Culture Reviews

03 Nov

Posted at 21:00h in Culture Reviews by

One diagram might chart the spectrum of creative work between Fuller (see previous post) and the print-makers of North Korea. Fuller describes life as an artist as “a curse, a compulsive problem”. He paces, researches and explores his subject working over long periods in isolation to create extraordinary ‘maps of the mind’, which synthesize the aesthetics, culture and geography of places. At the other end of the spectrum are the print makers from the DPRK who work as part of a team, follow rules that cover subject, style and load references within each image. Art production is structured within a studio system. The highest level of attainment in this system is ‘People’s Artist’. Nicholas Bonner is a lively cultural ambassador, both informative and entertaining. He conveys the philosophy behind these idealized images. As Kim Jong-un states, “Revolutionary art awakens people to the truth of struggle & life & inculcates in them rich emotion & verve”. Bonner explains some of the meaning behind the dynamic, vibrant, yet often visually lyrical wood and lino cuts. He also shares some of his experience of the humanity of the people in the DPRK and the everyday life that these prints portray.
www.vam.ac.uk/event/2nvll3KZ/printed-in-north-korea

01 Nov

Posted at 10:53h in Culture Reviews by

When my father died in 1988, I inherited his copy of ‘The Joy of Gay Sex’ by Dr Charles Silverstein and Edmund White. The ‘Rainbow Dads’ podcasts is a sensitive series of conversations that would have spoken directly to his situation, but he was of the pre-internet generation who had to find their own way. “It was just a deep feeling which I had inside of me which became really really powerful” Ahnet explains. He is one of the 5 gay or bisexual dads who talk frankly in this series of revealing podcasts about the “secret places” where queer sexuality often resides. Nicholas McInerny – our enthusiastic and genial host encourages each of them as they describe how they found “the courage to step out of family and social networks to reclaim my identity” in the process of coming out. We hear about their internalised messages of guilt and shame, in a context of different social, cultural and faith backgrounds. Importantly they also acknowledge the hurt caused. They each grapple with the complexities of marriage, their unconscious drives and parenthood. I warmed to these men as they confessed to many, “Oh shit! Moments” in the interplay between self, partner, children and community in order to know as David puts it, “that you are ok, that your life is valid.” Ultimately these are stories about being human, finding healing and learning to love. Their words resonate deeply with me and my own late coming out, but also shed light on my father’s internal conflicts that led to his own declaration of those words, “I’m gay.”
www.podtail.com/en/podcast/rainbow-dads/

30 Oct

Posted at 23:38h in Culture Reviews by

I stand outside on the street looking into the Hart Club, which is full of the colourful, bold portraits painted by Paul Wright. He portrays his favourite characters from the comedy programmes and soaps he loves. “The work was cheeky and interesting,” says Stephen Wright (no relation) about Paul’s work. They began a creative working relationship, laughter being a key ingredient. “It was a two way experience,” reports Stephen, “Paul helped me to loosen up”. This exhibition has come into being through a collaboration between the Hart Club (who champion neuro diversity in the arts), Submit to Love Studios (part of Headway, a charity working with people who have experienced brain injury), Stephen Wright (working as artist in residence), and Paul Wright (artist with brain injury). Helen who works alongside the artists describes Headway Hackney as having “a Yes! Attitude”. She invites us to think outside our current mindset. “What would it mean for your life if you were very dramatically changed, with loss of self, loss of identity?” I had spent the afternoon with someone struggling to come to terms with exactly that – a sudden change in the entire landscape of their life. “Art practice is a way of living with uncertainty…and turning that into something magical,” says Ben of Headway Hackney. Their inclusive mission with service users is to foster “meaning, the opportunity to be valued, food and love, to have a place in the world; in short, trying to be human.”
www.hartclub.org

25 Oct

Posted at 17:49h in Culture Reviews by

Jamie Wheal’s brilliant and erudite proposition is that in the post modern, industrialised west we are suffering a “collapse of meaning”. He identifies a necessary collective ‘griefgasm’ (Bilal’s term), to belch out our trauma. “Our ability to be of service is in direct proportion to our ability to digest our grief”. He articulates a very convincing synthesis of how to bring about change for the many not the few – “it needs to be all of us, or none of us”. He presents a diagram of the components of collective transformation. The crux is awakening through both ecstatic practice, through cathartic experience, yet connected and grounded in community. His shiny appearance, “super sexy, gee wizz” language is designed to get the attention of the well groomed smart casual movers and shakers in the audience. “How to blow your mind with household substances – respiration, embodiment, music, sexuality and substances…stacked together to bio-hack consciousness” is the programme. I share his passion to ignite courage, witness his eyes brim, and am already on board with most of what he espouses. He brings together strands to inspire “don’t curse the darkness, light a fire”(Watkinson). I would also love to hear his words weaving in circle with others – with women and people of colour. Here he stands with Yoms and June prefiguring my wish.
Recapture the Rapture: Rethinking God, Sex and Death in a World That’s Lost Its Mind. Talk by Jamie Wheel. www.tickettailor.com/events/rebelwisdom/290176/

15 Oct

Posted at 22:20h in Culture Reviews by

Naomi Klein lights the touch paper and sparks of recognition and accord fly. Her arguments – as ever smart and brilliant ignite the quintessential Guardian audience and me. I sit feeling the flame in my mid-fifties with my white face, greying hair and organic veg box deliveries. I feel as though someone who speaks truth to power is delivering my thoughts and also some of my not yet articulated opinions. “We need to raise the collective alarm, to grieve together and to plan together.” She talks passionately about the metaphor of fire both in its negative and positive aspects. “Maybe you’re carrying some trauma that needs to be cleared away. What is the debris that you need to clear away on the inside so that we can clear away the debris on the outside? We have to clear away the deniers, the distracters, the doomers, and most of all we have to clear away the debris of the dividers.” She says, “we will be facing more tests of our humanity,” and asks, “what are we willing to give up?” In praise of hope, “we need to tell better stories about what the world could look like. We need to be on fire”, she asserts. I already am, but her words make me feel more confident in raising my torch.
www.membership.theguardian.com/event/naomi-klein-in-conversation-with-katharine-viner-63565032724

03 Oct

Posted at 11:24h in Culture Reviews by

There’s a pleasing circularity in the things I am hearing in the meditation. It is led by Jarmbi Githabul of the Githabul and Ngarakwal tribes in Australia. Almost the same visualisation was taught to me by Eucalyptus who works in a Celtic tradition. I did a version of it in a ceremony lead by a South American medicine woman, and others before that. I am grounding through the earth, and connecting to the stars. It includes opening my heart. It is a practical way to connecting up both vertically and horizontally, which for me is the key to changing everything. I like his low key practical approach. To connect with who we are and our heritage, “feel your blood”, he simply says. I am finding my way back to the old ways, to those who were earthed, way back in my own lineage. Jarmbi’s bush lore circles through the words that loop round my head – disconnection, trauma, grief, honour, listen, ancestors, remember, ceremony, community, dance, love. The air ripples with the pulsing drone of the didgeridoo. One small gasp for air punctuates the sound of his circular breathing. www.42acresshoreditch.com/events/grounded-connected-as-i-see-it-jarmbi/

01 Oct

Posted at 21:35h in Culture Reviews by

Speaking with passion, Daiara Tukano – indigenous artist and activist – shares something of her ‘cosmovision’. This perspective beyond the material, comes from the Tukano people’s oral tradition. She holds us to account, to honour our own words. One word, ‘Decolonize’ blazes on an 8m banner. “If we hide what happened in the past, we’ll be blind to what’s happening in the present.” I feel betrayed by my white-washed written down school history. Now in this ‘radical anthropology’ lecture, we have a place to hear the legacy of genocides and the violence of evangelism in Brazil. Indigenous people don’t have magical solutions, she warns, but she is returning the history we have obfuscated or lost through the telling of it now in her words, loud and clear. www.radicalanthropologygroup.org/person/person/264

29 Sep

Posted at 20:14h in Culture Reviews by

In a hidden corner of South London is artist Stephen Wright’s extraordinary house. It is a cave of wonders, an eclectic collage of colours, textures, objects and images. Over many years he has crafted the house to tell the story of his own ethnobiography. Confronted by the death of his parents and then partner, the walls, ceiling and sculptures inside reflect the narrative of his grieving process. It is a moving temple of remembrance. As I revisit the ‘House of Dreams’ for the third time I am welcomed through its blue door – where conversations about art, beauty and death are celebrated. www.stephenwrightartist.com/houseofdreams.php

23 Sep

Posted at 20:49h in Culture Reviews by

South of the river – behind and between the brick warehouses, pubs and centuries of old Southwark lies Crossbones. Gathering every 23rd of the month at this once forgotten paupers’ burial ground is a crowd of people come to celebrate the edge dwellers of life. We offer words and tokens in memory of the outcast, the ‘othered’ and of sex workers. John Crow – bard and shepherd of this flock welcomes the absurd and the unheard. I imagine this diverse but woolly-hatted crowd creeping out of the cracks in the city to bring their undervalued blessings; here to remember those who have fallen through the cracks. Libertines speak poems into the dark, drowned out intermittently by the rumble of jets full of people who can’t hear the poetry. www.crossbones.org.uk

16 Sep

Posted at 18:07h in Culture Reviews by

I often listen to Cariad Lloyd’s chatty podcast. She talks to comedians about grief and death. At the Podcast Festival I watch a live recording of ‘Grief Cast’ featuring Keemah Bob, Jenny Bede and Tom Parry. Cariad is personable, asks questions which invite saying the unsayable in a very natural way. In response we laugh at the pomp of social norms around death, share dark tales of funeral meets lavatory humour and demystify the secrecy around the process of death and dying. Afterwards I play at interviewer, re-wind the questions in my head.www.cariadlloyd.com/griefcast