Cultural Appropriation
This morning I received an email from my MALOLA partner Christian Schaffner asking me to remove his photo in the About category, here on our website. The reason is that he doesn't want to be drawn into debates about cultural appropriation. In our internet meetings he kept telling me about the problem that nowadays his dreadlocks were not accepted by certain people. At first I thought he might be a bit sensitive to criticism about his hair and didn't bother to investigate further, although he told me a long time ago to search the internet for the term "cultural appropriation". After Anmari Mëtsa Yabi Willi reported to me yesterday that their employees boycotted the Lorin Promenade during this year's Art Basel for the same reason, I eventually looked it up. The term Kulturelle Aneignung is even listed as a term in my German/English dictionary and is translated into English as cultural appropriation. On Ecosia I find the following definition: the unacknowledged or improper adoption of the customs, practices, ideas, etc. of one people or society by members of another, and typically more dominant, people or society. It is therefore a negatively connoted term.
I thought that wearing dreads in everyday life was exactly the opposite, with a focus on the Rastafarians, a kind of advertisement for their culture. Negative reactions often come from the bourgeoisie, because they think their way of doing their hair is the only right way. Some even hide their dreads when applying for a job. I've always looked at dreads as a reference to a culture that you identify with, no matter who wears them.
The longer I search the internet, the more I realize how complex the matter is and not at all new, but from the 1970s. I understand, when someone adorns themselves with the features of a culture while ignoring the suffering that the people of that culture have experienced, it's distasteful. But all the people I know who mix with other cultures show great respect for these cultures, as do Christian and Anmari. Quoting Kwame Anthony Appiah, ethics columnist for the New York Times, The key question in the use of symbols or regalia associated with another identity group is not: What are my rights of ownership? Rather it's: Are my actions disrespectful? I want to end this topic for now.
Saturday, 23
So my letter here is not there to show the world how great I am or to produce myself. It actually serves communication, which works one-sidedly somehow. In fact, however, I communicate with the conviction that there are people who are interested in me and who read my texts. I'm kind of screaming something out to the world and whoever it's ever going to reach, it is just there, with no further justification. Kind of interesting, now that I've been an active artist for over forty years - art studies, some prizes and grants - I see myself as a kind of dissident as far as my art center in The Gambia is concerned. I read texts about exhibitions, projects and whatever via my newsletters, some of which I receive every day. And they all sound completely scientific. Yes, this scientific discourse that I encounter there is missing in my project what I have already mentioned several times. I keep apologizing for - how I would desire for a Phd to show. So a dissident in the sense that I can show neither a master's degree nor a doctoral degree and yet I'm doing something for which this is needed. This causes a lot of doubts in me, how can I compensate for them? I can not. So I just continue with the awareness that I am not entitled to take part in the competition of the big ones. It hurts when you start to realize that you are not the one in charge. But you can also get used to it. Than it is so. Sometimes I even see a resistance in being an outsider by displaying the possibility to reside in an art institution that no one knows - apart from a few friends and insiders. The question of the meaning answers quite simply, the meaning lies in the existence and not in the degree of familiarity, not even in the fame that the number of likes and subscriptions ensures.
Wednesday, 20
For days I've been uninspired, always on the verge of jumping to the laptop and then losing heart again. You know me, I describe the condition to kind of get in the mood. Otherwise I totally lose touch while waiting for an enlightenment. In fact, yesterday I had an experience with the internet that alienated me; I realised how exposed I am, far from being able to control what is happening there. I'm actually aware of the internet's complexity and I have no problem with it, otherwise I wouldn't be active here and on social media. I enjoy using the internet, especially for communication. When it comes to administrative things, however, the joy is less. I am always anxious I could do a mistake, forget important passwords and maybe don't understand porperly. That's how it was yesterday when I was looking for an English book title. Something on creativity, because I felt clumsy and therefore I was looking for input to get inspiration. But, as I was registered from the wrong country, I couldn't do what I wanted. In fact, I never changed my address, but stayed with the German domain. Nevertheless, finally, after six years, living in an English speaking country, I thought changing and putting in Gambia was the right thing to do. The Gambia was automatically assigned to the US and not the UK, which I would have preferred. With their asking me again if I really wanted to switch, it became clear that it seemed to be a decision of serious consequences. I gave myself a nudge: ok, I'll do it, which turned out to be fatal. It was about downloading kindle files, which shoud be only possible from the domain (.de or .com or co.uk) one is registered on. But since I'm mostly looking for English books (which I almost always found in the German domain though), I thought it was time for a change. But the American version is really different and doesn't offer downloads for samples, which I could use before. I never bought anything unless I really wanted to keep reading. Since I have the samples on my devices, I can always browse. They're also a kind of reminder so I don't forget what I was interested in. It struck me like scales from my eyes that I had made the wrong decision. My kindle existence is over and done with (that's what I believed at that very moment, but secretely I hope that the next time I am using the site everything will be fine again).
Friday, 15
When I wrote a while ago that I was working on some kind of park, I didn't mean that I was ruling out planting beds with vegetables and fruit trees. On the contrary, I am interested in the diversity of the park. Oranges, lemons and mangoes have grown from our compost that by now have achieved some hight. We also bought some seedlings that grew much faster than our homegrown ones. On the vegetable side there are okra, tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, bitter tomatoes, pepper, hibiscus and others. Among the larger ones are bananas, coconuts, guava, papayas, avocados and moringa. There are paths between these plants to contemplate about everything that is coming to your mind as well as watching and fostering the plants while they grow. That is what I call a park.
12th Berlin Biennale "Still Present!" curated by Kader Attia, June 11 - September 18, 2022
In his curatorial essay, Attia claims that through identifying society’s wounds and tending to them through listening and talking, we ultimately reinvent ourselves. “There are many ways to approach this difficult task,” he writes, “but I believe that only art, in which I include all creative fields, can successfully oppose imperialism’s seeds of fascism and its state apparatuses, precisely because art is unpredictable.” Art, he argues, following the communication scientist Daniel Bougnoux, can function like a “machine to slow down time,” thereby fostering spaces of resistance to the relentless demands of semio-capitalism. Yet despite the artist-curator’s invocation of the oblique, poetic dimensions of art, its “unpredictability,” many of the works in the exhibition seemed predictable in their aims: to convey information about a range of social ills that have heretofore largely been suppressed or ignored. Moments of deep absorption in “Still Present!” were few and far between.
Jesi Khadivi
Tuesday, 5
Just to keep up, a phrase for today Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom. On the Internet, this quote is usually associated with Aristotle, but I couldn't find a reference source. Whereas Know Thyself is inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi.
Saturday, 2
Art Space Work of the Month
Sarah Schuman (1933-2019) - Alice and the Cat, 1972, offset printing, 65x50 cm