clear discrimination against anybody Arab, Black, Brown or any ‘OTHER’, when they attempt to claim their reality.
So, unfortunately, despite their unbearable dolor, this muffles down the cries of Israeli victims. They are not alone. And they don’t understand how or why they have been abandoned by their government. Desperate, helpless, stunned, insulted by this violation of their militarized safety bubble, … naked. Just as naked as the multitude of Palestinians on the other side of the apartheid wall?
May the shared reality of their common nakedness not cause more confusion and hatred.
Folly is taking over.
I dream of some creature – a Black white-angel on her white horse – a Pope! – who would seize on this opportunity to rip open the veil of hypocrisy, the mantel of cowardice and say:
Today, Israelis are carrying their share of shame and tears.
Palestinians are made of flesh and blood, just like Israelis.
MAY THEY BECOME BROTHERS IN AGONY AND NOT ENEMIES IN HATRED.
I fully believe that the responsibility is on the present Israeli government and any party which supports it, even hesitantly.
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Other topic!
This morning also brought its touch of music. ‘On an Overgrown Path’ by Janacek was the piece reviewed by the Sunday critics of France Musique. Janacek’s explains that the piece is totally expressionistic. By this he means that not one note in it is for a purpose other than expression. Kundera quotes the composer (my translation): “… not a single note deserves to exist if it is not for expression”. Therefore the total absence of any decorative motif in the orchestration. Every note must reach its own maximal expressive charge …
The reason for a Janacek anecdote, here, is to stress my usual reluctance to refer to ‘expression’ when I talk about my work. Too often expression is confused with ‘self-expression’ and seen as the major or even the unique reason for making art!
Well, with the Tale, I am not reluctant to talk about expression. Were it only because of my choice not to use a single word in it. In response to Morgan’s criticism of the Jungle.
With the Jungle, I counted on words to ‘express’ a content. It was propaganda after all! But here, indeed, I have told Gwylene and others that, because of the Morgan challenge, every detail, every gesture, every color or whatever sculptural gesture, must carry meaning, be expressive of a content, even an intent. In this installation everything is expression then! Not of self but of visions, values and dreams which reach far beyond self.
And so, here I am, expanding my understanding of what expression means! And by the way, Morgan was so opposed to the Jungle’s general esthetics that she does not in any way recognize having had any part in its making! In denial she is!
If this was already noted in this diary earlier on it is because … it still hurts.
10-09-2023
Once again, the extreme right Israeli government proves to be as ignorant as a rock of the Negev! It is blockading Gaza – cutting off water, electric, gas and gasoline … Food? Medecine? Collective punishment! What else? I suppose Netanyahu feels vindicated by the support of most of his European and American colleagues, including Biden. All just as ignorant, boorish and hypocritical, subservient to the now-global supremacist/colonial ideology. I am going to check on how the AOC cohort is reacting.
As Franz Fanon would warn. The misery you inflict on others will afflict you in turn. This is one of the mechanisms resulting in “the banality of evil” (Hannah Arendt).
10-12-2023
Are Israel’s allies really adjusting their language? They insist that Israel treat Palestine according to the rule of laaaaaaw. But this is no clear condemnation to speak of. Also, are there any enforceable laws here? And, if law there is, will it be followed?
Tuesday morning, at the Creative Sync, I could not resist. When my turn came to check in, I denounced repressive violence. It is universally used? So what? I would not give one inch on the particular barbarity of Israel’s treatment of Palestine + the full responsibility of any government, anyone who does not speak up against it in these terms. In terms of barbarity that is.
I asked for one minute of silence.
Obviously, I chose the word barbarity in reference to Castoriadis’ essay: Socialisme ou Barbarie. The consideration and respect (or lack thereof) governments – elected or not – show for their people, measure the distance they keep from barbarity. That simple.
At this juncture, a conversation about non-violence is indispensable, unavoidable. Because it can be set in the same universal frame of reference as barbarity today. Not a notion but today’s reality, today’s unrolling history – unbearable as it is. Unacceptable as it is … Sometimes, or rather at times like now, my catholic subconscious education emerges! I wish some pope would appear on a white horse of glory, gallop through the minefields and ruins of Ukraine, Palestine, Armenia, Guatemala or Xin Jian and show how courage can transform barbarity into … not equal access yet! Into respect for ‘Others’ – Yes. Not love yet? Empathy then.
Maybe, to start with, into more green spaces!
Meaning that the way Earth is mistreated – this massive, vile violence – compares with the way populations are slaughtered.
I am a serious follower of the cohort of Latin American women writers which is shaking up the status quo in their Spanish-speaking, ex-colonial, territories! An other one of them is Argentinian writer Maria Cabezon Camara.
MARIA CABEZON CAMARA CANNOT FORESEE ANY PROGRESS IN THE HUMANITARIAN FIELDS WITHOUT PROGRESS IN THE CLIMATE SECTOR
“IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO CONSIDER THE SOCIAL WITHOUT THE ECOLOGICAL”
she affirms in an article (read in French):
At this point I have read the cohort’s work in French, because I could not find it translated into English, particularly the book by Cristina Morales ‘Lecture Facile’. I still have more titles to get to. Like more Cabezon-Camara! The politico-literary art form these artists practice is very close to what I would like to achieve with this diary and, in sculpture, with ‘a Tale for Reparations’. It is a form of activism which I highly value. It is fully contemporary and contextual. Actually, in turn, it creates a very powerful context.
As a matter of fact, one of the two unrelated titles I refer to above is Angela Davis’ autobiography! Who would say that I am not focused on seeing the end of supremacy and the colonial mindset?
Angela Davis shares a paradigm with Cabezon Camara, Morales, others … All women.
10-14-2023
This morning I was listening to Dr.Willis, a recognized researcher in nutrition from UNC Chapel Hill I believe. To a question from the People’s Pharmacy program on NPR: “How will climate change affect our ways of eating?”, he answered, if I am not mistaken (not verbatim): “Eating less meat will make a big difference … for each steak dinner we do not eat, we save a tree in the Amazon.” – Wow! Quite an undirect answer to a very direct question an answer to the question. In the mind of Mr Willis, there is no disconnect possible between food and climate. Yet an other essential intersection by which to live.
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A Special Issue of the PBS NewsHour, last night, covering the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict, brought some very thoughtful, informative voices to the table. One of the most surprising segments showed that 52% of Americans do not follow Biden in his choice to support Israel unconditionally. If true, this would represent a high level of change in American opinion, resisting the ever more lethal language of the right wing crowds. Violence fatigue maybe? In which case this would shed a powerful light on an other information from PBS, this one about Hezbollah, in Lebanon. It says that Hezbollah is not pushing on the war accelerator in defense of Hamas, partly because it is aware of the violence fatigue affecting the Lebanese populations. Isn’t this an interesting way to consider the voice of the people – in this case its passive resistance, its violence fatigue into the political picture? Does this offer a glimmer of hope, however dim? Does it not articulate that, without the voice/silence of ‘the people’, no peace is conceivable? Which government will ultimately survive the denial of its people’s voice?
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And the latest: Aussies say NO to a referendum question: Should the voice of the aboriginal people be recognized in the constitution? Is this too much or what? Talk about erasing a whole People? Denying them their reality? Something must have escaped me here.
10-21-2023
The last few days? Consumed between the pain of war and the relief of carving silly veggies and fishes, like a child, pouting away in his(her) playpen.
However, I read a lot around the Palestine-Israel violence. And I glean extremely powerful thoughts which, although so simple and basic, and universally perceived, seam to have such a difficult time finding status. As if the ground they hibernate in requires a soaking of human blood to bloom. Very simple indeed these two basics of life sustainability: beauty and hope!
Beauty – Cannupa Hanska Luger is a native American artist based in New-Mexico who, in an ART 21 <art21.org> video clip, floored me when he declared that what makes an artist is the beauty of her/his life! Luger’s production may be eclectic and formally unbound, yet each of his pieces shows a quality of completion which affirms the full clarity of his intents. Below is an artist statement of his.
As a contemporary artist Indigenous to North America, I am motivated to reclaim and reframe a more accurate version of 21st century Native American culture and its powerful global relevance. The customary practices of the world’s Indigenous people have been imprisoned to the past. Indigenous craft and arts, when not cannibalized by western culture, are considered primitive or extinct. My practice is rooted in the continuum of generations before me, the urgency for Indigenous visibility in this moment and the dreaming of Indigenous futures. Building worlds and dismantling misconceptions through monumental installations, sculpture and performance, I place myself between the realms of contemporary art and Indigenous culture, moving amidst museums and the front lines to enact a more complex understanding of contemporary Indigeneity. The materials that I use are emblematic of human civilization including clay, textiles, steel and digital media. Clay signifies our connection to place, literally the ground on which we stand. We create textiles from plants and animals, reflecting our truly embodied relationship between fiber and flesh. Steel has allowed humans to develop, build and dominate; it provides the physical structures for control and capital. And technology now provides an opportunity to question our civility and our connectedness through durational and situational media. I activate speculative fiction as a methodology, a practice, a way of future dreaming, rooted in an Indigenous continuum. I engage in land-based performative actions to pledge accountability to the land and waters affected by resource extraction and industry. I practice empathetic response and community catharsis through craft based social collaboration. Whether working with institutions, communities or with the land itself, my work is inherently social and requires engagement. I aim to lay groundwork, establish connections and mobilize action – to challenge the systemic conditions of colonialism while making space for urgent and emergent Indigenous narratives.
It is clear that his understanding of beauty includes a sense of social and political values and responsibility.
Hope – This one has to do with Bilha and Yakovi Inon.
Their son, Maoz deplores the death of his parents, burned alive in their little wooden house, at the edge of the Wall of Shame between Israel and Gaza, in the village of Netiv HaAsara, on the 7th of October, when the Hamas invaded that area of Israel and killed more than a thousand locals.
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 reality of Jews and that of Palestinians. When asked by his son about the need to eliminate the Hamas, his answer – given to him just before his death – was as
succinct as it was clear: “… 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 of Mediapart where I found
the present material, he 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.”
Below, the original text, in French, to authentify the source of such a powerful testimony. At this moment, I would be tempted to say: everything else is propaganda.
[Bilha et Yakovi Inon, ses parents septuagénaires, sont morts, brûlés vifs, lorsque des combattants du Hamas ont incendié la petite maison de bois où ils vivaient dans le village de Netiv HaAsara, à quelques encablures du poste-frontière d’Erez, au nord deGaza.
Yakovi est un entrepreneur à la fibre sociale, issu d’une famille d’ouvriers et d’agriculteurs, qui a notamment cofondé les trois hôtels Abraham, situés à Jérusalem, Tel-Aviv et Eilat : des lieux qui cherchent à faire découvrir aux voyageurs et voyageuses non seulement les sites touristiques du pays, mais aussi les différentes composantes de la société israélienne, sans oblitérer le sort des Palestinien.nes. En ce moment, ses hôtels sont mis à disposition des 500 000 israélien·nes évacué·es du nord et du sud du pays.
Ne partage-t-il pas, néanmoins, la volonté d’éradiquer le Hamas après ce qu’il a fait ? « Mais la seule manière d’éliminer le Hamas, c’est de donner de l’espoir !, répond-il immédiatement. L’espoir est la seule arme véritablement efficace dont nous disposons. Et cet espoir ne peut se fonder que sur le principe d’une terre et d’une société partagées : un principe que je défends depuis 25 ans. »« Vous savez, enchaîne-t-il, je ne suis pas un intellectuel, je n’ai même pas le bac, mais la seule chose qui me permet de ne pas m’effondrer dans cette période obscure, c’est de regarder l’histoire. La relation actuelle entre la France et l’Allemagne aurait-elle été seulement imaginable en 1945 ? Qui aurait pu croire qu’en ce moment même des Israéliens aillent trouver refuge à Berlin ? »Il n’est pas nécessaire de lui poser la question pour qu’il poursuive. « Je sens que vous me trouvez naïf. Mais je ne suis pas naïf, même si je crois à la force de l’optimisme. La vraie naïveté est de penser qu’on va régler quoi que ce soit en faisant la guerre. ]
It is fascinating to see how the pressure of overwhelming violence is forcing observers everywhere to back off from the original stand, almost universal, that only Hamas is exercising terror. Israel is defending itself. Right now, it would take relatively little to give peace a future. Biden may have missed his chance, not with his trip to Israel (although cut short), but with his speeches. Not clear enough, still seemingly prioritizing the defense of Israel. This war is a-symmetrical after all. Biden should, we all should, remember that it takes two to hope. And if he remembers – as of course he does – he should model his language anew, around this phrase. But, of course, he is not an artist! Could he see any virtue to remodeling his own language around words like hope, like dialogue, like equity? How about ‘shared territory’? How about saying once and repeating at every occasion: it takes two to hope.
As artists, today, we have a chance to model our own artistic language around these words: hope, dialogue, equity… 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 moral that rectitude – There is integrity. So here I say: As artists, today, we have a chance to model our artistic language around these words: beauty, hope, equity integrity and dialogue … and then, geography* … and more to come!
*Geography, here, is in reference to how Israel, from a potentially open and democratic state, is sliding more and more into the extreme exclusivism of identifying with a territory. This will only amplify within the collective conscious. The sense of being besieged, unfairly besieged, victimized that is. Of course, we see here a mirror image with the Palestinian realities. Except that the besieged, the victim, is not Israel but Palestine.
I also extrapolate, from Yakovi’s perception, and say that the Palestinian territory, instead of being ‘occupied’ forcibly, could be seen as a common – common ground, shared between Jews and Arabs. Just as, at one point in the future, the earth as a whole may have to be seen as belonging to humanity, thus eliminating the concepts of (im)migration, expatriation, even nationalism and therefore … internationalism … since the consolidation of any national borders is always enforced at the expense of a minority, a neighbor, an ‘other’, somewhere!
10-22-2023
Today I am reminded of two major figures in the world of the arts: Pinar Selek and Werner Herzog. One is originally Turk, the other German. Both share the power of their unique and uncompromising voice for independence and freedom of expression.
As I mark these words: independence and freedom of expression, I realize their fragility, were the space in which they deploy to fall under the censorship of an authoritarian regime, a police state, any state where the notion of Policing and Exercising Free Speech are totally corrupted. A long list of them.
On the other hand, I happen to be presently reading Angela Davis’ autobiography. She describes how little time it took for inmates to know of her presence, as soon as she was booked at the Manhattan detention center for women; how the Black personnel there showed its immediate solidarity; and how she could hear the voice of crowds, outside, already demanding her release! This gave her heart. She was jailed, maybe, but she was not abandoned, defeated. It takes maximum violence to suppress this kind of support and measuring the latency of police reactions is a good gage of how much ‘democracy’ there is left!
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Here, I want to name Bertrand Badie, Emeritus Professor at Science Po – Paris. I think his view of the Israel-Palestine conflict is remarkably clear, principled and passionate.
Link here:
10-24-2023
Yesterday was special. Gwylène had organized the latest ‘Tiny Investigations’ session around an invitation to reflect on the Palestinian conflict. She had picked a Palestinian poet, ROOTS member and Project South activist to facilitate the reunion. The meeting was both in person – on Devereaux – and on Zoom. Rasha, the Palestinian poet, was virtual, as well as Darryl and two others. She might as well have been among us! GG had installed a projector which showed her so vividly and clear-voiced that her message reached all of us head on. We were not as much intimidated as we were physically impacted.
Marcus was with us in person, for the first time as a member of the group. I looked to him to animate and stimulate us with his very knowledgable remarks and the way he relates to the local – missing a bit since covid – although Victoria works at it constantly but with a PR outlook, not necessarily Marcus’s activism.
When Rasha asked each of us to point to three instances of being faced with a Palestine moment, in the past, more recently and ‘here and now’, I took the opportunity to recall the first Nakba, when I was still at home, in a family mostly racist, colonialist and fully reactionary! Although I cannot remember the facts, I assume that at the time, I was already shocked by my parents’ attitude vis-a-vis ‘others’. It had not taken me long to choose the party of ‘the small guys’, like the factory workers my father was managing at the time.
For a more recent instance, I chose my long nights, listening to the BBC. It seams to me, I said, that since the newest invasion of Palestine, people I heard, journalists mostly, have a harder time disassociating the Palestine reality from that of Israel. They are joined at the hip. Most commentaries concern the abusive violence of Israel; how the military uses extreme force to punish Palestinians for existing at all, for being.
As for the here and now, I chose to evoke my reading about the plight of Bilha and Yakovi Inon, early victims of the Palestinian intrusion into Israel, burned alive in they house at the border. Yakovi was known for his steady pro-Palestinian stands and for insisting on Israeli-Palestinian dialogues, to kindle and rekindle HOPE in a peaceful future. His words inspired me. This is how I came up with the phrase:
It takes two to hope.
Obviously, my choice of Yakovi and Bilha’s violent death together with the word Hope was consciously provocative. But I did not even control it. It was propelled out of me by my resistance muscle, which I always trust to keep me from sheepish acquiescence. Even in as favorable a situation as a TinyisPowerful meeting, and facing as undeniable a presence as Rasha’s, using the HOPE word made my refusal to conform even clearer, even to Rasha herself, at the risk of shocking the young ones. I liked that Marcus and Pam did not flinch. As for Rayn, she did not want to commit without deeper thinking. I may be able to ask her about her guarded attitude tomorrow, during the Creative Sync!
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And then, there was that surprise paper bag, on the bench, outside the kitchen! Our neighbor across the street had deposited it earlier on with, inside, a delicious cream of celery soup. So good that we will share it tonight with Norma and Norman, formerly from Island Breeze, the now defunct Caribbean restaurant at Mosquito Beach.
Again, Gwylène and I are so much more comfortable with most African Americans, like the three people mentioned above. We surmise that we share with them the ‘minority’ status, an ‘outsider’ quality which has served us greatly in our in/with community art work.
10-25-2023
Yesterday was Creative Sync day. I sort of dreaded it. After the Rasha session, this one could have been so uninspiring! But it was not the case. Victoria was at a meeting with Donnelley, Marcus was present. Rayn ran the ramdam!
Of course, we talked about Palestine in our check-ins. In mine, I asked Marcus if he was not surprised that no one was quoting or mentioning Hannah Arendt these days, in conversations about the Middle-East, although she wrote so extensively about Israel’s expansionism, which brought the Nakba. Well, Marcus did not know Hannah Arendt. This gave me an opportunity to talk about totalitarianism! I am not sure folks got my point though.
I also intervened to express my worry that three of the latest topics we consider to be important for TINYisPOWERFUL were not on the agenda. To me, it meant that we were trying to cover too much ground every time we met and that it led to repetitions and fatigue at the expense of more important issues. Maybe, we should focus more on fewer things. The App, for example, which was originally supposed to be the prime channel of correspondence for the TINYisPOWERFUL membership … Is it being retooled or fully revamped?
Pam proposed that the App question be left to Victoria, Rayn and Marcus. We agreed! There is definitely a generation gap between the young computer savvies and the other guys! I believe Donnelley, even if it still wants to support a ‘more experimental’ art collective, may get a bit dizzy with our lack of focus.
That is why I propose that TINYisPOWERFUL engages in a single path for a while: a deep research on what it means to be an ARTIST IN/WITH COMMUNITY. This in itself is a huge field to cover.
– What are the specificities of art in/with community?
– What does it mean to practice art in/with community?
– What are art tools? The specific art tools for this job?
– Where do art tools fit in this practice?
– Collaboration, collective intelligence, authorship
…. and more questions to come!
10-28-2023
This morning, Darryl responded to my email about Palestine. In it, I was wondering why nobody is quoting Hannah Arendt and her major contributions to the analysis of zionism and related issues. How can she be ignored so completely? And Darryl added: if you are so concerned about Hannah Arendt, why don’t you bring her up yourself? Good point, of course, but it has been such a long time since I have read her (the little I read by her?), I am not so sure I would be clear and true to her.
So, I went back to some sources, using Wikipedia as a spring board. I remembered mostly the books I read: ‘the Origins of Totalitarianism’, ‘Eichmann in Jerusalem’ and a great biography by I forgot whom! Wikipedia brought me to a lecture by Richard Bernstein and the New School … What a formative period for my intellectual life this all was! The mid 70’s if I remember! She actually died when I was going to try to take classes at the New School.
Altogether, what strikes me most now and what struck me when I was fully into Arendt is her plea for principled stands, her integrity, to the point where she was criticized for her radicalism. Directly concerning the present Israel-Palestine conflict, I still credit her for her analysis of:
‘the Banality of Evil’, (subtitle of the book ‘Eichmann in Jerusalem’)
and the fact that she refined its meaning, when she added, somewhere that
“evil is not radical. It is extreme … “
Bernstein’s interpretation is that
“evil is not a fault deeply rooted in humans; it rather is like a fungus, it spreads on the surface, extremely rapidly.”
I also take it to mean that she does not believe in an original sinn. This makes a major difference with most of Europe’s christian thinking.
In 1948, date of the now called ‘First Nakba’, (this is 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.'”
There is an other quote I cannot miss to note here:
‘No one has the right to obey’
I should really leave this sentence alone and let it speak for itself, let it breathe and spread out its multi-meaning. To me, it also says that I must use my analytical intelligence when given an order and before following it. An order to do something dubious, ambiguous or unconscionable … in reference to Eichmann’s blind obedience when ordered to facilitate the extermination of Jews. He was a banal man and his evil – following orders – after all, was banal.
Mysterious, ominous, forever, these Arendt’s words …
No one has the right to obey.
Niemand hat das Recht zu gehorchen.
Personne n’a le droit d’obéir.
… they resonate like a gun shots penetrating the soft flesh of a victim, of a hostage.
Today, it does not take a kidnapping to produce hostages. Gaslighting, fake news, X or Instagram, large scale propaganda, demagoguery, can fool the mind and soul of millions of innocent, banal people. This is what Hannah Arendt is talking about. The banality of evil.
Then, it is easier to understand why nobody refers to her at this moment! Nobody would find grace in her eye. That is why.
10-29-2023
End of a difficult month. The New Yorker Radio Hour, this morning, interviewed two personalities close to the conflict: Yonit Levi, an Israeli TV News anchor and Sari Nusseibeh, a Palestinian academic. What struck me was how David Reznick conducted the interview: speaking facts with the journalist and leaving the issues of history and ethics to the academic. Some would say that this is proper journalism. I believe that it is restrictive and misses an opportunity for each interviewee to be challenged and to challenge her/his own limitations or self-censorship, to the detriment of the listeners. Unfortunately, and in a weird sense, this reinforces my frustrations with this program. It lacks humanity and hides behind a well managed cynicism which itself lacks – should I dare? – humor. These absences I also find in the musical piece used as the program radio-identifier (wannabe free jazz, it doesn’t offer any poetic, inventive space for mind liberation). At the New Yorker, humor belongs in the cartoons, poetry has its own page … Or it must be my French ignorance!
Anyhow, I observe that Sari Nusseibeh, the academic, still has hopes for the future. But only if the parties meet and dialogue. This represents a vindication of my ‘It takes two to hope’, after, of course, Hannah Arendt’s own, (exact quote): ‘There will never be peace in the Middle East as long as Arabs and Jews do not sit down and negotiate together.’
[Please, may no one say that this proves Hannah Arendt’s opposition to the creation of the state of Israel! Her antisemitism? It would be false and calumnious. She actually supported the creation of a state, conditionally. She was a renown critic of politics.]
10-30-2023
This morning, on NPR, Steve Inskeep interviews an Israeli minister of Palestinian affairs, named Dommer or so, who assures that his government is doing all it can to protect civilians in Gaza. Among other promises, he even offers guaranties for the future … as long as the Hamas is whipped out of Gaza. Never does he say that any ‘future decisions’ concerning them will ever be in the hands of the Palestinian people!
It is this colonial mindset, this sense of ownership, of proprietorship, which is, so far, not vivid enough in peoples’ consciousness. This blindness feeds the possibility for Israel to pass for the victim of the Hamas, of Palestine altogether. It has to be corrected. Otherwise, the war will go on, with short periods of ‘reconstruction’ … until wave after wave of Palestinian youth learns how to fire a Kalashnikov. Netanyahu is an ass. He manipulates his people. Israelis are blindsided, victims of his theatrics. So many similarities with the Trump circus!