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)

-----------

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)


----------

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.

good to hear from you erik!

one thought on how they will relate to each other: my belief is that will be emergent, like you said, through some more conversation and also by thinking about them in space with each other...

a brainstorm

focus differential

layers and layers of loss

and whatever its opposite might be

liminal

not-quite-the-one

not-quite-the-other

perception you say?

the way antlers might be the windswept skeleton of brush 

there is injustice here...

two excerpts from "fontanelles" by anne michaels (i just happened to be reading it for the first time this morning):

The chemistry of looking;

to look until the river

swallows us, until the redness

of the stone fills our veins.

To look until we're

seen. But this is only longing.

We leave our heat shadows

in moss shocked with frost.

Even your camera

sees more; the detail you crave.

We strain to see even

what the camera sees,

what the eye can't; and this is as good

as a philosophy. An embrace

of failure, as if

just once, impossibly,

we'll catch the visible reflection 

of what's invisible. 

...

The sea, folded paper;

rain filling each cerase.

A twist of bright salt,

a twist of foam.

Phosphene.

Dark with hope.

Thanks everyone. I spent a good portion of today going over everything that has been shared to this point, lovely work by everyone so far. It has all been very inspiring, and I have finally started to form a vision for the photography I want to contribute.

The theme of layers had been an early inspiration, and now combined with the concept of liminal minded and filtered through hari's writing, naomi's latest shared piece and elisa's textures I am starting to get a feel for a sense of relative creative space.

A bit on my process: with all of the material shared fresh in my mind I have been scrolling back mentally through my photography searching for a sense of resonance, trying to call up what points of voice in my work seem to apply. I have lately been preoccupied with a couple of concepts: being in the north, and at a transitional time in my life where different aspects of my life have met at a nexus where I am staking a new claim to agency 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.

I am heading back to Prince George today so I will be in phone, internet, skype contact for the forseeable future. I will also not be working this week I expect and will be trying to get the bulk of the work done on my photos. Expect some work soon. 

In terms of the title I am extremely happy with the concept of liminal, not so sure how mined fits in. 

As I understand the roots of the concept of liminality it refers to “the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of rituals, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the ritual is complete. During a ritual's liminal stage, participants "stand at the threshold" between their previous way of structuring their identity, time, or community, and a new way, which the ritual establishes.”

Of course much further development of this concept has been happing and our works shall contribute to this expanding of the sense of this idea. I have been preoccupied lately with new theories of consciousness that regard it as the space between phenomenal perception and active memory which works really well for me this existential ideas I have been working on for some time. 

For my photo project I am trying to use the idea of successive modulations through different tones of photo texture that transform the nature of perception. The subject matter of the photo then hopefully through resonance with the observer will occupy the space of memory or draw up memories rather, associations, in short perceptions and then the tonal work creates the space of liminality. 

I am quite inspired by the work that has been shared so far. Although it brings up questions for me regarding the nature of the presentation of our collaboration. I am not sure what the installation will look like, how are works will be related. I am excited to converse on this.

Hari, as a note, I have been particularly struck by six of your poems, visually struck: water soluble, first borne, seven, departure, rock soft and ode. I believe that there are photographs in my collection that resonate,

Sorry I have been so hard to track down everyone, i'll be working on this pretty much daily now so I should be able to catch up and contribute more.  

something interesting to share: had been struggling with how to arrange the poems in this collection. 

this the solution that came yesterday...at first it was a spiral but this morning the poems demanded pivots between them...

your process sounds amazing, and that piece you attached is beautiful.

there's a resonance with the beautiful layered art that elisa showed me when we met. elisa, i know you mentioned the way the poems somehow keep reminding you of back alleys and how there's a particular memory of yours that's shaping the images - i'm sure you could describe it better...more on my process below

--

blog: these new images are so powerful...is there a way we can re-invigorate the blog? i can send in the re-edit of "in black and white" or another poem...recently cecily told me she found it instantly inspiring, and it's also kind of a useful documentation of parts of our process, something that can exist before, during, after the exhibition...i can take on some of the work for that...and maybe it can become post-able by all of us...

--

title: chatting with cecily over the phone and elisa in person we talked about that title, liminal mined seems to work for everyone so far - yay! - can we confirm it for now? erik?

--

didactic / artist statement: i like the "bodies of work" subtitle as well. i believe the inspiration came to naomi from press release's m'aidez chapbook's didactic?

speaking of which, cecily suggested we should begin work on the core artistic statement...it seems like a good idea for us to each write something short about what we think this is (paragraph / list of thoughts / images) and combine them. i'm gonna start a new thread for that, and will include that image brainstorm from a previous thread

--

my process: i'm trying to take liminal mined: elegiac scrolls as my subsection - chapbooks in the form of cigarette packs with the individual smokes containing rolled up poems (thanks to inspiration and scotch with naomi and erik). 

i still need to figure out a way to put the (minimal) text on the packs...gonna spray paint them a single background colour - any ideas artists?

Hi every One, 

sad to have had to miss the meet up---in lieu i just wanted to share with you all my process... 

I found a way to approach the writings and speak back. i'm working on ink drawings on papers that are browns, creams, whites, and slightly pink-butcher paper, watercolour paper, and whatever else i can find in the range of natural tones. i'm taking excerpts from poems, rather than whole poems, and responding with these, then collaging them into larger format paintings. the paintings will gravitate around the image: "family of rocks" from "ode to ghost valley". a sample of ink drawing ready for cut up collage is below. 

i am just sending in our info--what do you all think about a name for the showing of our stuff? hari and i with rusty jammed some ideas, i didn't write them down and forget the wording now. 

something like: 

liminal mined : bodies of work / a body of work 

also maybe--->

 

liminalverse 

 or 

liminal versus

 or 

....?

attached: new elegiac poem from hari, which i wrote for cynthia & seve's wedding chapbook but which i think will also work as part of the current suite being built for this project

notes:
cecily and i met briefly yesterday to exchange lion birthday wishes and drinks (we're born 3 days and _ years apart), and the conversation dovetailed towards our group project...
she had an amazing idea for poster-type images she might make to look like they're wheat-pasted. if y'all come across any materials that might be made to look like a section of telephone pole or just cool found materials that might look like a section of city wall that she can mount her pieces on, perhaps you might gather them and bring to the next meeting (i'm real excited about it cuz it seems to work with the layering themes that keep coming up)... 

hari's attachment here........

the sound of a spider spinning (elegy for an ungrateful son)

what looks like an outcropping

of jungle and plastic leaning over curb onto lot

the skytrain slides beyond

he sees his father's anger flash

there is no temper like the kind

been pressure cooked in sacrifice

only one person in the whole

world can defeat you

and that is your self

Some meeting thoughts from July 12

overall:

talk about how collaboration can happen, gave ourselves & each other assignments

process(es):

- hari read poems from "the elegy suite" (attached); a set of poems that have been coming since he began grieving the impending end of his first book's apprenticeship of him. they are linked and also their own. 

- brainstorming happened, some great ideas around sequences and non-sequences of art pieces in conversation with each other
--a cool thing happened: the poetry conjured up visual ideas. brainstorming through the senses: how would this piece smell/taste/feel/look... 

- "narratives layered on top of histories" / "unresolved" / : naomi showed a couple of collage / paintings in which the undeniability of layers / lenses were a key factor, alongside juxtaposition of textures (more on this?)

- naomi shared the book "the terrain of memory" which she has been thinking about a lot lately (more on this / excerpt n?)
-- naomi wants to work with the idea of perspective visually with layers.
--the book has beautiful way of layering personal and political history of japanese canadians that reverberates a lot with her. first book that has ever done that for her, and is inspiring a direction of the layering thing she is thinking about in 2-d work.

- "the light seems to be vacuuming the sky towards it": elisa shared some painting "drafts" that brought a mix of textures, of stark pronounced strokes with ink bleed and soft textures..
--elisa shared that she wanted to work with those images somehow. 

* one thing we noticed is how short poems or excerpts from longer pieces seem to give more opening for creating visual work

* layering, uncovering, looking thru, hierarchies of so-called purity, reaching, trying to grasp... 

two specific assignments:

1) via naomi: each visual / photo artist pick a short excerpt of a poem and do some writing / visual brainstorming based on that and send / bring to each other for further generation

2) via elisa: take the poem ode to ghost valley and do some preliminary sketches / image gathering and share back at next meeting, from which hari will write some work. continue working on the pieces and see what happens when the poems & the more completed pieces 

3) a long list of images that hari will send out in another email
--for example: "ode to ghost valley" we spent time on how the poem feels, and then what images from what specific parts really jumped out. for me it was rocks, family, tree, dead branch, prayer, offering, earth, body, skin. Or in "water soluble" we spent time looking at how images overlap/disrupt/play into the way the poem is sounds.

next meeting:

can it be next saturday (21st july)?