Sometimes your thoughts need to be legitimized by research and objective arguments of others. Perhaps discovering anthropologist slash Sangoma slash professor Wim van Binsbergen could be considered a delightful moment.
I spent two hours listening to an interview on his vision on anthropology, becoming a Sangoma and his perception on why the current state of Anthropology is problematic. His basic premises is; “Anthropology is epistemologically naïve and has a knowledge-political bias towards the North-Atlantic. Leading to unfaithful attitudes to both one’s fellow humans in the field work situation and to oneself”.
The grand Lauren Reid asked me and some of my fellow resident curators at Node to contribute to her p.s. project exhibition in November. It was my first exhibition in Berlin and my contribution was not a handwritten piece from the heart but a letter by Lafcadio Hearn to Basil Hall Chamberlain. His letter inspires me to explore the world of words. The note below accompanied the letter and elaborates on why I choose his words over mine.
The dreamer of dreams
To whom what is and what seems
Is often one and the same— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The great author Lafcadio Hearn sent this letter to his friend and occasional editor, Basil Hall Chamberlain. Defending code-switching is an art form and as someone who’s raised multi-lingual, it’s the sincerest form of being through to oneself. Hearn manages to defend the use of quirky but physiognomically beautiful Japanese words in his English work so eloquently that I always wanted to stitch these words on my winter coat. The first time I read this letter, I fell in love. Because it preserves the freedom to be playful. It manages to portray the importance of using imagination across languages to express emotionally without being limited by a single language.
He champions for words as if they’re citizens of the world that demand their space. He reminds us that words are colorful, have moods, personalities and eccentricities. Perhaps by writing this letter Lafcadio Hearn gives the unknown an unique space in language. I re-read his letter once in the blue moon because Hearn reminds me that it’s a writer’s or thinker or creator’s duty to make the reader, listener and viewer see the color of words, hear the sound of words or even smell the perfume of syllables in blossom. To me this is the ultimate tool to explore the world (verbally and visually).
The festive spirit is carved on people’s faces. It never ceases to amaze me how stress and excitement can bond within a week to divorce quickly during January. As an observer or passive participator, I can’t deny its influence on my desire to watch sappy movies and eat salt and vinegar chips.
Since, I am genetically inclined to dislike winter. I will applaud anything which provides me a reason to celebrate the sun 
.
Here’s what I came across while strolling the internet:
Pablo Picasso and his mask
Gjon Mili—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Bill Cosby Sweater
According to the people these are the best New Yorker articles of 2012. If you’re struck by boredom or generally curious, I recommend you to train your ability to concentrate by reading the articles.
Of course the interweb is always appealing to my inner consumer, it’s fully aware of my weakness for books.
(via The Driftless Area Review)
Too much art makes my heart explode should be the title of the last three months of my life. I recently returned to Amsterdam. Upon arrival I dropped down my bags and sang praise songs to my internet modem in multiple languages. The longing for music and long walks through the digital parks (hey Jill Scott) was not wasted on my analog soul. Here’s a selection of the tunes I have been dancing too. In the near future, I will explore and share the art I have come across in Berlin. For now, it’s just music!
Horace Andy and I both know “Money Is The Root Of All Evil” .
Grand music will eventually be discovered. This happened to the brothers Donnie & Joe Emerson after three decades of releasing the cult-hit album”Dreamin’ Wild”. Since, the music is absolutely wonderful (no exaggeration). You can read the full story here in the New York Times.
Music that makes you want to dance in the rain:
Public confessions on politics, sexuality, art, identity,consumerism, etc. having been popping up left and right. Opening eyes, wearying others and blinding the rest. Yet, we all agree. The truth has never been more popular than on the internet.
Agreed. This turbulent era demands hyperboles, confessions and explosive music. Emoticons that can be exchange between refugees and heartless Euro skeptics. I remember that some days, life in Amsterdam, felt like a tube test yet this confession is irrelevant since I am living the hip life (severe irony) in Berlin. Other days the sun shined and I read about friends willowing their hearts on Skype.
I told my friend Massaer that pain is a greater accelerator than happiness.
Maybe addiction to any thing, subject or drug of choice might be a greater accelerator than pain. Nonetheless, I firmly, believe that there’s a thin line between confessing and sharing but this line is probably invisible on the world wide web. The video above is definitely something to ponder on. A publisher confessing his ills. Of course confessing is a tool for telling the truth. A tool that carries secretive connotations and simultaneously gives off the vibe that one is busted or caught red handed. Juicy enough to make our digital pants went, but I must say that digital rants might be the king and queens of Juicy-ville.
smooth fingers dance over the piano, the sound is melachonia dripped in stevia. sugarcoated but sugarless. I feel honest. honesty is a majesty under the belt and at surface just generic enough to captivate your boredom.
A poem should never be complicated or covered in brown sugar since things fall apart when beauty is rather a coffee stench on a stiff white border than the red flower in a girls fro.
I want to write but the words never come to mind when I let my brain wave on the level of my heart and when i write i write words that complicate everything because i always wanna hear myself speak and i am safe from school since graduation was merely a moment of generosity.
On a more exhilarating note. I live in Berlin for the next 2.5 months which is such a spontaneous act that I’m still working out the details. Nevertheless, I’m happy to be here and give thanks for the precious time to think, absorb and learn.
Forget it. This is the stuff that one writes in random moments on the train from point A to B.
John Lee Hooker’s hand- Anton Corbijn
Finally saw Anton Corbijn: Inside Out which is an ode to the loner. A documentary. A brief but slow meet-up with one of the most successful photographers of Neverlands. He literally grew up in No man’s land ala small town Holland, a place of religion and silence, where he trained his eyes by playing hide-and-seek with the sun.
His world is best viewed in black & white, traveling or through the voices of his close relatives and artists. Mother, Sister and Brother in Law.
The documentary maker as the average Dutch person suffers a bit too much from probing a little into his private life, which perhaps created a few awkward moments while the most insightful words shattered across the screen when Anton Corbijn spoke on his work. No need to elaborate on his work, which is in my opinion rich iconic visual archive for pop culture and strong in composition.
The documentary might be available at independent cinemas across the world, but its quite niche. I recommend you seek Google for more information.
The heat brings the crazy to the streets. Modern day philosophers acknowledge that babies are made in the winter and fornication reigns supreme in the Summer. I might sound like a priest or imam but anything above +/- 20 celcius degree guts grow, egos explode and broken hearts are fixed with a little flirtation. Boredom jumps out of the window, The Dream or Marvin Gaye depending on your flavor, age or goal become the soundtrack to the journey.
Obviously this is the reason why YOLO runs vocabularies across languages. Apparently, it’s the lingua franca of the season. Since it embodies daredevil-ism and coolness at the same time. The sun is shining. Imagine walking on the street and you see a beautiful being passing you by. Eyes interlock, you think of bad poetry and in that moment the sun is your side-kick, friend and comrade who makes you tell your inner sensibility; ‘Let’s Go, YOLO!”
You Only Live Once so say hello and if you channel your inner Andre3000 correctly you might be a top shotta and otherwise you’re still a winner since you did something ‘unusual’.
I had the opportunity to see Wuthering Heights by the filmmaker Andrea Arnold. A radically beautiful interpretation of the only novel Emily Brontë ever published. In spite of the raw intensity of the novel and film, it was the cinematography of Arnold’s rendition which celebrated landscapes, turn of the seasons and rough batches of mother nature’s charm in each scene.
I have a weakness for great cinematography since their work is another way of telling a story by painting the canvas the director hands to them. In the case of Wuthering Heights, I take my imaginary hat off for Robbie Ryan, he managed to make emotions synonymous with seasons, days, moments, weather types without losing the audience’s attention. I found a quote by Robbie Ryan which gives a little peak into his vision.
“We knew that if we could film over the turn of the seasons, it’d reap dividends. It started off bright green and by the end of the shoot, it was rusty brown.”- Robbie Ryan
My friend Mahelia de Randamie reminded me of the power of sharing the process behind projects and experiences. I spend most of my time in my head. The other productive hours I work efficiently 
.
Last month, I ‘curated’ a small exhibition on mobile phone photography and the City titled “24/7 Urbanites”. A dialogue between the city and everyone’s favorite mobile eyes. The city as the vibrant place which feeds artists across disciplines and times. While the phone has become a visual memory collector of our experiences, findings and eye for the mundane details.
Quite an experiment when the budgets are smaller than your pinky and ambitions larger than Notorious B.I.G. For the past few years I’ve been fascinated by the immense outpour of snapshots, moments and memories which were captured by complete strangers and friends, professionals and amateurs. And with the arrival of tools and digital accessories to alter reality, photography is becoming slowly the easiest accessible art form. Yet, debating photography and art is something art historians and scholars have done for decades. Perhaps, you can imagine what the discourse would be in regards to ‘Mobile Phone Photography’.
I rather not burn my fingers, so the exhibition dealt with questions such as ‘What happens when you bring the trained eyes of four photographers from different cities to the world of Mobile Photography?’, ‘What do they envision?’ or ‘How would they document their city with the limitation of a mobile phone?’. Questions which lead to a beautiful array of images by photographers Winta Yohannes (Paris/Berlin), Robert Wunsch (Berlin), Shane Vincent (London) and Sarah de Burgh (New York, Paris). Each city’s bombastic or mundane details were molded by the eyes of the photographers.
I want to thank all the photographers for their participation and willingness to use their city as a visual canvas for this experiment.
Perhaps, it would be good to summarize with a Mark Twain quote: “You cannot depend on your eyes if your imagination is out of focus”. Since, this experiment required the photographers to re-imagine or re-discover their respective cities.
Shane Vincent
Winta Yohannes
Sarah de Burgh
Robert Wunsch
