(This blog entry, in the main, was written in the days before the ceasefire was announced yesterday evening.)
It's a beautiful early winter's day here in Lough Cutra. I could be out photographing. I could be squatting over the rims of my deliberately lob-sided bowls beside the wood burning stove that I am supposedly making for the Christmas market while rummaging through madcap schemes for desert located clay excursions into the Sahara. I could be limbo-ing through the smashed glass window round the side of the Southern Gate Lodge in renewed attempt to launch my Heritage-For-All campaign ( more of all that another time) - all these things would be easier than compiling the blog that awaits in fragmented discord before me. But then I never did take the easy route.
For days I have been following events in Gaza, mainly through social media as I don't have a television set out here. I'm finding that I keep skirting round the issue, of how to respond, with one distraction after another. A few nights ago I posted several images to facebook, including this no-nonsense map and the disturbing and controversial image ( that facebook later removed) below the map of dead children. The use of such images has to thoughtfully considered. I'll elaborate on my own personal take on this later in this blog. ( Which I suspect will run in to several parts).
A friend, also an artist; a very talented painter, and someone who was as mobilised as I during the invasion of Iraq 2003, responded to my posts - asking (generally) 'what are we supposed to do?'
This question has lain heavily on my mind ever since. The attempted ceramic rims, the previous blog re Anton Reijnders re Ceramics as Refuge have been postponed as I try to figure out a creative response that is worth its muscle. It's not like this thinking is new to me; after all, I was dealing with the tumult of the Jasmine Revolution, the Egyptian Revolution ( I lived and breathed) and the Libyan Overthrow of Gadaffi all through my MA. Bear in mind Siwa is adjacent to the Libyan border and its Berber community has more in common with its cousins in Libya than Egyptian central government. ( much debate will follow on this in the future inshallah as I grow and develop the project in Siwa.) In fact during the MA, the revolutions of the Arab Spring usurped all my up-til-then planning for the doing part of my project. Suffice to say, revolution isn't new to me. In all honest's truth it has resided at the core of my being as long as I can remember; during the course of my MA I announced mid way through a weary critique ( I was on the receiving end ), that I was at heart an activist, who just happened to go to art school.....
I collect tweets they are easy to transpose from one page to another, a simple cut and paste job and none of the uploading of awkward files this pc connection has such a problem with. I stare at them for direction and once again remember back to MA research. I have now moved on. Perhaps I will even activate my dormant twitter account in the name of social practice:
RT @ahauslohner: Frantic families pouring into UNRWA schools from n#gaza strip, on horse carts w just blankets pic.twitter.com/z2FVug62
RT @guidoolimpio: rt Evacuation leaflets causing panic as people think an#Israeli invasion on #Gaza imminent http://yfrog.com/h8tm7zznj
“@cnnbrk: Egypt's Morsy: "Travesty" of Israel's #Gaza aggression to end "in a few hours." http://on.cnn.com/T8Iep0 ” seriously CNN? Really!??
Schools and shelters are being filled as the IDF warns #Gaza-ns to move into the city centre. INVASION. OCCUPATION. http://yfrog.com/mmitjhgj
“@DailyNewsEgypt: #BREAKING: #US on Tuesday blocked #UN Security Council statement on the #Gaza conflict saying it was "counter-productive”
So it's a case of back to the drawing board after my, rather extended, woodland soujourn and its digging for the return of hope. ( Which inncidently worked.) Now I ask myself afresh, for we mustn't grow complacent, how can creative practice - especially creative practice coming from a fine art background, have any use in light of the dire situation in Gaza? ( Ceasefire or no.) For me such an issue is vitally important and it is for reasons such as this, and for the need to have a sense of working towards change for the better, that my priorities have changed from product making first and foremost to engagement with discourse of a difficult nature; I wholeheartedly feel there is a definite need for this in my life. This is supported by wider thinking on the social practice issue where many artists are downing metaphorical paintbrushes and easels in order to pursue something more pressing. This is witnessed by the works of such groups as Superflex & The Copenhagen Free University to cite the first two that come to mind *
And so - back to the drawing board it has been - and in order to try and under stand the relevance of creative process ( as opposed to straight forward activism), I was drawn to to taking note of the various synchronicities and course of events occurring over the last few days. In a way I have been partaking, with myself, in a kind of Cyber-Derive to borrow Guy Debord's Theory of the Derive based by and large on 1950's Situationist thinking.
This approach towards contemplating the situation in Gaza should not be seen as a potential solution re creative outcome, but, more in terms of a starting point re research methodology. An ongoing research into life path.
http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/2.derive.htm
derive theory on (praxis) page here; (article 1)
http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2835258180000322381#editor/target=page;pageID=4529738977691790460
I will elaborate further on this in the coming days.
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