October 1, 2018
Here is where I will put down some notes towards a project that will stretch from today until the Summer of 2022, and possibly beyond. The project is inspired by two pieces of writing by the Native American artistic collective Postcommodity – an Op-Ed for the Walker Art Center called 2043: No Es Un Sueño, published on the museum’s website in May 2017 and a portfolio for Art in America published in October 2017.
In both works, Postcommodity call on art institutions to prepare for the year 2043, when the US will be a minority majority country, with more than 50% of the population non-white. My project, which I hope to expand over a number of different institutional spatial and temporal settings, in the form of lectures, essays and exhibitions, will ask what I can do to be part of this future? What preparations do I need to make now? First off, I want Minus Plato to act as an informal distribution point for these writings of Postcommodity (I have corresponded with them, as a collective and have heard back from one of their members, Raven Chacon). If you want to read them, you can click on the images above. If you want a hard copy of 2043: No Es Un Sueño, please send me an email to minusplato@gmail.com and I will send you one free of charge.
October 5, 2018
I just met Cecilia Vicuña whose work has been a vital influence in forming my ideas about this project, specifically her poetic interweaving of indigenous speech and migrant language in terms of the land and its stewarding for the present and future. (See here for some of my earlier thoughts on her work).
The experience of meeting her was intensified by the presence and reaction of my friend, the artist Maria Joranko, who has equally inspired and taught me about the need to check myself in terms of my own attempts at diversity and inclusion by active and engaged listening as well as knowing when to get out of the way.
Maria recommended that as I move forward with this project, that I write down some key words for the kinds of conversations and their space that need to be made. The first word she suggested was ‘egalitarian’ and so I want to chew on that word before writing any more.
October 15, 2018
The sudden realization that this has to be about the nature of partnership; doing something together
November 7, 2018
Let’s dig a hole, whisper into it and see what we can grow
November 30, 2018
Shhh, don’t tell anyone, but today we have broken ground…
March 13, 2019
Note to self about the significance of Rolando Vazquez’s ideas about the end of the contemporary and the concept of precedence.
https://voicerepublic.com/talks/staging-the-end-of-the-contemporary-workshop-presentation
April 2, 2020
While revising the Minus Plato blog, I am updating this page to turn it into a space for notes towards the book I am writing called Whisper into a Hole. The book will have four chapters (1. Sites, 2. Stages, 3. Reflection, 4. Embodiment) and, for now, it will be written as if narrated by a barber.
March 10, 2022
Scratch that! Whisper into a Hole is no longer a book to come, but a collaborative exhibition with Indigo Gonzalez, Anna Freeman and Rebecca Copper at Hopkins Hall Gallery, April 4-8. Watch this space!
