Ohiya (singing vow): Inkpata Nawaze Naci, Naci, coze May Maya Leci cu wana. Winona: The magic of the night of nights beckons me, beckons me, beckons me; a wonder-world is sheltered ‘neath the trees from grass and shrub and willows low. Come mystic voices, sighs, enchanting breeze from mystic voices, sighs enchanting breeze. The pallid […]
TAKE THE PRESSURE OF THE MACHINE OF THE BIENALE’S [SIC] AND GIVE OVER TO A DIFFERENT PROCESS. TOO MUCH INSTITIONALISATION. STOP. ALLOW THE DIFFERENCE. BE CONFUSED. IT’S HEALTHY. – Brook Andrew and Anthony Gardner ‘NIRIN WURRUNMARRA’ in ‘Art and its Worlds: Exhibitions, Institutions and Art Becoming Public’ (Afterall, 2021), pp. 68-79. Sydney March 12 to […]
Taking public matters into your own stained cybergloves again? – suppose the bearded sage avatar braying (to the tune of REM’s Everybody Hurts (sometimes/So hold on, hold on), whom the social media managers of Agorapulse canceled. With what qualifications? Do tell us the answer, great Trump fluffer Joshy, share your insight, discharged, no doubt, as […]
After some delay, what says the public? It’s Joe’s time! So now, at long last, the smooth transition of a backwards flow towards normalcy softens the bite of an increasing viral death toll, trimming the long nails of Trumpism…for now. But in the meantime, what can art do for US? Either draw a line in […]
O the virtue of ignorance! So much nothing in this Doom life! Here’s the thing: who’s going to read this? Ask anyone but me. By Hercules, no one, not one person, no single body. Either sing a duet or be dumb in silence. Nothing between. “How deplorable to be deploring of art!” (There’s no basket […]
Holiness is what is dear to the gods. Who said that? I dunno but it’s not helpful. Never mind, ignore it. Let’s check-in instead. So, how are you coping? Healthy and sane? My starting position (forced on each of us, black reader and white writer, by this writing and our society) were the sites of […]
Even now, in the memory, she dazzles, must be circled about and about. We may perceive her indirectly, in her effects on others … Ah, the dead, the unended, endlessly ending dead: how long, how rich is their story. We, the living, must find what space we can alongside them; the giant dead whom we […]
While in the cradle, every parent, grandparent and god-fearing aunt wants the best for the new baby, hoping to keep the Evil Eye at bay. Over the years, their prayers for safety turn into dreams of success as the child grows and starts on the path through school to college. Now, bursting with pride at […]
I am sitting in a room, different from the one you are in now. It is that vague time between the COVID-19 lock-down and the great reopening. With the lynching of Ahmaud Arbery on my mind, I scribble the following oddly formed questions into my notebook: what position is left for, or forced upon you, […]
