another inspiring texture
by elisa

another texture
by elisa

Texture
by elisa

[And at the edge of this world, a box of wood / and canvas; light and
light and light. (chris abani)]


nd we started collecting words and thoughts on the title and toward a
statement for the show (more thoughtstormin...)

Liminal:  a threshold

Mined:  extracting the separation of a substance from a matrix -- an
abundant source -- natural deposit -- blowing up an enemy ship...

One thing I can add for "mined" is that it does conjure up the feeling of being exploited and exhausted of ideas and energy after creating art.


in the liminal

the social articulation of difference, from the minority perspective, is a
complex, on-going negotiation that seeks to authorize cultural hybridities
that emerge in moments of historical transformation. (Bhabha 2)

It is in this sense that the boundary becomes the place from which
something begins its presencing in a movement not dissimilar to the
ambulant, ambivalent articulation of the beyond

always and ever differently the bridge escorts the lingering and hastening
ways of [men] to and fro, so that they may get to other banks....

The bridge gathers as a passage that crosses (Bhabha 5)

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Bridges span liminal (threshold) spaces between worlds, spaces I call
nepantla, a Nahuatl word meaning tierra entre medio. Transformations occur
in this in-between space, an unstable, unpredictable, precarious,
always-in-transition space lacking clear boundaries. Nepantla es tierra
desconocida, and living in this liminal zone means being in a constant
state of displacement--an uncomfortable, even alarming feeling. Most of us
dwell in nepantla so much of the time it’s become a sort of “home.” Though
this state links us to other ideas, people, and worlds, we feel threatened
by these new connections and the change they engender.

(Un)natural bridges from This bridge we call home (Gloria Anzaldúa)


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What passes for night here has more to do with the place
where the body is flayed open to sorrow and wonder.
The boy on the bridge drops a feather into a lost river.
A rusting lawn dreams of grass rude and fescue.
A match held down to tobacco still burns with an upward flame.
There is no truth here.
Dutifully the mist comes down the mountain. What else can I tell you?

(Chris Abani)

2 things:

I have started a flickr account for my images. I am going to start putting sets of images that I am considering working on as I pull them out of my collection, and then I will have one set that has more polished stuff that I actually am working on. Please feel free to check this out, make suggestions, comments, at any time.

the link is http://www.flickr.com/photos/87601460@N03/

I am thinking of creating works of photography that combine a small series of of images. I am also thinking that the whole photo aspect would need to be in some sort of series as the only way I seem to be able to conceive of this concept photographically is oddly (for me) linear. That may change as i delve deeper into the images. 

The second things is that I am going to Haida Gwaii from Thursday until monday which will make me slightly harder to get ahold of but should really help burst my creative juices.

hari, i saw these pile of posters online somewhere. what if they were simply rolled up paper cig-sized. it might do the job of 'being' the cig in shape but easier to access and unroll and read. like, just a thought.

i shift away from the anthropological definition of "liminal" - in part
the problems of understanding oneself in terms of "ritual" - in part as a
"hybrid" of race/culture/class/gender and so on, I find some commonality
and potential solidarity in our situations - that is, how normal it is to
be matter out of place and in between human categories ( privileges vary
though ) and what happens when we shift our thinking away from
essentialisms (or the opposition). and what we learn by acknowledging our
bodies in time and area. (also, I was traumatized by my undergrad in
anthro :))

I love the poetic interventions hari. love them.

and erik this wisdom is helpful (and calming) to meditate on:

"I have been thinking often of the Haida concept of Xhaaydla Gwaayaay: the
Islands on the Boundary Between Worlds,  That space of impermenance where
the sea, the land, and the sky meet; in particular the concept of
xhaaydla:
boundary or intertidal zone. This fits, for me nicely with the concept of
liminality."

when I think of the liminal body disposed to work for capital - i continue
to be drawn (and urgently so) to the enactment of policing, control and
incarceration in moments of survival, in movement for liberation. the
tangled layers of signs and symbols of the urban and how our
subjectivities can resist, assert, be present.  I am pretty sure the
outcome for me will be a reworking of serial images on these themes with
gestures toward the "global street" (sassen) and I continue to centre on
the poster as a form.

in terms of the title - liminal mined works for me... down with liminal
obviously - "mined" I find a good and anxious qualifier. diversity and
hybridity and "lets melt together" and be coloured in the context of
multiculturalism is also instrumentalized. policies of the multi-culti,
indian act and neoliberal economics have viciously informed our lifetimes
relative to this state (here I'm assuming folks to be children of the 70s
or 80s...and knowing life in north america) and our bodies and communities
carry that - the title seems aware and critical of this. and it points to
resource extraction simultaneously, something that informs our
consumption, transportation and lifestyles to devastating degree and also
in this moment, a matter of global concern.

that said, I'm down with any reconsiderations of the use of the words.  do
we need to provide any materials to Kafka's before the 25th?

either way, how can we begin a brainstorm for a didactic - or is that
something say, naomi, hari, that can be drafted tentatively and sent to
all of us for contemplation and smoothing?

some thoughts. sorry its somewhat of a molasses flood.