Cosplay-inspired Place Practices

03.04.20 A peek of practice to come…

06.02.20 This is an excerpt of a monologue written by one of my participants at a cosplay-inspired workshop I facilitated on Friday where we all played different characters inspired by The Endless (by Neil Gaiman):

‘I am a fisherman lost afloat in a sea of dreams…I do not sleep because I take these rainbow fishes and give them to the hungry in the market…I weep so many tears that could fill the ocean because people are being sold polluted delusions in black markets that advertise nightmares as cheap fantasies. Everyday, on my boat, I find dreams choked by war and lies and hate. But I row on, because each dream is hope, and hope lets me live’. (Dream 2020)

Tattered Tenderness

04.02.20 The collage features sculptures made by my students in response to an exercise about place and our hopes for place. We ‘adopted’ each others sculptures for the session and made art du deplacement-inspired movement scenes with them in stairways and corridors around the school. Then we left a little note of encouragement under the sculpture we had adopted.

Underneath my tattered newspaper octopus trapped in wires, was a letter from one of my students which read:

‘This artwork can be interpreted in many ways…loads of stories can be made from it. One thing that stood out to me was that the arms could represent hardship in your life and that’s a brave thing to share’

06.02.19 The note below the lotus I had made said:

To the Artist:

I have never been able to fold lotus flowers. So well done. I mean, it’s a bit messy but perhaps that is really rather fitting. Beauty comes in infinite and arguably wildly subjective forms. I am sure you, yourself, know this. Keep making, keep creating, don’t concern yourself with other people’s subjective perceptions of your work. 

With compassion

Epping Forest Oak Trail

19.10.19

Playing in the company of gods. climbing almost spongy, sturdy roots, not branches. Whispering healing wishes as if these could heal you.What remains of your trunk begins beyond reach.A reminder of ‘the kinds of obdurate temporalities that desisting bodies perform’ (Baraitser 2017: 50)

An enchanted forest, dark shadows cast over the ground, beckoning weary travellers to attend the conference of stones. Stale bread and a small piece of cheese is passed round.There is no hope for restoration, one can only ease the endurance of suffering‘It takes time to fold time’ (Baraitser 2017: 47). Memories of childhood folded into memories of maintenance.

Turning 40

The start of term has been so busy…it’s taken me more than two weeks to properly reflect on turning 40.

each decade feels like an appropriate time to take a step back from all that I am comfortable with,

all that I am too invested in,

all that has become part of how I define myself

and begin, again.

turning 40 began with

three hours of being surrounded by towering trees

that have quietly endured many more seasons than I have,

the knowledge of self that I hold on to from a mere four decades

must seem quite laughable to them.

these photos (and Facebook’s algorithms)

tend to privilege the spectacular,

so I want to begin by attending to that which I did not see.

a stream I hear but cannot find, flows close by.

all I see are two saplings standing on the ruins of an ancient aqueduct,

nonchalantly defying accepted wisdoms for growth.

chestnuts are lavishly strewn all over the path

but not a squirrel in sight.

birds call to one another but remain hidden

along the Camino de Santiago.

the waves crash fiercely onto the beach,

cradled by the gentle, lush green cliffs

tiny, white flowers play in the shade.

gnarled roots embedded in the dirt path.

footsteps muffled by brown, grass-thin leaves

that blanket the path.

two black slugs sleep curled up, side by side under a log,

cooled by tiny, lime green, propeller-shaped leaves.

all these encounters with the more-than human,

seen and unseen.

how much of this beauty will survive the turn of the next decade?

‘朝菌不知晦朔，

‘The mushroom of a morning cannot comprehend

the beginning and end of a month;

蟪蛄不知春秋’

the cicada will not live to experience

spring and autumn’

(‘Wandering at Ease’, The Zhuangzi).

@ Seven Sisters

 

A juxtaposition of that which endures
with that which passes.
Standing at the edge of
a place and a time
that will at once
remain and end.

 

No one knows when old age will come…

不知老之将至… No one knows when old age will come… water calligraphy  disappearing  with every step,  the futility of trying to  capture time as it  evaporates. like youth.   Dust leaves no trace  of this foolish life lived in constant preparation …

14.04.03

the survival of a place we once called home cannot preserve within it the relationships that once made this a place to begin with. despite the emotional attachments formed, the preservation of physical remains cannot safeguard the values, ideals and …

01.01.19

Quite possibly the biggest waves that I’ve seen in Desaru. I am chided for feeling underwhelmed last weekend… Waves pounding above me. I dive forward. We get tougher with each challenge we meet. I am displaced, but for a moment, …

Table Mountain, Cape Town.

A never-ending, unrelenting staircase.
I disappear.
Crawling along the side of Table Mountain.
Imposing stacked, dark grey walls
as if they were made by sky giants 
playing jenga.

After 2 hours
the steps become a path.
You’re walking in the clouds.
It is as they say:
the horizon vanishes
where the sea meets the sky.

Table Mountain, Cape Town.

A Proposed Non-Manifesto

11 June 2018

Last day of ‘class’. We were asked to write a feminist manifesto but there is something about a manifesto that just doesn’t sit well with many of us. I remember asking the young people I work with, in February 2017, about what they thought about the Manifesto for the Arts (2013) and whether this still resonated with them. Although there were many broad points of agreement, several youths felt that the Manifesto could be framed in a way that sounded less absolute. One said:

Young artists need spaces to create, experiment, fail, succeed. I’d make the manifesto not so clichéd. Art isn’t a bed of roses and it isn’t going to solve world issues. But it can connect, let people have an experience like no other…Art in Singapore is already very rigid…Instead of framing [The Manifesto] into rules…unframing it…would make it more open and free. (VN 2017)

I agree. So this is a non-manifesto for practice research that Cathy Sloan and I put together:

We commit to:

Challenging what counts

as ‘We the People’ and Who.

Agonistic cohabitation.

Recognising the messiness of bodies

Sticky with Affect

(not just logical rhetoric).

Polyphonic conversations…

(so this is not a manifesto but the beginning of conversations).

[Borrowing from Judith Butler]

For ‘it is true that there are no demands that you can submit to arbitration here…If hope is an impossible demand then we demand the impossible’ (Butler 2011).

~~~

I will miss the Monday Research sessions at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (Central). To all the PhD candidates who’ve generously taken the time to listen to my research anxieties, share their research insights with me and throw thorny and challenging counterarguments my way: thank you for these conversations and for being a crucial part of my learning at Central. You have taught me so much about what it means to create a supportive learning environment, one where I’m constantly challenged to be the best version of myself and exceed the limits of self-doubt to do what I thought was impossible.