2021
Textile (نسيج)
2021
My first stab at an actual, proper, real, official, legit fourteen-lined sonnet. And it just so happens to be bog-themed. I wrote this in response to my friend Rabindranath Bhose’s work, who is currently working on a boggy solo-show which will be opening this June at Collective Gallery, in Edinburgh. Rabi and his boyfriend, Oren (who is also a super interesting artist), came to stay with us in Shetland a month or so ago. We visited lots of bogs together (including the site where the Gunnister Man was found, about a 15 minute drive from our house here), and I owe a lot of my current, reinvigorated, love of bog-lands to their visit.
So, the bog sonnet. This is where I’m up to with the edit so far (though it’s still very much a work in progress, so go easy on me!):
Thy holy bog / Riddled with holes
All categories stray / Graven made whorls
Other-World’s holes / Face holy sky
Sphagnum crusty stars / Moon shaven thigh
Pot holed skies / Knotted with graves
Bodies aether-deep / Carpet bone weaves
Sopping arid graves / Death reversed tomb
Firmament portalled peat / Bog bless’d gooch
Rite bidden tomb / Fecund stone cog
Ensouling our rot / Thy holy bog
Salt lubes cog / Hanged Man brains
Prayer crossed things / Loss borne gain
Feet like brains / Riddled with whorls
Preserved can’t stop / Other-World tolls
2022
One of the installation works in project (Obstacles)
2022
One of the installation works in project (Obstacles)
Video art
2022
Third element of project (Obstacles)
Beneath the streets of Rome lies the Cloaca Maxima (‘The Great Drain’), one of the worlds earliest sewage systems (named after the Etruscan deity Cloacina, a goddess of purity and filth). Pliny The Elder called Rome a “hanging city”, referring to the rivers churning beneath it through the Cloaca Maxima’s depths. It seems this feat of engineering was considered much more than merely a place to dispose of the city’s waste, but was a numinous and mysterious site, a literalisation of the city’s Underworld.
I came down with a cold over the last two days and so lay in bed eating soup and crisps and watching films. Two of the films I watched were Anthony Hopkins Hannibal vehicles (Red Dragon, and Hannibal), and both were pretty bad (admittedly, Red Dragon was the least bad of the two), and really showed up how Anthony Hopkins Hannibal is like a one-dimensional cartoon character, in comparison to the genuinely terrifying black hole of Mads Mikkelsen’s iteration.
Anyway, the other film I watched, continuing the cannibal vibes, was the 1999 Ravenous, directed by Antonia Bird, written by Ted Griffin, and starring Guy Pearce and Robert Carlyle. I’d never heard of it until I listened to this podcast episode with Sasha Ravitch. The film is utterly bonkers, in a very enjoyable way, and has lots of overlaps with the classic vampire story cliche of turning people into vampires so you have someone who can actually relate to you, the desire to be seen and understood in your monstrosity, not shamed or shunned for it. It also brings in the First Nations, Great Planes, and Great Lakes indigenous folklore of the Wendigo:
“The wendigo is often said to be a malevolent spirit, sometimes depicted as a creature with human-like characteristics, which possesses human beings. The wendigo is said to invoke feelings of insatiable greed/hunger, the desire to cannibalize other humans, and the propensity to commit murder in those that fall under its influence”
Ravenous places this mythical creature as a blunt metaphor for the USA’s imperialist/colonialist expansion and consumption of people, land and resources, whilst offering an assortment of temporary boons and power to those who will exercise the nation-state’s will on it’s behalf (which in the film make the characters rapidly heal from potentially mortal wounds, and give them what Carlyle’s character repeatedly refers to as ‘VIRILITY’).
Interestingly, in the Wikipedia entry for Wendigo, Hannibal the TV show pops up again, as this is what Will Grahams hallucination throughout the series is in reference to:
This is a kind of mock-up of something that’s been floating around my head for a minute. I’ve been crushing on illuminated manuscripts recently (particularly the 9th Century Christian Gospel manuscript The Book of Kells), and have been thinking about how to do a similar thing for a text-based adventure game (for example, here’s one I made earlier – I have no idea what the new game will be yet, but I’m trying to be ok with working in the dark about that and just following my guts). So this is it, an animated border for a game to come.
For over 5 years now whenever I start a new painting or drawing, before I put anything else down on paper, I draw some guts. It feels like they should be the foundation from which everything else is built on top of. The image of guts have become a stand-in for me that speaks to eating, digestion, shit, waste, and desire. So it feels appropriate for this to be one of the first things I make as part of the residency.
Hi Hi
Bassam here, and welcome to this space where ill be posting some WIP images of a project I’m developing with˚ʚJennifer Mehiganɞ˚ .me and Jennifer have made a lot of work in the past, some short film works and lightTM Collaborations but this will be the most ambitious of our collaborative works.
we generally use the picture below as our portrait, Jen being the horse and me being the armored figure (time for an update as i think we are now maybe both horses ???)
We made this short film/video a while ago, and its functioned as a precursor to the work we are making together now. The work explored themes of divine retribution, queendom, and climate change through the lens of Catholic iconography, constellations, and Fallopia Japonica (Japanese knotweed). Through out the work you encounter images of embracing horses, highly stylized diagrams, floating eyeballs, a dead horse, a hand growing flowers out of its palm and other convulsing plant life.
I will be using this residency to build the world of the film we are making together, so ill be posting some images of character design, landscape layouts, portraits of computer generated flowers, CG outfits among other things. ❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀
The first thing I do whenever I start a new project is draw a mind map or diagram as I find it to be a super useful way of getting a sense of where I want the work to go. And so, this is a mind map of interests I’m aiming myself towards for the Vital Capacities residency.
Looking back over it, there’s one glaring absence in this map: cannibalism. I just watched the TV show Hannibal, and am low-key obsessed (and probably permanently tainted) by it’s very gay tale of aching desire and the high aesthetics of anthropophagi (or human-eaters). To my mind, cannibalism connects nicely into the above mess of interests. There is a beautiful Buddhist food offering my girlfriend taught me, composed by Roshi Joan Halifax: “Earth, water, fire, air, and space combine to make this food. Numberless beings gave their lives and labors that we may eat. May we be nourished that we may nourish life.” Food always carries the dead with it. Of course, Hannibal accelerates his victims proximity to their death, and a number of times refers to them as no better than factory farmed livestock, so I’m not sure ‘ethics’ are high on his agenda, so much as aesthetics.
I love finding a title for a new body of work, it feels super freeing to have a banner, ‘SEWER SONNETS’, under which all sorts of ephemera can be connected and begin communicating with each other. I am really interested in how sonnets are this weirdly specific poetic form (traditionally it is a poem composed of 14 lines in iambic pentameter) that has emerged as THE genre of love poetry, and potentially even more specifically as the ultimate genre for dead lovers’ poetry.
Welcome to my studio, where I can share my practices and my experiences.
This space belongs to an emerging Palestinian artist called Shaima Sheikh Ali or “Mohammad Ali”, since the israeli colonial forced us to change the name of our family in the “israeli ID”!
My multimedia art explores the liminal space between the personal and the collective, which is a point of intersection and a point of departure. I use sculpture and video as the main elements in my installation art.
The most common challenge that artists in general and the Palestinian artist in particular, is experiencing challenges of all political, societal and religious censorship that may be imposed by the authority, in which this external censorship gradually turns into self-censorship imposed on the Palestinian self. Internal control requires deception and covering up of information we know about our real issues; this comes from the womb of truth and reality. Access to this information raises the value of freedom of expression and critical thinking.
In addition, there is a scarcity of supporting institutions, and lack of Palestinian artistic platforms, especially in Jerusalem, due to the restrictions and oppression imposed by the colonists. Parents also have power that can limit their children’s progress, and impose their control, which prevents them from taking important steps towards what they want. In addition to these challenges, physical disability also has a place, which I struggle with in particular. It’s the reason why I can’t access some exhibitions and art residencies; a situation that makes the everyday difficult, and makes the difficult impossible.
This residency will give me the platform that I need to expand my experience in order to share it with you. I am excited to be on this residency on Vital Capacities, to develop one of my techniques that I previously developed for one of my artworks.
You are very welcome to take a look around my studio, and if you have something that you want to say or to share with me please feel free to leave a comment.
There is a trinity of subjects I’m currently obsessed with: toilets, boglands, and crossroads. I’m fascinated by toilets and sewers and boglands and crossroads as gateways of egress and ingress to Underworlds where The Outcast Dead may dwell. Historically, those deemed criminals were often buried at crossroads and bogs for the same reason; that their souls may forever be lost and not find their way to salvation. As a trans girl and a witch, I’m in love with the phrase ‘The Outcast Dead’ (as used by Crossbones Graveyard near London Bridge, an unconsecrated Victorian burial site now dedicated to The Outcast Dead).
My work is driven by the politics of the eulogy: who gets to be grieved, how that grieving is allowed to happen, and what kinds of stories are remembered of the dead.
For this residency I’m going to begin developing a project mapping these gateways to the lands of the Outcast Dead, which I’m collecting under the title, ‘Sewer Sonnets’. I’m interested in sonnets as writing born of love and devotion, and I see devotion as being my main research methodology in this project.
I always try to approach the subjects of grief and the dead with a balance of levity and care, because I truly believe grief to be both a transformative, inherently playful/magickal force and utterly world-destroying at the very same time. That being said, grief can be an intense and raw subject, particularly for those of us who have lost someone close to us, so please take care here. I’m always up for talking about this stuff though, so feel free to comment here.
Hi,
We are a cyber art collective, “Su and XTRUX”. We are Su, the individual artist, and XTRUX, which is a 5-member group. We’re preparing a few exciting projects this year. One of the plans is called The Space Warriors and the Digigrave, an extension of this project is what we plan exploring for the residency. It will be an adaptable “grave”, we called it Digigrave, which is sort of an artist’s last will exhibition. We will use some interesting addons to build it in the world of Minecraft.
The Digigrave is also a “spaceship” . A spaceship which offers a different perspective of reviewing ourselves, to escape from those who are addicted to grand narratives of groups, categories, ethics, or families. It looks like a Taiwanese traditional tomb, and also recalls the memory of Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall built during the 1980s. It’s part of Su’s sci-fi story Space Warriors.
According to the story setting, Digigrave carries alien species to come and save the earth – or the island of Taiwan under martial law. In East Asia, during the last decade of the Cold War from 1984 to 1987, CTS, one of Taiwan’s only three official TV stations at that time, produced and broadcasted a very rare and weird sci-fi series, Space Warriors. It was basically copied from the Japanese series Super Sentai in late 1970s with modifications. At the same time, it also referenced the Gavan, the follow-up series of Super Sentai, and was mixed with some local elements. CTS eventually discontinued the series due to low ratings, inconsistent production quality, overt criticism from parents, and the import of the Japanese original on VHS and satellite television.
Unfortunately, the sci-fi did not open the people’s imaginative thoughts about the universe and the world, but rather, the series, combined with illogical fantasy and Chinese Folktales and even martial arts elements, subtly implied nationalism, Confucianism, patriarchy, and other values, which was a very strange and unique experience during the martial law period in Taiwan.
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I believe that objects can possess spiritual energy. This umbrella is one of them. It is a Ghanaian Royal Umbrella and made for the kings and Queens. These are not just for shelter from the west African heat but function as symbolism. The artist designs and collaborates with the King/Queen and enriches it with contemporary and specific symbolism. T
The Royal umbrella is handmade with high-grade materials and depicts royal levels to the public.
I was fortunate to find an artist that makes Royal Ceremony umbrellas. The umbrella I have has the spirit of a Queen Mother. It is red with gold fringing. This spirit is present through the experience of building this shrine.
This week I have been changing this umbrella. I am transforming the umbrella into a shrine for the transgender deity I am envisioning. I will share the images at a later stage.
continuing to sketch > < continuing to sketch
visible roots left in the ground > < follow up for the tree
tabla tabla strings and vocals >
a call to recent studies >
video description: set to another Lollywood classic, this short clip splits the screen into two separate panels. Each one follows the camera movement from dead roots laid in the grass upward to a living tree and then up again to the blue sky – the movement is from grey decay to lush green and blue life. As the intro to the song finishes and the first vocal is about to drop in, the image pauses for a brief moment…two tabla-like images appear side to side. Both are rotating circles with an inner circle of a blackened wood texture, made to appear like the syahi, the central point of the tabla skin. Both rotating circles give the sense of vinyl records being played, with the outer ring on both circles featuring two distinct family images. One is of my two grandfathers sternly sizing each other up. The other is of my grandmother and her best friend sizing up the camera. As the song continues and fades out, the images are taken away by a burning line across the screen.