Closing Statement
December 11th 2019 (finished December 28th 2019).
It is mere coincidence that today is the eleventh day of the month. 11 days after the closure of the 11th month project.
As I look back to reflect on 1[-1] the obvious strikes first: there were many tendrils indeed, tendrils that cascaded from the ‘root-knot’ of the project in the desert at Joshua Tree, giving ground to other multiple events, writings, projects, connections, thoughts. These tendrils grounded in the desert soil are now open to light, the invisible has become visible, in a feast of mutual and multiple appearance. Perhaps now, as we have walked into the light, rather than tendrils, these appear as beacons of light, waves of energy, sign of life, pulsating from the desert, reaching out across the globe.
I may have finished in Joshua Tree; but Dieca in Texas is finalising her project with the young women, on the 13th, Ioanna is working on the writing done but not published, FARO (Niurca, Damaris, Amber and I) are discussing ways to situate the project within the upcoming conference Decolonizing Dance in April 2020. The dancing ladies are now sleeping, they have arrived in Miami, waiting for this fairy godmother to brandish her wand sometime in February, to awaken them, once again, into the dance….Guadalupe has shared her story with her family and friends, reaching to others who are now part of her story, independent from her story with me. Marina and I exchange telephone messages.
My mind is an ever-increasing site of questions. I wonder, is this not the best proof of impact, rather than faceless metrics and statistics? Agnieska ‘here’ (Tallinn) wants to see the films, we have a breakfast discussion about the need to transform the art, so that ‘it’ and us transform, moving away from the futile exercise of art saving the world. Anna, a colleague, catches me in the smoking area, offers a cigarette, I said not before 6pm, she wants to speak about the project, she teaches international arts management. Seren and Andrea, amazing students also ‘here’, tell me how they followed the project…Leah asks for the link to the showcase.
I return to my writing on Kristeva posted in Facebook in the pre-production research in Athens in October. Kristeva mentions in The Dissident 1977, “the sudden surge of women and children in discourse poses insoluble questions for Reason and Right, it is because this surge is also yet another symptom of the Death of ‘Man’ (with all the intolerable consequences that this entails from classical rationality to individuality). …the efforts of thought in languages whose very multitude is the only sign of life…”. And perhaps this is what the desert brought; this ironic project about finding life in ‘death’- life in arid territory- brought a renewed confirmation of the need to shift to birthing principles in a world hell bent on destruction. I write this as a conservative anti-women, anti-LGBT, anti-immigration government wins a majority in the UK and news in Greece of the Parliament’s refusal to change the Constitution to support the rights of women, LGBT and immigrants, there are talks of police beatings in hidden parking lots.
The place I used to call home is, indeed, hostile territory (see the poem in the previous entry). Andrea asks ‘but where is there to go’? More and more we find ourselves exiled within our own lands…
And you wonder.
The more I reflect on the project the more I realise how it is linked to an ongoing attempt to concretise and shape a vision of art in relation to ‘taking care’, this holding of an implicated and complicated space first examined in An(n)a Annotated (2015). A key question is re-examined: what form does this art take in the present conditions of our world -- conditioned in the Arendtian sense, the conditions that give rise to appearance, against the present conditions of erasure and disappearance…This taking care of the space in between participants and artists, the pillars within which the continuum of space is being held.
Taking-care, not as a negative -a threatening with-holding- but as a positive action (and this can be hard, difficult, angry, tiring, head exploding action), a slowing down, a holding back, to notice the fragility of life in the space between the spaces, and all of us who inhabit those spaces, cracks in the apparent smoothness of the global terrain. We are undeniably living in a world in crisis that we will not come out with politically correct ‘paños tibios’. Time to roll up our sleeves and put our well-manicured hands in the muck.
I am purposely saying taking-care, NOT care-taking, associated to a state-run passivity, nanny state, that eliminates the power (the word used here as a dynamic force) of the individual to make and understand choice. I am speaking of a ‘taking-care’ that involves first and foremost a process of attention and from this attentive state be able to take on responsibility.
We need to stop and consider the meaning of the word, responsibility, in Spanish written ---respons-abilidad. In its original etymology, it describes a state of being able to respond - not about a burden taken nor placed upon individuals, notwithstanding the cliché statement of burden of responsibility. Therefore, as an artmaker, what is my ‘respons(e)ability, both as giver and receiver of that caring attentive act, as and to collaborators, as and to public, as and to participants, as and to world, as and to resources.
More questions.
Consequentially then, how does art become one of ‘response-ability’ to world, and how does world in turn shows its response-ability towards art? We find ourselves back into the dynamics of dialogue, which presents itself today as a more useful concept than that of mirror. Hence why dialogue and not representation was the working principle of all aspects of the project – dialogue with BoxoProjetcs and Bernard, with the women at Joshua Tree and the globe through the blog, the way in which the sound was edited, the videos shot and constructed, the installation space designed. All aspects invited us to listen into [or there would have been no project] rather than a mere seeing the reflection on the mirror, Baudrillard has already expounded the problems of excess spectacles of visuals. This necessitates that we address the process of making, sharing, distributing beyond the mere aesthetic enjoyment or re-acting upon choices of taste, or a moment of entertainment making us not ‘response-able’ but anesthetised. This view does not eliminate dissent, it can be oppositional, as it can be symphonic, stable, unstable, but whatever it is, it is dynamic and life affirming, as in order to be attentive you have to be alive acknowledging that the thing being responded to is alive as well, kept alive (whether literally or metaphorically) by the very nature of the (mutual) ‘respons(e)ability. It is common sense. We don’t need a new vogue philosophical treatise (see the post on agential realism) to tell us this. It’s as old as desert rocks. I am looking forward to taking the project to Miami, Palo Alto, hopefully San Juan, and New York, as a catalyst for further dialogues.
This final writing is a public thank you to all that made this happen, Bernard Leibov tops the list, reasons too many to be enumerated, Vicky, Brenda, Guadalupe, Marina, Caritina, Griselda, Martha, Veronica, Idolina, Cristina, Olga -the group at Joshua Tree- for the trust given; the ‘international’ group Amber, Clara, Damaris, Dieca, Dawn, Niurca, Tanja, Vicky and Nina, Ioanna, for being in the desert with me through daily messages that both inspired and challenged; Maritere and Marielena for an impromptu pyjama party; Eva for diner at Harrison House and for bringing breakfast; Mary Addison for her hospitality at Artist’s Tea; Yaya and Ruben at Ruben’s Ranch; Jake the dog, for daily runs in the field forcing me to take a break from the editing desk.
I am beginning to shape the creative frame for the next one, 13. Did you know there were once thirteen months in the year, orientated to 13 constellations? One had to disappear to make way to the sun calendar; thirteen was made ‘unlucky’, populist fear generated unquestioned action of eradication. Poor Ophiucus, the serpent bearer, the healer… hang on to your hats, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.