#it's a life-affirming manifesto of a film

[noraqrosa]

excited for thissssss we saw The People's Joker at Syndicated Bar Theater last night and it was a hell of an experience, everyone should see this movie, genuinely a creatively invigorating experience. hard to really put into words my feelings for the film.

[audramh]

I'M NOT GOING ANYWHERE

[a no holds barred manifesto]

I honestly thought about leaving. I did. It's not fun in here a lot of the time. Truthfully, I don't like Sam or Cait a lot of the time. In my comparatively short three years here, they've managed to make themselves unlikable.

And I'm tired. I'm tired of trying to refute photos and rumors. I'm tired of straining my eyes looking at reflections and areas of possible pixellation and comparing knuckle joints.

I've never been in a fandom in my entire life. That's still not my thing, even in this one. I don't think the words of Diana Gabaldon are sacrosanct. There are fanfic writers who put her work to shame on the regular, and I am in awe of them for it. I think her writing leaves a lot to be desired:  it's obtuse when it should be explicitly clear, and the reverse is true as well. She's a self-obsessed show pony who is deaf to constructive criticism.

So I'm not obsessed with the books. I've read most of them. They were alright in spots, endlessly dull in others, but I've just never been a fan of fiction anyway. I prefer realism and have amassed a personal library of hundreds of nonfiction books that are my pride and joy. Facts are more fascinating to me than anyone's fanciful (and often disappointingly non-linear) imagination.

I'm not even obsessed with the show, to tell you the truth. No matter how elaborate the sets, costumes, or accents, I never actually forget that I'm watching paid actors pretending something is real. A famous actor once wisely said:  "I get paid to tell elaborate lies."

Indeed.

But an incontrovertible truth did leak out:  Sam Heughan fell in love with Caitriona Balfe, and she fell in love with him. I can't pretend I don't know;  I committed that fact to memory long ago.

Equally true is how their PR fuckwits and  greedy, limp-dicked overlords managed to coerce and convince them way back in January 2016 that staging a public bonfire of that love was the way to a better career.

And so we believers, knowing damn well what we know we've seen and what they cannot help themselves from affirming ad infinitum, are forced to watch them self-immolate. They do it in interviews. They do it in written word. They do it in photos. They do it on social media. They do it by allowing others to connect the dots they'd rather not. They do it by reading Tumblr blogs and deciding what to set ablaze next.

They do it to appease others, they do it to avoid penalties, they do it out of a learned Pavlovian impulse, they do it out of habit, they do it out of fear.

They need us to be compliant, complicit, and complacent... for as long as necessary. They'll block us, they'll mock us, they'll let us wither and die. The destruction must go on.

So I sit here with my glass of whiskey (Jim Beam, because the worst thing he ever did to me was convince me I could dance), full of righteous indignation. I am sick of what these two have turned into:  seemingly soulless caricatures of their actual selves that we met years ago, and having allowed their public personas to belie all their truth. It was once beautiful. Still might be.

Fuck everyone involved. And listen up:

I'M NOT GOING ANYWHERE, YOU TWO.

You have lost my support for your charities, your side gigs, your products, and your films. That's my choice.

But I'm sticking around for what I know is true. You really should save the elaborate lies for the pages of Outlander scripts.

I will keep writing about you as the life mates I know you are. On my blog in posts like this. In things I write on AO3. In DMs. In groups.

There will be fluff. There will be smut. There will be Applied Lip Reading.

You will not find me compliant.

I'm turning this shit up to 11.

ANTIS AND ASSHATS GET BLOCKED AND MOCKED.

[hlupdate]

MILAN — Alessandro Michele is not moving to Hollywood, but he’s clearly embraced cinematography.

Gucci’s creative director will present the new course of the brand through a seven-part film series he has codirected with Gus Van Sant.

Gucci’s upcoming collection will appear throughout seven episodes running from Nov. 16 to 22, screened during a new digital fashion and film festival called GucciFest. The collection and the series are dubbed “Ouverture of Something That Never Ended.”

The films were shot in Rome and feature actress and artist Silvia Calderoni “in a surreal daily routine across the city,” according to Gucci, and encountering a number of friends of the house, each wearing garments from the new collection. These include Spanish writer Paul B. Preciado; Italian art critic Achille Bonito Oliva; Grammy Award winner Billie Eilish; artist and fine-jewelry designer Darius Khonsary; Chinese singer and actor Lu Han, who has fronted Gucci ads; American actor and playwright Jeremy O. Harris; artist Ariana Papademetropoulos; singer Arlo Parks; singer Harry Styles, who has also fronted Gucci ads; German choreographer and dancer Sasha Waltz, and singer Florence Welch.

In January 2019, during Milan Fashion Week, Gucci held an impactful performance by the androgynous Calderoni at the Gucci Hub instead of a men’s fashion show. The 90-minute “Motus MDLSX” play was a manifesto about gender fluidity and the journey in affirming one’s own identity, transcending labels imposed by society, mixing a monologue with a DJ and VJ set.

The seven episodes this month will be released daily through the course of the festival as an exclusive broadcast on YouTube Fashion, Weibo, Gucci YouTube, and embedded on the dedicated site GucciFest.com, gradually revealing the new collection day by day until Nov. 22.

At the same time, GucciFest will be screening fashion films celebrating the works of 15 independent and emerging young designers selected and supported by Michele: Ahluwalia, Shanel Campbell, Stefan Cooke, Cormio, Charles De Vilmorin, JordanLuca, Mowalola, Yueqi Qi, Rave Review, Gui Rosa, Rui, Bianca Saunders, Collina Strada, Boramy Viguier and Gareth Wrighton. The designers will be able to showcase their collections across the digital platforms of the GucciFest.

Last month the Italian fashion company teased the new collaboration with Van Sant by posting on Instagram drawings by him with a cryptic caption, “Impressions of Rome,” and the hashtag #GucciOuverture, as well as a Polaroid by Paige Powell of Van Sant and Michele.

Michele in May with his manifesto “Notes from the Silence” revealed he was crafting a new course for the brand, abandoning what he has called “the worn-out ritual of seasonalities and shows to regain a new cadence, closer to my expressive call. We will meet just twice a year, to share the chapters of a new story.”

Conceiving new names for the collections and inspired by the music world, Michele in July presented what would have traditionally been called a cruise collection and that was dubbed “Epilogue,” worn by the team from his office instead of models in a project that included a 12-hour livestream.

Gucci skipped Milan Fashion Week last month.

The collaboration with Van Sant is in sync with Michele’s own sensibility. The American film director, screenwriter, painter, photographer and musician is a champion of diversity and inclusion and has typically dealt with the issue of marginalization and in particular of homosexuality.

His feature-length directorial debut came with the film “Mala Noche” in 1985, followed by “Drugstore Cowboy” in 1989. For “Good Will Hunting” in 1997 and 2008’s “Milk,” based on the life of gay rights activist and politician Harvey Milk, Van Sant was nominated for the Academy Award for best director and both films received Best Picture nominations.

[maddalenafragnito]

ART FOR UBI (MANIFESTO) 

Happy to join forces with this movement and create a network that strongly demands the introduction of a Universal Basic Income as the main response to the systemic crisis that is affecting not only the art and cultural production sector but the whole ecosystem in which we move every day!

The ART FOR UBI campaign promoted by the Institute of Radical Imagination.

1/ Universal and Unconditional Basic Income is the best measure for the arts and cultural sector. Art workers claim a basic income, not for themselves, but for everyone.

2/ Do not call UBI any measures that do not equal a living wage: UBI has to be above the poverty threshold. To eliminate poverty, UBI must correspond to a region’s minimum wage.

3/ UBI frees up time, liberating us from the blackmail of precarious labor and from exploitative working conditions.

4/ UBI is given unconditionally and without caveats, regardless of social status, job performance, or ability. It goes against the meritocratic falsehoods that cover for class privilege.  

5/ UBI is not a social safety net, nor is it welfare unemployment reform. It is the minimal recognition of the invisible labor that is essential to the reproduction of life, largely unacknowledged but essential, as society’s growing need for care proves.

6/ UBI states that waged labor is no longer the sole means for wealth redistribution. Time and time again, this model proves unsustainable.Wage is just another name for exploitation of workers, who always earn less than they give. 

7/ Trans-feminist and decolonizing perspectives teach us to say NO to all the invisible and extractive modes of exploitation, especially within the precarious working conditions created by the art market.

8/ UBI affirms the right to intermittence, privacy and autonomy, the right to stay off-line and not to be available 24/7.

9/ UBI rejects the pyramid scheme of grants and of the nonprofit industrial complex, redistributing wealth equally and without unnecessary bureaucratic burdens. Bureaucracy is the vampire of art workers’ energies and time turning them into managers of themselves.

10/ By demanding UBI, art workers do not defend a guild or a category and depreciate the role that class and privilege play in current perceptions of art. UBI is universal because it is for everyone and makes creative agency available to everyone.

11/ Art’s health is directly connected to a healthy social fabric. To claim for UBI, being grounded in the ethics of mutual care, is art workers’ most powerful gesture of care towards society.

12/ Because UBI disrupts the logic of overproduction, it frees us from the current modes of capital production that are exploiting the planet. UBI is a cosmogenetic technique and a means to achieve climate justice.

13/ Where to find the money for the UBI? In and of itself UBI questions the actual tax systems in Europe and elsewhere. UBI empowers us to reimagine financial transactions, the extractivism of digital platforms, liquidity, and debt. No public service should be cut in order to finance UBI.

14/ UBI inspires many art collectives and communities to test various tools for more equal redistribution of resources and wealth. From self-managed mutual aid systems based on collettivising incomes, to solutions temporarily freeing cognitive workers from public and private constraints. We aim to join them.

FIRST SIGNATURES: 

Individuals

Emanuele Braga / Macao, Milan; Institute of Radical Imagination

Marco Bravalle / Sale Docks, Venice; Institute of Radical Imagination

Gabriella Riccio / L’Asilo, Naples ; Institute of Radical Imagination

Ilenia Caleo / Campo Innocente; Incommon – Università IUAV Venezia

Anna Rispoli / Artist

Maddalena Fragnito / Macao, Milan; Phd at Coventry University

Andrea Fumagalli / Effimera; University of Pavia

Nicola Capone / Philosopher; L’Asilo, Naples

Luigi Coppola / Artist

Giuseppe Micciarelli / L’Asilo, Naples, University of Salerno

Julio Linares / Economist and Anthropologist; JoinCircles.net

Dena Beard / The Lab, San Francisco

Manuel Borja-Villel / Museum Director, Madrid

Salvo Torre / Professor, member of POE Politics, Ontologies, Ecologies

Sara Buraya Boned / L’Internationale; Institute Of Radical Imagination

Kuba Szreder / Curator and theorist, Warsaw

Dmitry Vilensky / Chto Delat

Charles Esche / Director of Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven

Franco Bifo Berardi / Philosopher

Gregory Sholette / Artist

Zeyno Pekunlu / Artist, Institute of Radical Imagination

Anna Daneri / Forum dell’arte contemporanea italiana

Massimo Mollona / Goldsmiths’ University of London, Institute of Radical Imagination

Jerszy Seymour / Artist and Designer; Sandberg Institute

Marco Assennato / Maître de conférences in filosofia, Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture, Paris-Malaquais

Roberto Ciccarelli / Philosopher and journalist

Sandro Mezzadra / Philosopher

Geert Lovink / Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam

Alisa Del Re / senior professor Ateneo Patavino

Andrea Gropplero / Film Director

Giuseppe Allegri / Activist

Elena Lasala Palomar / Institute of Radical Imagination

Nicolas Martino / Philosopher

Ilaria Bussoni / Editor and curator

Danilo Correale / Artist

Annalisa Sacchi / Incommon – Università IUAV Venezia

Giada Cipollone / Incommon – Università IUAV Venezia

Stefano Tomassini / Incommon – Università IUAV Venezia

Piersandra Di Matteo / Incommon – Università IUAV Venezia

Elena Blesa Cabéz / Researcher, Barcelona; Institute of Radical Imagination

Jesús Carrillo / Senior Lecturer at the Department of History and Theory of Art Universidad Autónoma de Madrid; Institute of Radical Imagination

Pablo García Bachiller / Arquitecto; Institute of Radical Imagination

Theo Prodromidis / Artist; Institute of Radical Imagination

Mabel Tapia / Art Researcher Madrid-Paris

Chiara Colasurdo / Labour Lawyer

Organizations

Institute of Radical Imagination

Il Campo Innocente

Macao

Sale Docks

Chto Delat

L’Asilo

Euronomade

Dirty Art Department Gerrit Rietveld Academie and Dirty Art Foundation

Effimera

OperaViva Magazine

Basic Income Network – Italia

Community and Research for Circles UBI

Forum d’arte contemporanea

Global Project

Dinamopress

Sherwood

AWI Art Workers Italy

Maestranze dello Spettacolo Veneto

Autonomedia New York City

#ARTforUBImanifesto

You can sign ART FOR UBI (Manifesto) on change.org

We strongly invite you support the EU Citizen’s Initiative to Start Unconditional Basic Incomes (UBI) throughout Europe

[briesmusings-blog]

the university experience

it’s waiting in line for a coffee on campus and the cafe is playing an audio book of the communist manifesto.

it’s vehemently rejecting one of your lectures and everything about it because the lecturer is a piece of shit.

it’s being terrified of a class mate but still having to see them everyday.

it’s completing an in class survey and seeing it shitposted with film memes.

it’s falling asleep in the library while watching a vine compilation.

it’s falling in love with every butch girl i see on campus.

it’s looking in the mirror in the public bathroom and seeing positive affirmations all over the class.

it’s tearing down terf and pro-life posters.

it’s running across campus to get free food.

it’s locking yourself in a toilet to cry.

it’s not wanting to go home because you’re scared of your flatmates.

it’s falling down two flights of steps.

it’s blacking out in lectures.

it’s everything and nothing all at once.

“it’s the university experience.”

[theseadagiodays]

June 14, 2020

Stuck Together

Dresses by Gabrielle C - lemons; Evelyn K - tux; Callan R - Black Lives Matter 

For the past three months, I have so appreciated sharpening my lens towards the creative gestures that this time has inspired.  These musings began with a hunch that artists would play a significant leadership role in the resiliency that such crises require.  While confirmed, my thesis has expanded to recognize that ALL humans are fundamentally wired to be resilient.  And because innovation is a key ingredient of resiliency, people from all walks of life (professional artist or otherwise) have been seeking creative expression to tether them through these uncertain times.  

For example, take these insanely fanciful prom dresses that teenagers around the US have designed in just 48 hours, using 40 rolls of duck tape and no other materials.  I can only imagine to what extent feelings of uncertainty have been exacerbated for these high school seniors, already poised for one of the biggest leaps of their life.  With the possibility of on-campus fall enrollment at new institutions threatened, and stripped of important rituals like graduation ceremonies and grad dances, these youth have had to contend with an abundance of shattered dreams.  So, it was unexpectedly surprising to see the hope, compassion and beauty in the creations that resulted from this year’s Stuck at Prom Duck Tape Challenge.  Browsing the 100’s of jaw-dropping entries on the contest’s website (https://www.duckbrand.com/stuck-at-prom/2020-gallery), there was not a single Covid Sucks, self-pitying design in the bunch.  Instead, you can find tributes to essential workers and Black Lives Matter, mottos of solidarity, and an artful nod to “making lemonade.”  Knowing that our future is in the hands of these thoughtful young people is perhaps the most encouraged I’ve felt during this entire pandemic.

Dress by Peyton M - frontline workers 

June 15, 2020

Covid Commissions

Various WPA Virtual Commissions - see link below

Physical distancing and other economic challenges, resulting from the coronavirus, have taken a huge toll on artists’ livelihood.   Currently, many existing arts grants have been either cut or postponed, in order for governments to reallocate funding towards critical services like health care, transportation and housing.  And while I believe that the arts are as critical as breathing, full-well contributing to our physiological, psychological and self-actualizing needs, they still fall pretty far down most people’s interpretation of Maslow’s hierarchy.

Thankfully, there have been numerous emergency relief funds available to pick up the financial slack for artists.  So, these have provided much needed temporary help to cover living expenses.   But they haven’t necessarily supported the creation of new work.  Fortunately though, some institutions have recognized the essentiality of the arts by putting them front and centre of their funding priorities.   One such organization is the Guggenheim, whose board and donors contributed $150,000 to their Works & Process Virtual Commissioning fund which supported performing artists from a variety of mediums to create up to 5-minute video pieces from home.  Like Cooped, a project I referenced on June 4th, all of the resulting works can be viewed here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJ08rQmWB63RFC3avQF-nDsneUXLrUd4X

As I mentioned earlier, we dabbled in a little commissioning ourselves, during quarantine. And here is the promised finished product by Natalie Warkentin (@morningmusings), the very talented artist of Bloom: A beautiful process of becoming.   Her playful, vibrant piece has made a world of difference to our daily joy, with the inordinant amount of time that we usual out-and-abouters have been spending at home!  And we were also thrilled to learn that it has, indirectly, already led to a second commission for her.

June 16, 2020

Piano Play

In surveying my peers, I’ve noticed that this has been a time for reconnecting with long-lost friends.  As some of these old relationships have resurfaced for me, one of my favorite “icebreakers” has been to ask what new pursuits they’ve enjoyed during this period.  For many, it’s been sourdough starters; others gardening; and some, learning French.  But I’ve also found that many adults are taking up instruments, which makes me extremely happy.  I can’t tell you how many times, throughout my career, after mentioning to a stranger, on a plane or elsewhere, that I was a flutist, they replied “Oh, I wish I played an instrument,” ... almost as if they were already dead.   My habitual response is always to encourage adult music-making, and it’s one of the reasons that the majority of our non-profits’ arts programs target adult populations.  While I fully support early childhood musical and artistic development, I don’t think these opportunities are nearly as lacking as those for “big kids”.  One of my friends, in an effort to brush up on her Grade 4 childhood piano skills, recently asked if I could recommend some playable, accessible pieces in a variety of genres (from film scores to pop to classical).  Since keyboard or piano seems to be the most common new instrument for people to learn later in life (with perhaps only ukulele as a close second), I thought it would be fun to post the list that I shared with her.  Each of the scores, below, is available online, for free or purchasable download, and generally requires the player to use only one finger, in either hand, at the same time.    For a final extra tip: Musescore.com has a 30-day free trial, during which you can download to your heart’s delight!

Regina Spektor The Call (from Chronicles of Narnia)

Sufjan Stevens Mystery of Love (from Call Me By Your Name)

Erik Satie Gymnopedie #1-3, & Le Tango Perpetual

Arvo Part Fur Alina

Olafur Arnalds Tomorrow’s Song

Thomas Neumann Theme from American Beauty

Yann Tiersen Valse d’Amelie

Icelandic pianist, singer/songwriter, Olafur Arnalds

June 17, 2020

Cause and Effect

I love the music of language.  Perhaps it’s why my transition from flutist to writer has felt so natural.  I rarely remember the lyrics to songs, instead hearing the syllables as a collection of phonetic melodies.  I also experience sounds somewhat synaesthetically (synaesthesia being the neurological condition where certain senses, which are not normally connected, join or merge together.  Like certain alphabetic letters being associated with certain tastes, or particular smells being connected to sounds).  For me, musical sonorities have always been strongly linked to specific colors or shapes.  And the geometry of certain words have very distinct and often pleasurable textures when they bounce around my mouth.  Perhaps my favorite example of this is the Buddhist word for the “interconnectedness of all things”: Pratītyasamutpāda. More clearly defined, this term refers to dependent origination, or dependent arising, a Buddhist philosophy which states that all phenomena arise in dependence upon other phenomena.  Simply put, it’s the law of cause and effect.  The far-reaching global butterfly effect of Covid has made all of us keenly aware of this law.  Like never before, we are now considering the consequences of our actions in a myriad of ways: like whether or not to touch a pedestrian crossing button with our hands, scratch our nose when it itches, or hug an aging parent.  So, while the threat of this virus has had huge negative repercussions for many people’s physical and mental health, I can not deny that there is also a positive way in which it has reminded us of our interconnectedness.  Of course, it’s a horrific shame that it took a deadly pandemic to wake us up to they symbiotic nature of all things.   And, for my generation and those younger than me, (particularly in North America and other cultures who have not experienced war or famine or a health epidemic, first-hand, for more than half a century), it may only be global warming that has demanded we truly consider how our behavior impacts the people and environment around us.  However, even the impact of that seems too large and slow for most to fully fathom.  It’s why we still drive like fiends, strangle turtles with our plastics, and fly to Hawaii for weekend getaways (and, of this sin, I shamefully confess I’m guilty too!).  

So, we clearly need all of the reminders we can get, which makes this recent contest I learned about all the more fitting.  There is perhaps no one who has more artfully or playfully illustrated the nature of phenomenological cause and effect than Rube Goldberg.  Maybe you have seen his machines that combine cuckoo clocks, toy rockets, ping pong balls and string in elaborate chains of events that result in a single action.  The band OK Go is famous for music videos crafted around such devices.  And here, you can check out an absolutely brilliant one of theirs, with a message that we all need to hear right now, This Too Shall Pass: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w

Everyday folks have also been trying their hand at making such contraptions, for the sole honor of being named winner of the recent Rube Goldberg Soap Challenge.  And you’ll be amazed at what this Toronto family devised to earn the crown: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-tuesday-edition-1.5604697/toronto-family-thrilled-and-a-little-bit-surprised-to-win-rube-goldberg-challenge-1.5604698

June 18, 2020

Sensibility

My Uncle Len, a playwright and educator who has engaged in community arts throughout his career, has been a constant muse for me.  But more than professional expertise, it has been his sensibilities that have served as my true inspiration.  Len defines sensibility as “how we see, what we focus on, affirm and move towards in life.” He is so convinced it is the subject most necessary to study, at this time, that he has written a book about it - his life manifesto, if you will.

Len is simply one of my favorite people on earth.  It’s hard not to adore a guy who decorates his exquisite garden with found objects, runs each of his theatre pieces as benefits for various charities, and tries paddleboarding for the first time at 85.  This is right in keeping with the sensibilities he holds to be most critical in life, “beauty, fairness, and playfulness.”  And while he’s worked on this piece for years, its message could not be more well-timed.  Because, to use his words, imagine how effectively we could deal with pandemics, police brutality, and global warming, “if only everyone was rooting for everyone.”

Len’s Einstein likeness is not lost on anyone.  And he has made him (and his physicist pal, Niels Bohr) the subject of many of his theatre pieces, not because of their scientific prowess but because they are prime models of “beauty, fairness, and playfulness” themselves.  

Like Len’s inspirations, Einstein and Niels Bohr, he possesses the rare ability to find unified principles in seemingly disparate things.  In Sensibility, a child’s wonder for a butterfly is illustrated to be as important an ingredient for the welfare of humanity as the thoughtfulness these giants’ exercised, advising on the development of the atomic bomb.  Through Len’s unique lens, the reader understands fairness from the perspective of a fifth grader dealing with bullying to a physicist harboring Jews in World War II.  We see the critical need for playfulness in everything from driving a junk truck to making a theatre piece.  And now, just as the specter of a dangerous virus is re-awakening our sensibilities to affect social change with unprecedented speed, this book is a perfect tale for the times.  It concludes with the prescient and hopeful story of 1,500 activists, linked hand-in-hand at the Encirclement of Rocky Flats, while they protest a nuclear plant in 1983, ultimately resulting in its shut down.  This exquisite, slender volume is packed with instructions on how to live a compassionate and fertile life.  And the beautiful equation it proposes is: Essential life skills = Mastering a Childlike Quality squared (E=mc2).  

Just released on Amazon, it is now available here:

https://www.amazon.com/Sensibility-Children-Albert-Einstein-Niels/dp/B088B59P9Z/ref=sr_1_6?dchild=1&keywords=sensibility&qid=1591823421&s=books&sr=1-6

June 19, 2020

Comfort with Impermanence

Historically, humans have gone to preposterous lengths to deny and defy their impermanence.  From Egyptian mummies, to cryogenic freezing, to time capsules left for future or alien populations to learn of our legacy.  One such preservationist effort was the Voyager Golden Record - a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk curated by Carl Sagan, and sent to space with the 1979 launch, to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth to whomever might find it.  In addition to photos of athletes, mathematical formulas, and mothers with child, are recordings of birdsong, speech in 50+ languages, Bach, Chuck Berry, Indigenous songs and Indian ragas.  To judge, for yourself, the accuracy of this audio/visual snapshot of human worth, you can listen to the full playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4D51474AB7BE5595

Despite these attempts to ameliorate our fears about our own mortality, our anxiety persists.  And now, in these particularly uncertain times, with viral stats, regulations and restrictions changing on a daily basis, more than ever, we need tools to help us become more comfortable with impermanence.  

For me, mindfulness meditation is the most expedient way to come to terms with the fundamental truth that all states of being are fleeting and everything is in constant flux.  As we become the Watcher rather than the Doer, we observe that our thoughts and feelings are as fleeting as the phenomena around us.  And simply recognizing and accepting this can actually bring great comfort.   Poet Mary Oliver understood this well, as she describes evocatively in her poem, In Blackwater Woods.

Look, the trees are turning their own bodies into pillars of light, are giving off the rich fragrance of cinnamon and fulfillment, the long tapers of cattails are bursting and floating away over the blue shoulders of the ponds, and every pond, no matter what its name is, is nameless now. Every year everything I have ever learned in my lifetime leads back to this: the fires and the black river of loss whose other side is salvation, whose meaning none of us will ever know. To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.

And so, too, I think it is time to let this blog go.  At least for now.  It feels, in its own way, like a time capsule of a very potent moment in our lives.  And, as that, this infintissimal drop in the bucket of human thought feels complete.  So, while it can seem frightening to be reminded of the speck in the universe that human history truly is, I actually take great solace from understanding our smallness.  On this note, I will return to the same text that consoled me early in lock down.  I also shared this with my dear Uncle Len, whose 87th birthday just happens to be today.  As all people his age, his life has been particularly disrupted by this virus.  But as someone who appreciates physics from the persective of the beautiful dance we all do with each other and the cosmos, he received these words with particular gratitude.   It is a passage from Maria Popova’s March 18th Brainspickings newsletter, published just one day after the world shut down:  

“Meanwhile, someplace in the world, somebody is making love and another a poem.  Elsewhere in the universe, a star manyfold the mass of our third-rate sun is living out its final moments in a wild spin before collapsing into a black hole, its exhale bending spacetime itself into a well of nothingness that can swallow every atom that ever touched us and every datum we ever produced, every poem and statue and symphony we’ve ever known - an entropic spectacle insentient to questions of blame and mercy - devoid of why...The atoms that huddled for a cosmic blink around the shadow of self will return to the seas that made us.  What will survive of us are shoreless seeds and stardust.”  

This final entry is my 64th, a number that has been my favorite since I was a small girl, for its symmetric beauty (8 squared, 4 to the 3rd,  2 to the 5th).  Interestingly, this powerful number is also frequently referenced in spiritual texts and throughout pop culture (the number of generations from Adam to Jesus; the number of “tantras” in Hinduism, the number of squares on a chess board, the number of crayons in the popular Crayola pack, and the number of Hexagons in the I-Ching).  The meaning of Hexagon 64 is “unfinished business.”  Therefore, the story, of course, will go on.  Whatever windswept seedling will take root next, however, I do not yet know...

64th Hexagon combination in the I-Ching

[pimpiknows]

I chose to drive to Ōtautahi Christchurch from Manukau, South Auckland to feel the distance between my frame of reference and this place.

When I arrived to Aotearoa in 1998 to go to Wellington High School, the first evening news bulletin I watched told of a spate of violent attacks by white supremacists on non-white international students living in Christchurch. This year, almost 20 years later, was the first time I’ve visited Christchurch, and reflected on how much that initial story of racism and violence shaped and framed the way I have perceived, and feared, this region.

I’ve lived in South Auckland for 15 years now. Ironically, it’s an area which carries the burden of similar media-driven negative perceptions. For me, the place I’ve called home for most of my adult life, is safe space: culturally rich, effortlessly diverse, where creative expression thrives. I’ve been able to work as a curator of Pacific art from my South Auckland base since 2004. My opportunity to come to Christchurch for this residency has been on the basis of writing about that practice; I intend to research and write a manifesto of curating Pacific art, facilitate some good talks and do some making and mapping too.

I drove from Manukau to Paekākāriki by myself. I have a very limited range on my car stereo so tuned into whatever was going. The discussions on talkback radio were upsetting, and I quickly chose silence. Metiria Turei’s admission of benefit fraud had inspired passionate reactions from callers, some spitting the terms ‘mowrie separatist’ and ‘self serving activist’ with such venom, I felt triggered. I spent time reflecting on the majestic landscapes I was driving through, thinking about colonisation and what Tangata Whenua have lost, and gained, as New Zealanders. I thought about how important environmental protection is to me, and social justice, and thought about Metiria, a lot.

https://twitter.com/ColourMeFiji/status/894161732792340480

I arrived at my Aunty’s house in Paekākāriki just in time for a perfect home cooked meal, shared with my cousin and niece. Paekākāriki is more and more feeling like a home away from home. When I did the 2015 Summer Residency at Enjoy Public Art Gallery, the base for me and my daughter, and the artists and their partners, was my cousin Anton’s house in Paekākāriki (it was the hardest, and most rewarding collective effort). Stopping off in Paekākāriki en route to Ōtautahi Christchurch for another residency mission felt symbolic and affirming.

Cousin Anton took over driving for day two of the mission. We caught an 8am ferry from Wellington and the harbour was glassy and the rising sun was #nofilter stunning. It was a good morning; fresh coffee, crisp air, crossing the waters to Te Waipounamu.

Whilst thinking of the Beast of Blenheim got me a bit spooked in Blenheim, we went on to encounter what felt like a miles upon miles upon MILES of stop-and-go roadworks. The road to Ōtautahi Christchurch, via Murchison, was lined with cones, and notably ‘manned’ by a lot of women. The views were at time exquisite, and the distinct lack of humans started to feel very apparent. We drove through the snowcapped mountains of the Lewis Pass, and alongside dramatic river beds that all looked like Speights ads were filmed there.

After hours of traversing relatively human-less picture postcard landscapes, the land started to get more controlled… irrigated… politicised. Urbanity intensified as we approached the country’s second biggest city… suddenly lights, sculpture and an unusual, enormous bridge structure.

Two massive days of driving, hundreds of kilometers, a lot of coffee, mountains, weather systems, sunrises and sunsets… a bit of ‘would you rather’ madness, and lots of insights from my cousin Anton, always down for an adventure. Thank you, cuzzie.

So here goes… three months in Ōtautahi Christchurch!

#PIMPImanifesto The Getting There I chose to drive to Ōtautahi Christchurch from Manukau, South Auckland to feel the distance between my frame of reference and this place.

[stripdownforamoment]

WEEK 16_ MEDIA and IMAGES : shaping the modern woman

London, 12 February 2019

This week the theme is media. More currently we see the effects of social media in shaping our desires and ideas. It's been -and will continue to- be mentioned in many of my interviews both with the models and the artists. Not only that but, the different types of media that transcend the technological era. As a body artist, ORLAN expresses that beauty ideals can be traced back to classical and renascence art. That was a source of inspiration to her work that deals with BODY MODIFICATION.

Also, the topic of eating disorders will be a bit present in both this week´s reading as well as the interview with Joana. We will mention some negative parts but also how someone can take something as concerning and serious and take positive action in their lives.

Finally, we see the effect of traditional media such as magazines and television. And the ongoing desire that humans have to improve themselves aesthetically. I guess what we are really looking at is the way IMAGES inspire and shape beauty ideal throughout the years.

              STRIP DOWN FOR A MOMENT with Joana Silva

                  " My favourite part about my body is my BUM!"

"...it´s big. I worked hard on the gym to have this body that I love". Joana explains to us that is something that she feels proud off not only because it makes her feel beautiful and sexy but it comes from a place of hard work and self-love. "It´s also something that people notice on my appearance and compliment me on". She explains that is a good thing to feel good about your self though compliments and its a boost in your confidence and "there is nothing wrong with that".

She tells us that the part of the body she is more SELF CONSCIOUS of are her breasts. "I think they are a bit small but I don’t see them as a bad thing anymore". She has learnt to love this trade of hers and ignore beauty stereotypes and what is considered proportional by beauty standards. Once she even pierced her nipple as a way of self-expression. She explains that it was "just for fun" at the time and she didn't do it as an affirmation or anything. But looking back she recognised that experience made her feel good about this part of her body she didn't like as much. " Now I look back and see this moment as a way to embellish and give a purpose to that conflicted area of my body”.

"I grew up being a very underweight both as a child and a teenager. I would go as far as to say I had anorexic behaviour. But one trade that I always had was my big booty. No matter how skinny I was. I think it´s just genetics. Only in my late teenage years, I become a bit more chubby. At that point, people were commenting a lot about it because they were not used to it. And I wasn’t either. So I started to be very self-conscious about it".

At this point, she started to embrace a lot of dietary practices to cope with her lack of self-love to the way she looked. She tried veganism and is now a vegetarian for a few years. Joana decided to embrace a very healthy lifestyle and eating habits because it also promotes self-love and "makes us feel good from within".

Joana and I are very close friends and shared a lot of time and space with each other. By knowing her and living with her it really shows her passion for exercise and good eating habits. Also, she shows a big devotion to the gym and having an active life. She tells us how she really likes it and says it helped with a lot of thing in life. Both overcoming health problems and loving her body but also mentally. "It’s a space I go to reflect, almost like meditation". It helps to stop her busy life and have a break. It also a place to socialise and create a community. Many of her friends back home come from gym life. They met there and had become close friends and it’s a thing to bound over.

Her family is also very supportive of her diet which is good surprising in a way. She explains that in Portugal vegetarianism is not very well embraced lifestyle at times. Only recently there are more options for vegans and vegetarians as MEAT is a big part of our culture. Her mother and brother have also embraced a healthy lifestyle. She was a great and positive influence on her family and to be fair she was also the reason I started my vegetarian diet too.

She says that even with all the positive changes that her habits have had on her health "people still like to find a reason to criticise her lifestyle". That might be by commenting on her vegetarianism, or thinking that she might be obsessed with her figure and gym life. Or maybe they just think she is superficial.

"I enjoy posting on social media about my lifestyle. I like to take pictures in the gym and showing my beautiful body".  She says this is very empowering and helps her express self-love.

" It comes from a place of hard work and pride".

"But sill people will always twist it and think I am showing off or I am vain". She strongly believes we need to stop caring about what other people say. "They will always find something to criticise. At the end of the day if you are not hurting anyone and you are being good to your self that’s all it matters".

To FINALISE we talk about her experience in this project. Joana was the very first guinea pig for this whole project as she participated as a model in my very first test photoshoot.

"In the first shoot, I really didn’t like it. We took some pictures where you could really see my belly rolls. When we take pictures of our selves for Instagram for example, we are used to posing or bodies in a certain way that is more flattering. So when we see our selves in another angle or different from what we are used to it, looks BAD".

Maybe also the factor of exposure. After all, is a nude shoot. Truth be told clothes help accentuate thing we like about our selves and hide other things.

"It was a shock for me. But its really a matter of self-acceptance. And also, I got used to the idea and the concept".

The second time we shoot, the final shoot, was a lot more professional- with all the lighting and camera. "It was better. The professional atmosphere and now knowing what the project. Also seeing how other people had done it as well helped me feel more comfortable".

" The pictures where now a lot more meaningful and I liked that they had a point. We worked with different angles and close shots. That makes it feel less personal and less intimidating. It's not about me as a person but is now about this story and to sharing my experience to maybe make other people feel good".

                 VISUAL REFERENCES work of French artist ORLAN

My father introduced me to her in a conversation about my project. I was updating him on this project and talking about some artists I have come across in my research. When talking about Body Image the topic BODY MODIFICATIONS came to my dad´s mind and he told me to explore the works of ORLAN. He told me her work was very diverse but she was famously known for her performative works that revolve around body modification and surgery.

Born Mireille Suzanne Francette Porte, the French artist first adopted the name ORLAN in 1971. Although ORLAN is best known for her work with PLASTIC SURGERY in the early to mid-90s, she does not limit herself to a specific medium and in her website, you can find photography, sculpture, installations and other types of art.

She was credited with great importance in art history as a body artist. Her work explores themes related to IDENTITY and TECHNOLOGY. Also, the rediscovering of the poetics of the body: the REAL body and IMAGINARY body, the LIVED and EMOTIONAL body, the MYSTIC and SOCIAL body and the DIFFUSE and HYBRID body.

The Reincarnation of Saint-ORLAN

This is her most remarkable work related to self-MODIFICATIONS. Started in the 1990s involves a series of plastic surgeries through which the artist transformed herself into elements from famous paintings and sculptures of women. As a part of her "Carnal Art" manifesto -and related to contemporary performative and artistic movements-  these works were filmed and broadcast throughout the world.

Her goal with this series of cosmetic modifications is to acquire the IDEALS of female beauty- depicted by male artists though out art history. When complete ORLAN will have Venus chin from Botticelli's, Psyche nose from Jean-Léon Gérôme's, Europa lips from François Boucher's, the eyes of Diana -as depicted in a 16th-century French School of Fontainebleau painting- and the forehead of Mona Lisa from Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece.

ORLAN explain that the reason behind her references is “not for the canons of beauty they represent... but rather on account of the stories associated with them." ORLAN chose Diana because she is inferior to the gods and men, but the leader of the goddesses and women. Mona Lisa, because of the standard of beauty, or anti-beauty, that she represents. Psyche, because of the fragility and vulnerability within her soul. Venus, for carnal beauty and Europa, for her adventurous outlook on the future.

Entre-Deux, a self-portrait inspired by Venus, by ORLAN in 1994.

"When I embarked on my project The Reincarnation of Saint ORLAN in 1990, I had a series of operations that had never been done before. I wasn’t using plastic surgery to bring me closer to the norm of beauty. I wanted a procedure that would disrupt the very idea of what beauty is." (The Guardian, 2016)

"People often focus on the implants I had put in on my temples in 1993. They’re meant to permanently heighten the cheekbones, but I had them inserted on each side of my forehead. When people describe me without seeing me, I sound like an undesirable monster. But when they see me it’s different" (The Guardian, 2016).

Occasional Striptease with linen from the trousseau, 1974-1975

Études Documentaries, LE DRAPÉ BAROQUE 1978

"All through time, civilisations have re-imagined the body, through tattoos, scarring, modifications to the skull. Now, we can replace teeth when they fall out or fix a cleft lip and other deformations – nature’s horrors. Nature shows us what a complete transformation looks like: a baby’s head becomes a teenager’s and an adult’s head becomes that of an old woman or man. To transform one’s body, to cross-dress, to change the colour of one’s hair, to me doesn’t seem so different (The Guardian, 2016).

It was very hard for me to look into her artwork, especially her The Reincarnation of Saint-ORLAN work. I really struggle with the topic of surgery and it was very squeamish for me. I couldn’t make myself look at one of her performances so I asked people around me to describe it to be.

It's so interesting to me because even ORLAN herself recognised how her appearance can be compared to much as a monstrosity - due to all these unnatural pressures. Her appearance is a LIVING PARADOX. All here references are this beautiful creature but in the end, she becomes this self-made Frankenstein like Alien-like CREATION.

                              READING  book by Wykes and Gunter

This week´s reading on The MEDIA and Body Image by Meggie Wykes and Barrie Gunter was very informative. In it, you can find detailed text full of facts and scientific and historical research. It also references a lot of other writers, studies and surveys.

The chapters I was the most interested -and focused my lecture on- we about themes such as different Body Shapes and Ideals, Locating a source for this issue to blame, Gender and Body, Body Matters and Selling the body. Also, other chapters such as From Representation to Effects, the Prevalence of Concerns About Body Image and Mediated Bodies (Wykes and Gunter, 2005).

Each chapter and title were very complex and extensive. Although I found myself further reading about the topic I find difficult to analyse and comment on this content due to its factual nature. However, it's very noticeable for me the connection with these texts and the subject matter addressed in the interview with my models. A current theme in the interviews I made for this project is the effect puberty has on US. This is not new information, as we learn from an early age that this stage of our life provides loads of emotional, hormonal and physical change. Nonetheless, this was a statement and further affirmation of how these issues are not just abstract concepts and topics we read in books, but real stories that affect REAL PEOPLE in their lives.

In the book, the authors mention and comment on studies that show that these obsessions with body image develop from ages 13 to 18. After it's development these OBSESSIONS, most of the time, continue to evolve and lead to eating disorders. It just comes to show that these changes impact our lives dramatically and permanently (Wykes and Gunter, 2005).  

There are a lot of parallelisms between the information found in this book and the events portrait on the interviews.

I will not be focusing too much on this review as I prefer to develop in better detail my own research with the model and artists interviews. Still, this reading was very important and enriching for my project in a more factual way. I think it is important to back up some of the experiences you and the people around you been through with some information that is available in studies.

                                                   REFERENCES

Orlan.eu. (n.d.). Artiste transmédia et féministe. Météorite narratif du BIO ART. Son oeuvre questionne le statut du CORPS dans la société. Ses sculptures, HYBRIDATIONS et autoportraits réinterprètent le rôle des nouvelles technologies.. [online] Available at: http://www.orlan.eu/ [Accessed 14 Mar. 2019].

The Guardian. (2016). Beauty reimagined: 500 years of Botticelli. [online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/feb/14/what-is-beauty-botticelli-art-victoria-and-albert-exhibition [Accessed 14 Feb. 2016].

Wykes, M. and Gunter, B. (2005). The Media and Body Image.

[laularlau8]

The history of India’s independence and the creation of Pakistan had been unfamiliar to Gillian Anderson when she took the role of Lady Mountbatten for her new film Viceroy’s House. The actor had once hired a private history tutor, a dozen years ago, to fill in some gaps of history she was hazy on – “Stuff that just wasn’t in my brain” – but this had not been one of them.

“No, I’d thought let me start with a couple of things that I don’t actually know that much about, or I can’t remember that much about, which was the first and second world wars.” She starts to laugh. “But it was a disaster. Because I have no memory. I took notes, blah, blah, blah, but couldn’t remember a thing he taught me. Nothing. I’m not even sure, if you’d asked me the next day, I could have told you what I’d learned. You know, even my favourite books, I couldn’t tell you what they were about. It’s always been that way.”

The menopause hasn’t helped, and lately things have become so bad that she’s going to get herself tested to see if she might actually be dyslexic. “Somebody had said to me that dyslexia isn’t just about seeing words backwards, it’s also about the assimilation of information. I’d always been afraid to look into it, because I was afraid that if I found something out, I would think that I couldn’t do anything that I wanted to do. I have this impression that I can do whatever I make up my mind to. But the reality is...” She lets the sentence fall away with a grimace.

By a bit of luck, the one thing the actor has always been able to remember are her lines. “But of course that’s terrifying for me, thinking, well, what if this problem that exists in the rest of my life shows up in that respect, too? Then I’d be buggered.”

If this creates an impression of a ditzy blonde, it would be misleading. We meet at the photographer’s studio, where a rack of stylist’s clothes stands unused; she chooses to be photographed in her own, and the way she chuckles about this makes me think the preference is par for the course for Anderson on shoots. Her fitted black trouser suit and heels are a sort of corporate/fashion hybrid, and her manner is similarly friendly but business-like. Apart from her enormous eyes, everything about Anderson is tiny, and the compactness reinforces the sense of efficient self-possession she conveys. She was just 24 when, as FBI agent Dana Scully in the paranormal TV drama that would make her a global star, she captivated X-Files fans for 10 years with her hyper-rational cool, before moving to London where her career has been equally sure-footed. From period dramas (Bleak House, House Of Mirth, War And Peace) to big-budget TV series (Hannibal, The Fall), to independent movies (The Last King Of Scotland, A Cock And Bull Story), comedy (Boogie Woogie, Johnny English Reborn) and theatre (A Doll’s House, A Streetcar Named Desire), Anderson seems to get busier the older she gets. It’s a tall order for a beautiful blonde to play consistently powerful, intelligent women, but Anderson has pulled it off.

The actor brings her air of serious purpose to the role of Lady Mountbatten, giving us a less flighty version of the aristocrat than the good-time girl caricature we’ve been accustomed to. She evokes her character’s classic colonial glamour, but depicts her dashing about nursing the sick and injured, and being a generally good egg.

“One of the things that I was surprised by in studying Edwina was that there was certainly a turning point in her life when she went from being predominantly a socialite, and wafting around and having affairs, living pretty much from holiday to holiday and leaving her children at home. But when the war happened and she started to participate in nursing et cetera, her escapism completely switched over to being of service, so everything she did from that moment on was about properly digging in and working around the clock.”

Viceroy’s House opens with the arrival in India of Lord Mountbatten and his wife in 1947, to oversee the nation’s transition from colonial rule to independence. Hugh Bonneville plays Edwina’s husband, and their official residence – Viceroy’s House – is not so much the film’s setting as the third star member of the cast. Sumptuously filmed, at moments the movie is a sort of Downton Abbey of the Raj, with all sorts of romantic intrigue going on below stairs among the 500 Hindu, Sikh and Muslim household staff. But there is not so much as a hint of the affair Lady Mountbatten was rumoured to take up with the man about to become India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Their romance was to have been the subject of a 2009 film, Indian Summer, until the Indian government took exception to the salacious storyline and forced the movie to be cancelled. In the hands of British director Gurinder Chadha, whose own family were among the 14 million displaced in the violence and bloodshed of the period, this new version of India’s independence is less racy, if rather more substantial, and concerns itself with the politics of partition.

Anderson says she was always conscious while making the film that some viewers will find the concept of a “good” colonialist inherently problematic – “yes, absolutely, absolutely” – and 70 years after independence, she found herself revisiting colonialism’s dynamics on location. They filmed in Jodhpur, staying at the Umaid Bhawan Palace hotel, where the film was also shot, using the palace to double for the real Viceroy’s House. “And, you know, we’re in a situation where we’re in a developing country and we are filming at the height of luxury and, yes, there’s an uneasiness to it. There was one actor we worked with, who does a lot of work around the world in – I can’t remember whether it’s around poverty or Aids – who would not stay there. He refused to stay in the hotel, and wanted to stay in some place that felt more like India.”

Even by the standards of activist actors, Anderson’s own involvement in social and political causes is prolific. The 48-year-old has campaigned variously for women’s rights in Afghanistan, against sexual violence towards girls in Myanmar, for better access to HIV treatment in South Africa and education in Uganda, against domestic violence in the UK and child trafficking across the globe, for the rights of indigenous tribes in South America and conservation of cheetahs in Namibia, against deforestation in the Amazon and rabbit fur farms in China – and that is nothing like the full list. I was therefore expecting her to be quite forthright about current political affairs, but am completely wrong.

“I generally have a tendency to steer away from outright political discussion in interviews, because I am an actor, and there’s so much that I don’t understand, and I don’t for a second feel like I have a right to that platform. I don’t want to get into a discussion about Trump or about Brexit or any of that – I feel it’s best left to people who really understand the very, very complex issues. Not for a second am I going to pitch in, because I don’t really know what it is that I’m talking about. I have opinions, but I don’t think my opinions are more valid because I’m an actor and have more of a platform than others.”

I wonder if this is her way of saying she shares the view that actors ought to stop turning awards ceremonies into anti-Trump rallies, but she looks faintly alarmed. “No, no, no, I’m not saying that at all. I’m only talking about myself. I don’t have an opinion on whether or not actors should speak out.”

She has, on the other hand, just co-written a book called We: A Manifesto For Women Everywhere. Rather like Anderson, it is less polemical than one might guess from the title, and more a manual for spiritual self-improvement. Co-written with her close friend Jennifer Nadel, a former barrister and BBC documentary maker, Anderson has described it as a work of advice to her younger self. “I have struggled with self-esteem myself,” she said last year, “and in looking at the ways that I have dealt with overcoming those things, I started to think that maybe some of it might be potentially useful for other people of all ages.”

According to the introduction, it is a “manifesto for a female-led revolution”, and Anderson stresses that it is “not a self-help book”, although it reads a lot like one. Chapters are called things like Acceptance: Making Friends With What Is, and Courage: Ending The Victim Trap, and its pages promise to “change your life”. It prescribes a detailed programme of fairly recognisable techniques, which range from meditation, affirmations (“This is who I am and I’m glad to be me”), messages to oneself on Post-it notes stuck to the bathroom mirror (“My name is Decca. I am a good and kind person. I do not need to please everyone. I do enough. I am enough.”) and a nightly gratitude list of reasons to feel grateful to the universe. As is often the case with this sort of book, I find myself torn between cynical giggles and the mesmerising thought: what if it works?

Anderson swears it does, but she has such cut-glass British poise that I struggle to picture her solemnly reciting affirmations. It might have been easier to reconcile her voice with the book’s rather Californian, new-age tone had we met in America, for she is what’s called bidialectal; when in the US, she speaks in an American accent, but here she sounds completely British, and says she has no control over it. “I was in Los Angeles recently with a couple of Brits and I thought, I’m going to see what it’s like to talk among Americans with a British accent, and I felt so uncomfortable. It felt so disingenuous, and I kept thinking they must think I’m a complete twat. But when I’m here, it’s nearly impossible for me to maintain an American accent.”

Anderson was born in Chicago but moved to London aged five, while her father attended film school in the city. When she was 11, the family moved back to the States, to Michigan, but continued to spend summers in London, and by her early teens Anderson was rattling off the rails. Punk rock, drugs, an addict girlfriend and a much older boyfriend all featured heavily in her adolescence, and her classmates weren’t wrong when they voted her “most likely to get arrested”. On the night of graduation, she broke into her school to try to glue the locks shut, and was charged with trespass.

She has been in therapy since the age of 14, and the book is interspersed with personal passages on her own experience of mental-health difficulties. “There were times,” she tells me, “when it was really bad. There have been times in my life where I haven’t wanted to leave the house.” But there’s a bit of a dance between disclosure and discretion, because whenever I ask her to elaborate on the personal vignettes in the book, she shuts down.

I kept hearing myself say, ‘I’ve got to slow down, I’ve got to slow down, I’ve got to slow down’

The book contains enough 12-step-style advice to make me think addiction issues went beyond teenage experimentation for Anderson, and when I say so, she nods. Could she say a little more? “No.” After 24 years in therapy, and writing the book, I’m guessing she has a good idea where her problems stem from, but the question receives a chilly, “Pourquoi?” There are “quite a few”, she says, but “I would have put them in the book if I wanted to talk about them out loud.”

Her first husband was a Canadian art director she met on the set of The X-Filesand married at 25. Their daughter Piper was born a year later, but the marriage was over within three years; her second marriage, in 2004, to a journalist and producer, ended within two. Months later, she announced she was pregnant, and had two sons – Oscar, now 11, and Felix, nine – with a British businessman, before they split up five years ago.

I’m curious about how a single mother who has been working flat out for 25 years (she was back on the X-Files set nine days after giving birth to Piper) can even find the time to practise all the spiritual techniques her book recommends.

“Well,” she smiles, “I’ve definitely deliberately slowed down. Because I kept hearing myself say, ‘I’ve got to slow down, I’ve got to slow down, I’ve got to slow down.’ I must have said that for 10 years, or maybe even 20 years. I was just sick and tired of hearing myself. I just thought, why do I do this to myself, and why have I done it for so long? People would laugh at me because I’d be like, ‘I had an extra 10 minutes, so I stopped in to say hi, you know.’ It became enough of a joke among my friends that I had to start paying attention to it. So one of the things I try really hard now to do is, no matter what, after I drop the kids, I go back home so I can meditate.”

Why has she always pushed herself so hard? “Well, the bigger-picture part is that I’m responsible for quite a lot of people financially, so it’s that. But it’s also a little bit of fear of what happens when one slows down. When I think about an empty period of time, fear comes up. I’m quite good at being on my own, so it’s not necessarily fear of myself, but probably fear of facing those things like: why do I drive myself so hard?”

Does she really compile a list of things to feel grateful for every day? “Yes! I do a gratitude list every night. I mean, it’s in my head now, but I go through stages where I think I’m just complaining all the time again. It’s too floating in my head, it needs to be on paper.” Complaining all the time is “probably one of the things I struggle with most. I suffer from great intolerance. Such intolerance of so much.” Such as? “Oh, intolerance of myself. Intolerance of situations. Intolerance of people on the street. Intolerance of whatever. So I have to constantly settle myself down from the state of being aggravated.”

I try to picture her stropping about, grumbling about roadworks or noisy neighbours, and find this image easier to conjure than the new-age version of her intoning, “My name is Gillian Anderson, I am a good and kind person.” She has a steeliness about her that I really like, but whether it’s proof of the success of her spiritual techniques or indicates the limits of their powers, I can’t decide. She certainly feels like someone in full control of herself and her life, and if this keeps her at a slightly cool distance, it is also rather enviable.

She says she used to be pitilessly intolerant of her own physical self, but won’t elaborate on how that manifested itself, because she refuses to allow herself that line of thinking. “I will not go there. I simply will not allow it any more. Because the things that we might be critical of ourselves about actually don’t matter. The only thing that really matters in terms of our peace of mind is our peace of mind itself, and how we react to things. All I know is that when I meditate, one goes beyond the physical, and it is possible to tap into a sense of absolute contentment and joy in that place. So if that’s where you’re starting, then actually none of this,” and she gestures to her body, “means anything, really.”

How is it possible for a working actor to liberate herself from concerns about physical appearance, when her existence is so entwined in it? After eight seconds of silence, she replies: “I don’t know. I mean, as I get older, I imagine the roles that I’m able to get are going to change. There will be a certain point where I’ll make the decision to go grey, you know. There might be a certain point where I decide that it’s silly for me to continue being blond when I’m in my 60s. I’ve also always wanted to direct, I’ve also always wanted to be an artist. Maybe when the kids are out of college, I can decide to downsize and go grey and get less work.”

The art of acceptance is one of her new book’s biggest themes. As someone who is terrible at it, I’ve never been sure how realistic an ambition true acceptance really is.

“Well, there’s an opportunity for fear around every corner, fear of the future, fear of what if,” Anderson says. “But the acceptance of wherever we are, whoever we are, is freedom. So, you know, I can sit and bemoan the fact that I don’t get the same roles, or bemoan the fact that my skin is starting to look like chicken skin, or bemoan whatever it is. But that’s not reality. That’s fighting reality.”

[film-movies-cinema]

At the beginning of the fifties, just after the end of the second World War, young French critics took the distances from the traditional French cinema, looking at different and more vital productions than the French one, ‘derided as ‘le cinema de papa’ (‘Daddy’s cinema’)’ (Darke 2003, p. 423). This change of mentality underlines that cinema was finally considered as an art form, and that it was necessary to approach it in a new way. For this reason, André Bazin and Jacques Doniol-Valcroze founded, in 1951,  Les Chaiers du cinéma et de la Télévision, a monthly magazine that analyzed the performance of past and present directors to define whether they could be considered artists or not with regard to the so called ‘politique des auteurs’. This innovative approach to their works tried to individuate between all the filmmakers those who could be defined as auteur, ‘a central consciousness whose vision is inscribed in the work’ (Fabe 2014, p. 174) and ‘differentiated (…) from metteurs en scène, directors who (…) did not inscribe their individual personalities or styles onto their films’ (Fabe 2014, p. 175).

To do so, French critics who wrote for Les Chaiers used a critical method defined as mise-en-scène criticism, based on the description and analysis of the elements that constitute a shot, a scene or a film in order to find the style and the main themes of an author (Darke 2003, p.425). In this essay, it will be demonstrated that Jean- Pierre Jeunet, a contemporary French cinema director, can be considered an auteur in the meaning previously explained. Through the analysis of Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain (2001) and Un long dimanche de fiançailles (2004), themes, personal style and narrative techniques, and issues related to authorship and freedom will be discussed.

Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain is a romantic comedy set in a fairy, postcard-like Paris. The story of an innocent but smart young women who finds her mission in helping people had a great success all over the world, ‘probably because the story is very international(…) (as) we speak about the small details of life that everybody knows, in every country’ (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2011). This film is very particular, because despite the international success and the influence from Hollywood production that can be noticed in different stylistic elements, it shows Jeunet’s personal signature, and the freedom he had in the realisation of the film. In fact, the director affirmed that ‘in France, when I make a film, I have complete (…) freedom; nobody has to explain to me nothing’ (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2011, video, YouTube).

On the other hand, Un long dimanche de fiançailles, hadn’t the same success: many critics have considered it as a sort of Amélie 2 for its extreme similarity with the previous Jeunet’s success. However, despite the stylistic similarities, the second film has a more realistic base, as it’s intertwined with the European history, as its fictional plot represents real stories which happened to the families touched by the War. As Durham (2008, p.913) states, this film ‘is thus one at the same time a mystery, a romance, a sociological study (…) and, especially, an anti-war manifesto’. This happens because it’s an adaptation of Sébastien Japrisot’s Un long dimanche de fiançailles, which is an historical novel. However, Jeunet takes the distances from the romance, and puts his own firm on its adaptation, starting from the focus, which isn’t on the anti-war discourse, but on the love story between Mathilde and Manech. In fact, the war is shown only from the flashbacks and anecdotes, and is not central in the plot.

In both films, the first thing that surprise the audience is the image: the glossy shots, coloured with hedonistic attention, please the viewer’s eyes and introduce him in an idealized, perfect postcard-like representation of Paris and France. Jeunet reflects on the power of images and on the sense of view, not only in the references of other films and French paintings, and not even in the idealization of France. His meditation on pictures’ force starts from a simpler level, the one of the photographs which Amélie finds under the photo booths around the city, the same level of the shots that an old soldier shows to Mathilde. Those images have a power since they encourage a series of questions: who is that man? Why he throws away his pictures? Who are the soldiers in the photograph? Are they still alive? Moreover, these images have effects also at an higher level: in fact, they stimulate curiosity and fantasy of Amélie and Mathilde, and indirectly of the audience.

Jeunet’s attention to the shots’ construction recalls many cinema genres, that have influenced the auteur during all his career: Oscherwitz (2011), affirm that Amélie represents a French example of ‘heritage film’, defined by Higson (2003, in Oscherwitz, 2011, p.513), as a genre of films which ‘turn their back on the industrialized chaotic present… [and] offer apparently more settled and visually splendid manifestations of an essentially pastoral national identity’. Indeed, the visual elements of the films celebrate the past, with a poetic and suspended atmosphere, as well as the sounds and the music, that accompanies and completes the scenes stimulating images of a certain idea of France. In Un long Dimanche’s inside shots, the camera indulges on the furniture, the dresses, the technological inventions of the beginning of the past century, the yellow, warm light that filters through lace curtains into countryside rooms. Nostalgia is always present: but, the memory of the past is also a secure starting point that gives the two heroines the hope, the force and the courage to go against the vicissitudes of present times and to continue their researches. Jeunet puts a lot of effort in recreating, with images and music, this emotional atmosphere, that he personally feels when he deals with past thematics such as European history: ‘I have a big fascination for World War I, don’t ask me why. I do sometimes a joke, I say I think I died in another life during the war’ (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2017, video, YouTube) .

In both films, many scenes start with an external shot, followed by an internal focalization that frames the plot and give a special sense to the story. In both cases, the heroines moves all around France and Paris; the space becomes relevant and is never put apart. It always shapes the actions, and is celebrated in its beauty as it was another character. This attention to the location, that awarded both movies the prizes of best photography and best setting, associate Jeunet’s style with the ‘cinema du look’ genre, “characterized by sleek, colourful urban settings, a high degree of artifice, and a celebration of the visual and sensory elements of the filmic text”’ (Orlando 2010, p.86). Jeunet’s brilliance is in the capacity of recreate places, atmospheres, dramatic feelings with artistic images made up with pastel colours (Amélie) or warm and sepia colours in contrast with cold shades (Un long Dimanche) that immerge the audience in the setting.

The two films are an example of pastiche, as there are a lot of references to French artists, films, books and poems. Baudelaire, Zola and many others are cited in Un long Dimanche, while in Amélie Montmartre as a setting recalls Les Quatre-cent coups by Truffaut, as well as the title seems to be borrowed by Guitry’s ‘Le Destin fabuleux de Désirée Clary’ (Oscherwitz 2011, p.506), and the fantasy elements prosecute le cinema fantastique born with Méliès. Moreover, the glossy and unrealistic Paris remembers with its colours Impressionist paintings. Finally, the focus on human nature in its simplicity and immediacy might recalls the Nouvelle Vague’ s interest for the exploration of reality; in fact, despite Jeunet’s movies contain fantasy elements, they also have a realistic base. The discourses between Mathilde and her uncles, their actions in the countryside’s home, the hopes of Amélie, sex, imagination, voyages: all these things characterize humanity, despite Jeunet represents them in a poetical way rather than showing them in a non constructed way as in the Nouvelle vague films. All these citations honour the French national identity, to which Jeunet feels very bound, and give to the films a local base.

But the pastiche is also inside the plot: for example, in Amélie is represented by the false letter addressed to Madelaine, or by the mix of images in the videotapes that Amélie gives to the painter Dufayel (Oscherwitz 2011, p.509-510).

Jeunet’s personal style is remarkable also in the experimental and humorous language, which uses widely proverbs, supernatural tests and words with a strange sound (Bingo Crépuscule; Pois chiche, ‘chickpeas’; je touche du bois, ‘touch the wood’) , and in the presence of technological devices and mechanical invention, of which the auteur is a passionate admirer. Videotapes, letters written with pieces of newspapers, telephone,  sunglasses with guns,… These objects connect the characters, over time and space, as Dominique Bretodeau’s box and the love letter for Madeleine from her ‘husband’ in Amélie, or the five soldiers’ belongings in Un long Dimanche de fiançailles.

Finally, Jeunet expresses himself as an auteur also in the plot, especially in his interest for the stories of unpredictable wise women.

Women with an uncommon ability for independent actions and thoughts, imagination and determination, whose lives intertwines with other stories, both fictional and real, and whose identity is a mix of ingenuity and naivety.

An auteur has total control on his films: Jeunet’s ability in recreating real stories, settings and atmospheres, quiet suspended times, noises, dirt and discomfort of the front, fear, joy, curiosity dives the audience in a dramatic and spectacular fictional France, poetically presented by a narrator, as at the beginning and the end of every fairy tale, and elevates the director to the status of artist. His own style and preferences are continuously present in all his films, and the freedom he has in the writing and the realisation of his works makes him the ‘central consciousness whose vision is inscribed in the work’ of which Fabe (2014, p. 174) talks about.

  References

Darke, C 2003, ‘The French new wave’, in Nelmes, J (ed.), An introduction to film studies/, Routledge, London, pp. 422-450, via UniSa Library eReadings

Fabe, M 2014, ‘Auteur Theory and the French New Wave: François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows’, Closely Watched Films : An Introduction to the Art of Narrative Film Technique, University of California press, ProQuest Ebook Central

Durham, C 2008, ‘Auteurism and Adaptation in Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Un long Dimanche de fiançailles’, The French Review, Vol. 81, No. 5, American Association of Teachers of French, pp. 912-927

Orlando, V 2010, ‘A review of “Jean-Pierre Jeunet”’, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 28:1, pp. 86-91

Oscherwitz, D 2011, ‘Once Upon a Time that Never Was: Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s “Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain”’ (2001), The French Review, Vol. 84, No. 3, pp. 504-515

Filmography:

Jeunet, J (dir.) 2001, Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain, streaming video, Canal +

Jeunet, J (dir.) 2004, Un long dimanche de fiançailles, streaming video, Canal +

MEDIADeskUK, 2011, Jean-Pierre Jeunet – MEDIA interview, video, YouTube, 20 October, viewed 20 September 2018,  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ukTd3BIDoU

FilMagicians, 2017, A Very Long Engagement – Interview with Audrey Tautou & Jean-Pierre Jeunet (2004), video, YouTube, 26 May, viewed 20 September 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPYjQu2RO6M

  The auteur theory in contemporary cinema: a research on Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s works At the beginning of the fifties, just after the end of the second World War, young French critics took the distances from the traditional French cinema, looking at different and more vital productions than the French one, ‘derided as ‘le cinema de papa’ (‘Daddy’s cinema’)’ (Darke 2003, p.

[computerguideworld-blog]

Dirty Computer: Janelle Monaes Electrifying Coming Out Party

New Post has been published on https://computerguideto.com/must-see/dirty-computer-janelle-monaes-electrifying-coming-out-party-2/

Dirty Computer: Janelle Monaes Electrifying Coming Out Party

Janelle Mones new album Dirty Computer features the acclaimed singer-songwriter at her most revealing and freewheeling.

The 32-year-old star is one of the most respected in music, and shes won raves and challenged listeners with an ambitious blend of funk, pop, rock, soul, and hip-hop that has often made her hard to define. But being pinned down has never been Mones styleand on Dirty Computer she lets her freak flag fly.

Mone has admitted that her early android persona and conceptual The Metropolis and ArchAndroid projects were sometimes driven by the need to protect herself from judgment. As Mone has evolved as an artist, shes come into her own creatively and as a womanand now seems fully in command of her art and emboldened by living in her truth. Like virtually every full-length release in her genre-bending discography, Mones Dirty Computer is a conceptual affair: In the accompanying short film, shes Jane 57821, a nonconformist in the near future who needs to be cleaned by the powers-that-be. Shes a rebel in love with her community and in love with Zen (Tessa Thompson)and shes fighting to be herself.

Arriving a whopping five years after 2013s The Electric Lady, the new album finds Mone simultaneously at her most musically accessible and her most forthcoming lyrically. It feels like shes the most free on record that shes ever been. Not that Mone has ever seemed constrained, exactlybut her work has always seemed to put the concept ahead of emotional nakedness. On Dirty Computer, the concept is driven by her introspection, not the other way around. This is the strongest set of pop songs that Mone has released, as she dances between sunshine synth-pop, dance-driven funk jams, and lush soul. Working alongside longtime collaborators like Deep Cotton and Roman GianArthur, Mone isnt in altogether unfamiliar territory musically, but she is breaking bold new ground in terms of themes, and shes putting them across in more engaging ways than she has before.

It sounds like an anthem for youthful brazenness and epic summer nights; it also sounds like a spiritual manifesto.

The album opens with the Brian Wilson-assisted title track, with Wilsons trademark only-but-him harmonies providing a warm bed on which Mones warm lead vocal coos, I love you in space and time, with sparsely skittering production. With its twinkling chords and cascading drums, Crazy Classic Life channels 80s synth sounds a la Depeche Mode as Mone outlines her version of freedom: I am not Americas nightmareI am the American cool. She wants a crazy classic life, and shes perfectly OK with however it ends as long as shes done it all. It sounds like an anthem for youthful brazenness and epic summer nights; it also sounds like a spiritual manifesto. The synth vibes remain on Take A Byte, and its a pure party: The thumping groove and handclaps are dance-floor-perfect, as Mone sings, Dress me upI like it better when we both pretend, in one of the most effectively sensual and slinky moments on Dirty Computer.

Princes influence looms large on Dirty Computer, an album that owes a lot to his most personally affirming dance anthems like Uptown and Erotic City. The guitar-driven Screwed even opens with a rhythm-guitar lick thats a clear nod to his 1986 classic Kiss, but presented in a completely different musical context. Sex, bodywere gonna crash your party, sounds like the best kind of warning, as Mone provides yet another song that sounds like it was made for the best weekend youve ever had.

This is a fucking fun album.

Django Jane debuted online back in February, with Mone trying on trap and showing that her creativity sits comfortably at virtually any stylistic table. Sassy, classyKool-Aid with the kale, Janelle raps confidentlyand with more panache than most others who regularly trade in the format. Remember when they said I looked to mannish? she pointedly recalls, reminding everyone that during her ArchAndroid days she wasnt always the beloved pop culture icon she is today. She deftly addresses gender, race, and her own still-growing legacy as an artistperfectly seguing into Pynk, the other previously released single that had fans salivating in early April.

The double entendre of the title/hookand the cheekily clever music videois sort of a second affirmation of Django Jane. The color pink serves as a metaphor for both the universality of human existence and the specificity of womanhood. When the surging guitar and Some like that! hook kick in, its clear that Mone knew she had another anthem here.

Prince collaborated with Mone directly and Make Me Feel is an appropriate tribute, homage, and confirmation that no mainstream artist embodies His Royal Badness most provocative, singularly focused creativity as much as Janelle Mone. That groove burns itself into your brain within seconds, when that all-too-distinctive rhythm guitar begins punching holes in the pace, as Janelle ad-libs a joyful screechit sounds like an old friend making a welcome appearance at this Mone-led party. Prince lives. Pharrell shows up for I Got the Juice, as Mone flaunts and taunts a bitover African rhythms and a percolating beat.

I Like That is the most atmospheric moment on Dirty Computer, a gorgeous melody carried on a wave of synth strings, as Mone sings, A little crazy, little sexy, little cool / Little rough around the edges but I keep it smooth / Im always left of center and thats right where I belong / Im the random minor note you hear in major songs. She drops a brief rhyme about a childhood crush who rated me a 6 after she cut her perm, but makes it clear that she always knew I was the shit. And she goes for 90s neo-soul vibes on Dont Judge Me, a song that addresses personal insecurity and the fear that comes from wanting to open and be your real self around the person who makes you feel the most loved but also the most scared: Even though you tell me you love meIm afraid that you just love my disguise.

That element of fear is revisited on So Afraid, a somber, guitar-driven tune that somewhat recalls the 60s vibes of the title track. Theres so much to be gained by running toward love, but Janelle Mone expresses the doubt and apprehension of emotional connections beautifully here. And she parodies the jingoism and paranoia that defines so much of the good ol US of A on the rollicking album closer Americana. Once again playfully tapping into her Prince-ish tendencies, Mone offers a nod to the foot-stomping raucousness of Lets Go Crazy, while taking aim at everything from traditional gender roles to xenophobia to generic Americana. Its an upbeat end to an album full of joy and freedom, and it offers its best line: I wonder if you were blind, would it help you make a better decision.

Janelle Mone has been one of the most era-defining artists of the past 10 years, and shes done it without the kind of all-world hit singles that seem to define pop culture status. Shes managed to carve a niche in contemporary music that is uniquely her own, and here shes created the kind of album that gives voice to the creative, proudly outside-the-box individuals that have fueled so much of the cultural and social change of the times. The android Cindi Mayweather gave Mone a persona on which to explore her boldest ideas, but in putting who she is front-and-center, Mone has delivered her most relatable work to date. And it couldnt come at a better time. Black women have been leading a cultural charge, and Mone sits alongside so many of the boldest women of her generation. With Dirty Computer, shes given us a stellar pro-woman, pro-LGBTQ, party like its 1999, middle-finger-to-the-status-quo dance record.

There has beenand will continue to bea lot written about Mones coming out in the latest issue of Rolling Stone and how this album is reflective of her desire to be her. She said in the interview: Being a queer black woman in America someone who has been in relationships with both men and womenI consider myself to be a free-ass motherfucker. Mone has long been an inspiration to anyone who dared to be themselves, and her latest art documents an important moment in her journey as a creator and as an individual. Its exciting to witness her come into her own.

And it sounds like shes having a blast.

Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com

[ravindrashiwnandan-blog]

Overcoming The Strongman 2

2. The Lausanne Covenant

 Spiritual warfare is necessary for the survival of the human race and for man to fulfill the purposes of God on the earth, while at the same time snatching the souls of lost ones from the jaws of Satan.

This war is real and ongoing, and will only end when that old devil is cast into the Lake of Fire. We cannot fight him alone, not as one individual, but yes, as the church, as a community, and as a nation. But, our victory over him will be greater the stronger our unity and numbers are. This is not a new idea for our brothers of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization recognized this when 2,700 Christian religious leaders from over 150 countries and was called by a committee headed by Billy Graham in 1974 to draft a Christian religious manifesto to promote active global Christian evangelism.

The drafting committee for this document was chaired by John Stott of the United Kingdom and the final Lausanne Covenant was adopted by 2,300 evangelicals at the International Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne, Switzerland, from which it takes its name. The Lausanne Covenant [1] contained 15 statements of affirmation and resolve. Statement 12 has to do with Spiritual Conflict as follows:

 Statement 12. Spiritual Conflict

“We believe that we are engaged in constant spiritual warfare with the principalities and powers of evil, who are seeking to overthrow the Church and frustrate its task of world evangelization. We know our need to equip ourselves with God’s armor and to fight this battle with the spiritual weapons of truth and prayer. For we detect the activity of our enemy, not only in false ideologies outside the Church but also inside it in false gospels which twist Scripture and put people in the place of God. We need both watchfulness and discernment to safeguard the biblical gospel. We acknowledge that we ourselves are not immune to worldliness of thoughts and action, that is, to a surrender to secularism. For example, although careful studies of church growth, both numerical and spiritual, are right and valuable, we have sometimes neglected them. At other times, desirous to ensure a response to the gospel, we have compromised our message, manipulated our hearers through pressure techniques, and become unduly preoccupied with statistics or even dishonest in our use of them. All this is worldly. The Church must be in the world; the world must not be in the Church.

(Eph. 6:12; II Cor. 4:3,4; Eph. 6:11,13-18; II Cor. 10:3-5; I John 2:18-26; 4:1-3; Gal. 1:6-9; II Cor. 2:17; 4:2; John 17:15)”

The Lausanne Covenant was followed by the Manila Manifesto in 1989 which stated:

 “We affirm that spiritual warfare demands spiritual weapons and that we must both preach the word in the power of the Spirit, and pray constantly that we may enter into Christ’s victory over the principalities and powers of evil.”

 This was later followed by the Statement on Spiritual Warfare in 1993. This statement, which I think is a significant document, is stated in its entirety below. It was used by permission.

 Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization

Statement on Spiritual Warfare (1993)

A Working Group Report

 The Intercession Working Group (IWG) of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization met at Fairmile Court in London July 10-14, 1993. We discussed for one full day the subject of spiritual warfare. It had been noted at our IWG Prayer Leaders’ Retreat at The Cove in North Carolina, USA, the previous November, that spiritual warfare was a subject of some concern in the evangelical world. The IWG asked its members to write papers reflecting on this emphasis in each of their regions and these papers formed the basis of our discussion.

We affirmed again statement 12 on “Spiritual Conflict” in The Lausanne Covenant:

“We believe that we are engaged in constant spiritual warfare with the principalities and powers of evil who are seeking to overthrow the church and frustrate its task of evangelization.

“We know our need to equip ourselves with God’s armor and to fight this battle with the spiritual weapons of truth and prayer. For we detect the activity of our enemy, not only in false ideologies outside the church but also inside it in false gospels which twist Scripture and put man in the place of God.

We need both watchfulness and discernment to safeguard the biblical gospel. We acknowledge that we ourselves are not immune to worldliness of thought and actions, that is, to surrender to secularism…”

We agreed that evangelization is to bring people from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God (Acts 26:17). This involves an inescapable element of spiritual warfare.

We asked ourselves why there had been almost an explosion of interest in this subject in the last 10 years. We noted that the Western church and the missionary movement from the West had seen the remarkable expansion of the church in other areas of the world without special emphasis being given to the subject of spiritual warfare.

Our members from Africa and Asia reminded us that in their context, the powers of darkness are very real and spiritual warfare is where they live all the time. Their families are still only one or two generations removed from a spiritist, animist or occult heritage.

This led to a discussion of the effects of one generation on another. We noted that in the context of idolatry, the Bible speaks of the sins of the fathers being visited upon their descendants to the third and fourth generation.

Likewise, the blessing of God’s love is shown to successive generations of those who love him and keep his laws. We wondered if the time we have had the gospel in the West has made us less conscious of the powers of darkness in recent centuries.

We noted, also that the influence of the enlightenment in our education, which traces everything to natural causes, has further dulled our consciousness of the powers of darkness.

In recent times, however, several things have changed:

Change in Initiatives: The initiative in evangelization is passing to churches in the developing world, and as people from the same background evangelize their own people, dealing with the powers of darkness has become a natural way of thinking and working. This is especially true of the rapidly growing Pentecostal churches. This has begun to influence all missiological thinking.

Increased Interest in Eastern Religions: The spiritual bankruptcy of the West has opened up great interest in Eastern religions and drug cultures and brought a resurgence of the occult in the West.

Influx of Non-Christian Worldview: The massive migrations of peoples from the Third World to the West has brought a torrent of non-Christian worldviews and practices into our midst. Increasing mobility has also exposed developing countries to new fringe groups, cults, and freemasonry.

Sensationalization of the Occult: The secular media has sensationalized and spread interest in these occult ideas and practices. This was marked by the screening of the film “The Exorcist.” In the Christian world, the books by Frank Perretti and the spate of “How to…” books on power evangelism and spiritual warfare have reflected a similar trend.

Lausanne’s Involvement in the Process: We in Lausanne have been part of the process, especially in the track on spiritual warfare at Lausanne II in Manila and in the continuing life of that track under the aegis of the AD 2000 and Beyond movement.

We recognize that this emphasis will be with us for the foreseeable future. Our concerns are:

To help our Lausanne     constituency to stay firmly within the balanced biblical teaching on     prayer.

To provide clarity, reassurance, and encouragement to those     whom the emphasis is causing confusion and anxiety.

To harness what is     biblical, Christ-exalting and culturally relevant in the new emphasis on the work of evangelization so that it     yield lasting fruit.

We noted the following dangers and their antidotes:

Reverting to Pagan Worldviews: There is a danger that we revert to think and operate on pagan worldviews or on an undiscerning application of Old Testament analogies that were, in fact, superseded in Jesus Christ. The antidote to this is the rigorous study of the whole of Scripture, always interpreting the Old Testament in the light of the New.

A Preoccupation with the Demonic: This can lead to avoiding personal responsibility for our actions. This is countered by an equal emphasis on “the world” and “the flesh” and the strong ethical teachings of the Bible.

A Preoccupation with the Powers of Darkness: This can exalt Satan and diminish Jesus in the focus of his people. This is cured by encouraging a Christ-centered and not an experience-centered spirituality or methodology.

The Tendency to Shift the Emphasis to “Power” and Away From “Truth”: This tendency forgets that error, ignorance, and deception can only be countered by biblical truth clearly and consistently taught. This is equally, if not more important, than tackling bondage and possession by “power encounters.”

It is also the truth that sets us free, so the Word and the Spirit need to be kept in balance.

Emphasis on Technique and Methodology: We observed the tendency to emphasize technique and methodology in the practice of spiritual warfare and fear that when this is dominant it can become a substitute for the pursuit of holiness and even of evangelism itself. To combat this there is no substitute for a continuous, strong, balanced and Spirit-guided teaching ministry in each church.

Growing Disillusionment: We had reports of growing disillusionment with the results of spiritual warfare in unrealized expectations, unmet predictions and the sense of being marginalized if the language and practice of spiritual warfare are not adopted and just general discomfort with too much triumphalist talk. The antidote to all of this is a return to the whole teaching of Jesus on prayer, especially what he says about praying in secret that avoids ostentation.

Encountering the Powers of Darkness by the Peoples Themselves: While recognizing that someone initially has to go to a people to introduce the gospel, we felt it was necessary always for the encounter with the powers of darkness to be undertaken by Christian people within the culture and in a way that is sensitive in applying biblical truth to their context.

Caution Regarding Territorial Spirits Concept: We are cautious about the way in which the concept of territorial spirits is being used and look to our biblical scholars to shed more light on this recent development.

Warfare Language Can Lead to Adversarial Attitudes: We heard with concern of situations where warfare language was pushing Christians into adversarial attitudes with people and where people of other faiths were interpreting this as the language of violence and political involvement.

We saw that the language of peace, penitence, and reconciliation must be as prominent in our speech and practice as any talk of warfare.

We are concerned that the subject and practice of spiritual warfare is proving divisive to evangelical Christians and pray that these thoughts of ours will help to combat this tendency. It is our deep prayer that the force for evangelization should not be fragmented and that our love should be strong enough to overcome these incipient divisions among us.

In his cross and resurrection, Jesus triumphed over all the powers of darkness; believers share in that triumph. We would like to see evidence of this in our unity in prayer.

I have given the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization Statement on Spiritual Warfare (1993) above because I would like to use it as a springboard to talk about the realities of spiritual warfare and how to use them to our advantage to gain victory.

 So, the War is Real!

 Spiritual warfare, as we have highlighted, is not an option; it is a reality. Satan’s anger against the Lord has been displaced to the human race because he became jealous of the image of God in man. He was successful in getting Adam and Eve to join his rebellion against God by deceiving them and leading them to doubt God’s word and disobey Him.

 Now, as the children of Adam and Eve, we inherited their sinful nature and we are born into this world alienated from God with tendencies to do evil. The Apostle Paul says that we are by nature children of wrath (Eph. 2:3).

 Further, as Adam’s children, we have suffered the result of his disobedience: sin brought misery, emotional and physical suffering, and finally death. There is only one way out of this sad situation; the way provided by God through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross that frees us from the penalty of eternal death (Ro. 5:6-10).

 Salvation and life are only possible through Jesus. He is the only way back to the relationship with God from which we have fallen. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (Jn. 14:6). In the face of Satan’s eternal condemnation, this has made his hate to boil over; the possibility of man’s salvation and his glorious position in Christ in this world and in the world to come. Those who have restored the relationship with the Father through Jesus will have to face a barrage of daily insults and attacks from Satan, even though he knows he is defeated. He will do his best to deceive us as he did to Eve.

 Those who neglect or oppose biblical truth will face similar attacks and be overcome by him because they do not trust in the Lord.

 So, Christians who enjoy victory in Christ will have to wage war for ourselves and for those who do not know how to do so and further, for those who are ignorant of the fact that a war is raging.

 Nevertheless, as we get involved in spiritual warfare, we should guard against two possible extremes. One, over-emphasizing the things of Satan where we see demons behind every negative situation and adversity, and two, under-emphasizing the things of Satan; where we don’t want to talk about the devil or think about him.

 Our true posture should be one of scriptural balance which includes the reality of Satan and spiritual warfare and the reality of Christ’s victory over him.  There is Satan and his demons, there is a need to assist and minister to people but there is victory in Christ Jesus! It is from this standpoint that the subject of spiritual warfare is presented and it is my hope that you will be strengthened to fight victoriously as you read, digest and apply the contents this book.

[1]

The Lausanne Covenant https://www.lausanne.org/content/covenant/lausanne-covenant

[redsoapbox]

The Man Who Invented Christmas

Dan Stevens as Charles Dickens

Many of our fellow citizens will spend this Christmas in the death grip of man-made austerity - rough sleeping, as anyone who’s already ventured into a town or city to do their Christmas shopping can testify, is noticeably on the rise, while the Child Poverty Action Group’s latest figures (Nov 2017) show over four million children now living in poverty, in what is the sixth largest economy in the world. The nation’s shame doesn’t end there, though, as earlier this year a United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disability (CRPD) charged the present Tory government with causing a ‘human catastrophe’ for disabled people in the U.K. Given these facts, any future anthology of British Horror stories should include, alongside established pieces like Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, and M.R.James’ The Stalls of Barchester, the blood-curdling pages from Hansard that document the passage of the Conservatives Welfare Reform Bill through Parliament in 2015. That savage attack on the poor sent child poverty spiraling and would have had Dickens, who wrote A Christmas Carol partly to keep a promise to bring a ‘sledgehammer’ down upon the question of child labour, spinning in his grave. 

The current political climate also presents us with a chance, particularly at this time of year, to re-evaluate Dickens’ clarion call for social reform and his personal motivation for writing a novella that requires us to change our ways by keeping ‘Christmas in our hearts’ all the year round. Much of the investigative groundwork has already been done by the likes of Peter Ackroyd (in his definitive biography of Dickens), Les Standiford in the charming book which gives this film its title and, earlier this year, by the rival publication of Lucinda Hawksley’s Dickens and Christmas. It is with excellent timing, then, that Bharat Nalluri’s playful literary biopic of Dickens, The Man Who Invented Christmas, (a happy by-product of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol was the subsequent revival of a Christmas spirit that had been in slow decline since Oliver Cromwell and his puritanical coterie passed a law in 1644 declaring Christmas Day to be a day of fasting and repentance), arrives in the local multiplex. As Standiford describes it, Christmas, in Dickens’ day, ranked well below Easter and roughly on a par with St George’s Day in importance and esteem, ‘there were no Christmas Cards, no Christmas Trees in royal residences, or White Houses, no Christmas turkeys, no department-store Santa, or outpouring of “Yuletide greetings”, no orgy of gift-giving, no holiday lighting extravaganzas and no plethora of midnight services celebrating the birth of a saviour’. 

There is a lively debate underway just now as to how much credit Dickens can claim for restoring the fortunes of Christmas, with Standiford being the novelist’s most enthusiastic cheerleader. His positive opinion should, perhaps, be balanced against that of Professor Mark Connelly who challenges the new consensus in Christmas a History, ‘To say that Christmas was a near extinct force by the early nineteenth century seems a gross simplification; the same can be said of the idea Dickens saved it’. Perhaps Ackroyd sums it up best, asserting ‘A Christmas Carol’ to be both a ‘modern fairy story’ and a piece of ‘radical literature’ while acknowledging that Dickens ‘transformed the holiday by suffusing it with his own particular aspirations, memories and fears’. Ackroyd allows, too, that Dickens emphasised Christmas’ ‘cosy conviviality at a time when both Georgian licence and Evangelical dourness were being questioned’, describing the book as perfect “holiday reading”. 

So, we come to the question of whether The Man Who Invented Christmas can, if only charitably, be described as perfect “holiday viewing”? I should declare, here, in the interests of full disclosure that A Christmas Carol is the one book that I would take to a desert island (just edging out The Great Gatsby and The Communist Manifesto). It’s a book that I re-read every December, through a veil of tears, and I also happen to adore just about every film version of Dickens’ uplifting tale (although, even I draw the line at the musical adaptation starring Kelsey Grammer and Robert Zemeckis’ dull as ditchwater animated version). Readers of this review may wish to bear my confirmed bias in mind, should I feel tempted at any point to proclaim The Man Who Invented Christmas the best piece of cinema to hit the silver screen since Citizen Kane!   

First off, the fundamentals are all in place: Dan Stevens is well cast, fresh from his box-office smash with Beauty and the Beast, he makes for a convincingly passionate young tyro (Dickens was only 31 when he penned his Christmas classic), and there is top-notch support from Christopher Plummer as a suitably sinister Scrooge and Jonathan Pryce as the writer’s dreadfully unreliable father. Nalluri keeps a tight rein on the plot, a more complicated task than you might imagine as the director employs the humorous device of bringing A Christmas Carol’s characters to life in order to chastise or torment the struggling writer – at one point Scrooge taunts Dickens by comparing him to none other than the great Bard; “Shakespeare, now there’s a man who could write” and there is a wonderfully surreal scene where Scrooge, the Cratchits and the Fezziwigs all mope about Dickens’ study grumbling about the celebrity author’s failure to come up with an inspiring ending for his soon to be world-famous festive tale.. 

Running alongside the writer's creative struggle with the Carol, is the story of Dickens’ dysfunctional relationship with his ne’er do well father, a profligate who so mismanaged the family income that he spent time in debtors prison, thereby condemning the 12 yr old Dickens to a nightmare existence working long shifts in a horrific blacking factory. As Dickens strives to find it in his heart to forgive his own father, he strains, also, to resolve the central question of whether Scrooge can believably redeem himself at the novel's end. The film examines the relationship between the two seemingly intractable problems that confront the author, suggesting that only by becoming a better man himself can Dickens genuinely bring about Scrooge’s life-affirming change of character. The pacing of the film is just right, too, the camera matching the whirling dervish that is Dickens stride for stride as he scarpers about London at all hours of day and night seeking inspiration for his embryonic tale, while desperately trying to raise the funds to self-publish his seasonal ghost story.

The Man Who Invented Christmas is a thoroughly enjoyable film, albeit one that would have benefited greatly from a closer focus on Dickens the consummate campaigner for social justice given that we, as a society, have resolutely failed to learn the lessons that the Carol seeks to teach us. Instead, rather too much time is devoted to Dickens apparent writer's block and his ongoing battle to meet his publishing deadline. Still, anyone who cherishes A Christmas Carol will find plenty here to enchant and entertain them, and while the film doesn’t rank anywhere near the top of the tree when it comes to classic Christmas movies such as It’s a Wonderful Life, Scrooge, and the original Miracle on 34th Street, it certainly wouldn’t be out of place alongside respectable holiday fare like Elf, Get Santa or The Bishop’s Wife. 

As a postscript to this review, I would like to nominate Patrick Stewart as the greatest celluloid Scrooge (Woah, watch you don’t choke on your eggnog Alastair Sim fans!). Taking on the role in 1999 for David Jones’ made for t.v adaptation, which also starred Richard E. Grant (as Bob Cratchit), Stewart turns in a flawless performance as the miserable miser. The highlight of which is the joyous scene (see below) where Scrooge awakens on Christmas morn a changed man; for a moment the audience believes that a bewildered Scrooge is  having a seizure or a choking fit, only for us to discover that he has simply been surprised, astonished and overcome by the highly unlikely presence of a chuckle  that violently mutates into the mightiest of belly laughs. Although this faithful version is shown on British t.v just about every Christmas, it remains a little-known adaptation. Those prepared to trawl the Radio Times each year will be in for a real Christmas treat.   

[caveartfair]

The Stories behind the 10 Most Iconic Photos from Magnum’s 70-Year History

In 1947, four legendary photographers—Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger, and David “Chim” Seymour—founded Magnum Photos.

In the 70 years since, the cooperative agency has been responsible for some of the world’s most iconic images, from the heroic “Tank Man” of Tiananmen Square to the piercing “Afghan Girl” that graced the cover of National Geographic and forever endures as a symbol of both war and hope. The agency’s seemingly omnipresent members have provided groundbreaking photojournalism covering everything from the Loyalist Militias of the Spanish Civil War to the scattering of Mahatma Gandhi’s ashes on the River Ganges.

To celebrate the rich legacy forged by Magnum photographers, two New York shows—“Magnum Manifesto”at the ICP Museum and NeueHouse’s “Magnum Photos: 70 at 70”—are exhibiting selections from the agency’s collection. Pulled from decades of monumental photography spanning more than 200,000 images, here are 10 of the most iconic photographs by Magnum photographers.  

Leonard Freed

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. being greeted on his return to the US after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. (1964)

Leonard Freed, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. being greeted on his return to the US after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, 1964. Courtesy of Magnum Photos.

When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, the contentious battle for the presidency between Lyndon B. Johnson and Barry Goldwater loomed overhead. Leonard Freed’s photograph of King riding in an open-air motorcade in Baltimore as he is enthusiastically greeted by supporters took place during a nationwide drive to bolster black voter participation. A tireless documentarian of the American civil rights movement, Freed had, the previous year, shot the March on Washington, where King delivered his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech. Freed’s photograph clearly shows the support and adoration King received from his supporters in America, but it also documents a wider nexus in the civil rights movement, where King’s Nobel Prize and the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act had affirmed institutional support for the struggle towards freedom and dignity.

Steve McCurry

Sharbat Gula, Afghan Girl, at Nasir Bagh refugee camp. (1984)

Afghan Girl , 1985. Steve McCurry Pink Palais

Though her image had been reproduced a million times over on the cover of National Geographic’s June 1985 issue, the identity of Steve McCurry’s Afghan Girl portrait only recently came to light. McCurry photographed the 12-year-old Pashtun orphan at a refugee camp near the Pakistan-Afghan border. The striking emerald color of her eyes, locked in a thousand-yard stare, quickly became an icon of the global refugee crisis and a symbol of enduring human dignity (the Washington Post once called itNational Geographic’s “most recognized photograph” in more than 100 years of publication). In 2002, a NatGeo investigation revealed her identity—Sharbat Gula—as well as details of her incredible journey traversing Pakistan’s mountains with her grandmother and four siblings after Soviet bombs killed her parents. Until she was located, Gula had never seen the image of her that had garnered world-wide renown.

Robert Capa

US troops assault Omaha Beach during the D-Day landings (first assault). (1944)

Robert Capa US troops assault Omaha Beach during the D-Day landings (first assault), 1944. Courtesy of Magnum Photos.

With his embedded wartime coverage, Magnum’s co-founder Robert Capa nearly single-handedly developed the organization’s reputation for photographers willing to put themselves in danger to document historic moments. During World War II, Capa was the only photographer to join the soldiers of Company E in the first wave to land at Omaha on D-Day in 1944—the largest and one of the deadliest singular invasions in history, resulting in the death of 2,400 American soldiers that day. Amid the frantic popping of mortar shells and dead bodies rolling with the waves onto the smoke-laden beach, Capa captured the American assault on Normandy. While the photograph’s blur might reasonably be attributed to Capa’s nerves or an aesthetic choice to convey the fog of war, the true answer is much more mundane. A lab assistant charged with developing the film set the heat of a drying cabinet too high, melting the emulsion and causing it to run. Of Capa’s 106 shots from that day, only 11 survived.

Stuart Franklin

“The Tank Man” stopping the column of T59 tanks. Tiananmen Square. (1989)

The Tank Man , . Stuart Franklin Milk Gallery

Rising from the 1980s’ uneven economic and social reforms and the tenuous legitimacy of China’s post-Cultural Revolution leadership were a series of nationwide protests. When pro-democracy protesters first gathered in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, the area had “the atmosphere of a festival,” Stuart Franklin has recalled. However, after weeks of camping, soldiers were called to intervene and the mood quickly darkened. Soldiers, giving no warning, began firing upon the crowds, killing thousands as they fled. The military placed the hotel where Franklin and other journalists had been operating on lockdown, leaving him to capture this photo from the sixth floor of the hotel, several blocks over. The image shows an unknown activist oppose an approaching line of tanks, moments before he climbed atop one to speak to a soldier and was quickly pulled away. The now iconic image—which endures as a universal symbol of courage, resistance, and anti-oppression—was close to never seeing light of day. When authorities began seizing journalists’ materials, Franklin was only able to able to get his film to Magnum through the help of a French student on her way to Paris, who smuggled it in a box of tea.

Marc Riboud

An American young girl, Jan Rose Kasmir, confronts the American National Guard outside the Pentagon during the 1967 anti-Vietnam march. (1967)

An American young girl, Jan Rose KASMIR, confronts the American National Guard outside the Pentagon during the 1967 anti-Vietnam march., 1967. Marc Riboud Magnum Photos

Some images are indelibly tied to movements or particular moments in time. Such is the case with Marc Riboud’s “flower child” portrait, an emblem of counter-cultural resistance of the ’60s. On October 21, 1967, tens of thousands of anti-Vietnam War protesters met over 2,500 National Guard members at the Pentagon, clad in riot gear and armed with rifles and bayonets. Riboud captured this image of high school student Jan Rose Kasmir, only 17 at the time, gently offering a single chrysanthemum to a row of a guardsmen. Riboud passed away in 2016, but his image continues to be referenced for its depiction of non-violent protest, finding increasing resonance today. In 2016, Jonathan Bachman captured an image of an unarmed black woman, Ieshia Evans, peacefully opposing a line of police at a protest in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, over the fatal police shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. Evans’s stone-like composure in the face of approaching riot police soon drew comparisons to Riboud’s photograph taken nearly 50 years earlier.

Eve Arnold

Malcolm X during his visit to enterprises owned by Black Muslims. (1962)

Malcom X during his visit to enterprises owned by Black Muslims. Chicago, , 1962. Eve Arnold Milk Gallery

Magnum’s first female photographer cut her teeth photographing subjects from Marilyn Monroe to the cowboys of the Mongolian steppes. One of her most recognized projects, however, was a 1960 assignment for LIFE to document Malcolm X and his early involvement with the Nation of Islam. While Eve Arnold’s presence as a white photographer documenting black nationalists was not always welcome—she recalls finding cigarette burns on the back of her sweater after one day on assignment—she forged an unconventional friendship with Malcolm X. “Malcolm was brilliant in this silent collaboration,” she would later write of the legendary civil rights figure, whom she says helped her to find subjects and arrange shots. Arnold’s portrait has cemented Malcolm X’s image—stoic, powerful, and dressed to the nines—in the popular imagination. Her legacy has more recently featured in the work of Samuel Fosso, whose self-portrait Malcolm X (2008) has Fosso posing as the subject of her original shot.

Paul Fusco

Untitled from RFK Funeral Train. (1968)

Untitled from RFK Funeral Train , 1968. Paul Fusco Danziger Gallery

Most portraits form a singular vision of their subject. Those in Paul Fusco’s “RFK Funeral Train” series, however, turn their focus outward, capturing Robert Kennedy through the grieving crowds who paid respects as his funerary procession passed from New York City to the Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, DC. On assignment for Look magazine, Fusco gained the exclusive permission to photograph from the moving train. The resulting images document the wide diversity of the two million Americans who came to see Kennedy’s coffin, speaking to breadth of his support for Americans of all stripes. In Fusco’s photograph of a small group holding a posterboard message to Kennedy, the motion blur from the moving train lends a kinetic representation to a shaken nation’s sense of loss following his assassination.

Chien-Chi Chang

A newly arrived immigrant eats noodles on a fire escape. USA. New York City. (1998)

Chien-Chi Chang, A newly arrived immigrant eats noodles on a fire escape. USA. New York City, 1998. Courtesy of Magnum Photos.

In a series of photographs spanning nearly two decades, Chien-Chi Chang documented the citizens of Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood. Smuggled from China’s Fujian Province, the undocumented immigrants of Chang’s photographs must work long hours at low wages in order to pay their way to the U.S. before they begin sending their income to their families back home. The spartan lifestyle of the photograph’s subject forms a stark contrast to the bustling city life behind him—a lifestyle few who made the journey were prepared to face. Chang has said that his own experience as an immigrant, first traveling from Taiwan in the 1980s and now living in Austria, influences his photographic approach to issues of alienation and connection. Chang’s photography serves to document a community—and the struggles and sacrifices thereof—that too often remains out of sight.

Alec Soth

Charles, Vasa, Minnesota. (2002)

Alec Soth, Charles, Vasa, Minnesota, 2002. Courtesy of Magnum Photos.

Like the river that lends its name to the series, Alec Soth’s “Sleeping by the Mississippi” meanders through the churches, brothels, and homes of the American heartland. Often compared to Robert Frank’s “The Americans” for its quiet, elegiac approach to photojournalism, Soth’s series mixes documentary-style landscapes with posed portraits. This particular shot of a man named Charles came about by happenstance, after Soth felt compelled to knock on the door of a peculiar house he passed on the road. The man inside, Charles, offered a tour of his home, which he had built by hand. On the roof outside the house’s fourth floor, Charles holds two model airplanes, a hobby he shares with his daughter. Just two years after completing the series, Soth was nominated to join Magnum, his fine art roots a standout among the agency’s photojournalists.

René Burri

Ministry of Industry. Ernesto Guevara (Che), Argentinian politician, Minister of industry (1961-1965) during an exclusive interview in his office. (1963)

René Burri, Ministry of Industry. Ernesto Guevara (Che), Argentinian politician, Minister of industry (1961-1965) during an exclusive interview in his office, 1963. Courtesy of Magnum Photos.  

In the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Che Guevara invited René Burri and journalist Laura Bergquist of Look magazine to discuss the conflict. Seated in his makeshift office on the 8th floor of Havana’s Hotel Riviera, the Argentine-born revolutionary quickly fell into a heated argument with Bergquist, which left Burri to photograph him virtually unnoticed. He shot eight rolls of film over the course of two hours, showing Guevara involved in all manner of activity from pacing before a wall-sized map of Cuba to grinning in an animated moment of conversation. The most enduring image shows him reclined, a lit Havana cigar tucked in the corner of his mouth and a somewhat ambiguous expression of contemplation on his face. It is one of the most iconic portraits ever taken of Guevara. As for the photograph’s legacy, Burri was quick to offer credit to his subject: “The picture is famous thanks to the chap with the cigar, not to me,” he would later say.

—Mitch Sawyer

from Artsy News

[wiremagazine]

PRIDE AROUND THE WORLD LET'S CELEBRATE!

By Michael W. Sasser

If there was a unifying theme for Pride events around the globe this summer, it would be activism. Since the beginning of the movement after Stonewall, of course, activism has been a key driver of Pride celebrations in the United States. As other nations developed more welcoming cultures and public policy, international Prides developed similarly on their own timeline. Still, massive street parties and colorful parades are probably the most recognizable aspects of Pride around the world.

This year, however, it appears social consciousness abounds. Perhaps in reaction to conservative backlash in the U.S. and Western Europe, such Pride events as that in L.A. are promoting human rights events. In Paris, details for Pride were being withheld until the results of the national election were known. While many in the U.S. fear a rollback of protections will suddenly manifest, gays and lesbians in other countries face real threats, such as summary execution in the Middle East and harassment and worse in Russia and Cuba. The Zurich Pride Festival wants to draw attention to the situation of LGBTQ refugees, a population little addressed historically.

Whether one is traveling to East Coast Pride events this summer or to events in some of the far-flung parts of the world, there is more on the menu this year than just fabulous parties and parades. A global community has taken a look at the landscape and found essential human rights lacking. This year, the community once again stands up in unison to be heard.

Enjoy your travels and Happy Pride, wherever you celebrate. 

ANTWERP August 9-13 www.antwerppride.eu 

Antwerp, one of the most open and tolerant cities in the world when it comes to LGBTQ people and issues, celebrates Pride in style this summer. Despite being a relatively small city on the global scale at about 600,000, it has a vibrant community and long weekend of intense Pride events. Its numerous bars, clubs, shops and venues are all on display for the occasion, including the well-known Red & Blue nightclub, cruising bar The Boots and more. A wide range of activities are planned for Pride each year. Antwerp Pride is organized by a board of volunteers. Their goal is to unite social work and business in order to present Antwerp as the city of diversity with a rich gay scene.

BERLIN July 22 www.csd-berlin.de

CSD Berlin (Christopher Street Day) is one of the biggest gay Prides in Europe, with hundreds of thousands participants each year. In 2017, the parade takes place at Kurfürstendamm on Saturday, July 22, a week after the Lesbian & Gay Stadtfest. Pride celebrations and the parade continue to campaign for equal rights and same-sex marriage. But you'll find plenty of street festivals and dance parties across Berlin. Known by locals as CSD Berlin (Christopher Street Day), and by others of as Gay Pride Berlin, the festivities are now spread over a week and offer around 200 events. Berlin's Pride offers one of the most eclectic pride celebrations in Europe. Events include shows, exhibitions, lectures, films, concerts and plenty of partying. The motto of the Berlin CSD 2017 has been fixed since the beginning of February: "More of us – every voice against right!"

BRIGHTON & HOVE August 4-6 www.brighton-pride.org 

Brighton Pride celebrates the landmark 50th anniversary of the decriminalization of homosexuality in England and Wales with a life affirming Carnival Of Diversity and spectacular weekend long Pride Festival. The Brighton Pride Festival at Preston Park on Saturday, August 5, 2017 is a glittering and truly inclusive community celebration that delivers an unforgettable day of Pride. A unique community fundraising event, the Brighton Pride Festival has enjoyed amazing performances from international stars including Sister Sledge, Carly Rae Jepsen, Fatboy Slim, The Human League, Fleur East, Alesha Dixon, Ella Henderson, Boy George, Alison Moyet, Paloma Faith, and Ms Dynamite amongst others.

DUBLIN June 18-24 www.dublinpride.ie

The 2017 Dublin LGBTQ Pride Parade, the occasion's centerpiece, will take place on Saturday June 24. While festival specifics won't be announced until this summer, the Pride Parade is always a highlight of the annual festival. It is an opportunity to march in solidarity and hear supportive voices combined. Admission to the Pride Parade is free for individuals and community groups that support the ideals and principles of Pride, though registration is required for all groups taking part.

KEY WEST June 7-11 www.keywestpride.org

Pageants, a cocktail competition and a parade featuring a segment of a 1.25-mile-long rainbow flag are among the attractions for visitors to Key West Pride 2017. The 2017 schedule features pool parties, nightly drag shows and aquatic adventures including snorkeling, kayaking and sunset sails. Activities also include curator-led tours of an exhibit chronicling legendary playwright Tennessee Williams' decades on the island, a pride-themed street fair on famed Duval Street, a one-of- a-kind trolley tour documenting the LGBTQ community's impact on Key West history and culture, a burlesque show with an LGBTQ flair and a lively brunch served with a drag show on the side. Contests bring excitement to the five-day festival, including pageants to select Mr. and Miss Key West Pride.

LONDON June 24 - July 9 www.prideinlondon.org 

Last year, London experienced its biggest Pride ever! More than 40,000 people joined the Pride in London parade and as many as a million people took to the streets to celebrate, make their voices heard, and be a part of something special. Organizers anticipate an even bigger event this year. Pride in London's theme for the 2017 campaign is 'Love Happens Here.' Marking 50 years since Parliament first voted to legalize homosexuality in the UK, Pride in London will be marching with a message of hope, acceptance, activism and love. June will see a packed schedule of events leading up to the celebration.

LOS ANGELES June 10-11 www.lapride.org 

Now in its 47th year, Christopher Street West (CSW) will continue to host the inclusive LA Pride Festival on Saturday, June 10 and Sunday, June 11 – a weekend-long event with live music, activations, and food and drink from local eateries. Past performances have included Ke$ha, Jennifer Hudson, Krewella, Fifth Harmony, Charlie XCX, Tinashe, Daya, Danity Kane, Carly Rae Jepsen, and Ciara. The most noticeable change to this year's programming is the #ResistMarch on Sunday, June 11. For this year only, in place of the annual LA Pride Parade, CSW will lead a human rights march starting in Hollywood – where CSW organized the world's first permitted gay rights march in 1970 – and ending in West Hollywood. Additionally, in the lead up to the LA Pride Festival and #ResistMarch, CSW plans to host a number of events throughout "Pride Week," helping to amplify the City of West Hollywood's "One City, One Pride" community initiative.

MADRID June 23 - July 2 www.madridorgullo.com 

In Madrid, Madrid Pride, or MADO, is a series of street celebrations that take place during the city's LGBTQ Pride Week. Outdoor concerts, parties, expositions, culture and sports make up the whole of MADO. Madrid Pride has been for years the largest urban event celebrated in Europe because it brings over two million people together in the main streets and squares of the city. The performances take place in Plaza de Chueca, a symbol of freedom and LGBTQ rights that offers concerts and other activities for all kinds of audiences. On Saturday, July 1, 2017, the Pride Parade will travel along Paseo del Prado, one of Madrid's main streets. This is the climax of the World Pride festival. It takes place in the center of Madrid, starting at Atocha Station and ending in Plaza de Colón. Participating will be some 40 floats from different companies, associations, political parties, etc. The parade culminates at the Plaza de Colón where a stage will welcome all the participants with music and the reading of the manifesto of freedom, inclusion and diversity.

MONTREAL August 10-20 www.fiertemontrealpride.com 

From August 10-20, Montréal will be the host city for Canada Pride Montréal 2017, a special nation-wide edition of Montréal Pride. For the occasion, a new outdoor site will be inaugurated at Parc des Faubourgs with four times the capacity of Place Émilie-Gamelin, the festival's primary venue in past years which will continue to play a major role during this year's festivities. Canadian singer Nelly Furtado will headline the festival this summer. Furtado will give a 90-minute performance on Friday, August 18, 2017 at 9 p.m. on the TD stage in Parc des Faubourgs. In addition to the rollout of daily shows, Canada Pride Montréal 2017 will also host two human rights conferences – a three-day national conference and a one-day international conference highlighting issues in the Francophonie – as well as a sports tournament, a Community day and the traditional Pride Parade.

NEW YORK CITY June 16-25 www.nycpride.org

The city where the movement began celebrates Pride this year with the theme 'We Are Proud.' This year's roster will include the March, Rally, PrideFest, OutCinema, Teaze and a new multi-day cultural experience on Pier 26. Sure to be one of the biggest draws will be LeAnn Rimes, who will take center stage at NYC Pride's annual LGBTQ street festival on Sunday, June 25. Located at Hudson Street between Abingdon Square and West 14th Street, PrideFest welcomes more than 350,000 local residents and visitors from across the country and world, combined with local business owners, LGBTQ-serving non-profits, corporate sponsors, community leaders, and friends of all ages.

OSLO June 23 - July 2 www.oslopride.no

Norway's largest festival for the lesbian and gay population takes place in Oslo, with concerts, art exhibits, shows, film screenings, parties and political debates. The Pride Park festival area in the city center is free to enter for everyone! Oslo Pride consists of more than 150 small and large events over the course of 10 days. Oslo Gay Pride's aim is to make gay culture visible and contribute to increased acceptance and respect for the gay part of the capital's diverse population. The event was first established as "Gay Days" in 1982 and got its current name in 2014.

PARIS June 24 www.gaypride.fr 

Paris Gay Pride (or the "Marche des Fiertés" in French) has steadily grown in popularity over the years to become one of the city's most-anticipated annual festivals, drawing tens, and sometimes hundreds, of thousands of people into the streets of Paris every summer, for a colorful street party celebrating diversity. More than just a carnival-like festival, it's also served as an important platform for supporting full civil rights for LGBTQ people, in France and around the world. Local politicians and celebrities are known to join the procession, and it's a bit like Carnival: colorful and willfully over-the-top, full of music, dancing, creative drag and floats. Most details of Pride in Paris weren't announced until after the national election.

SAN FRANCISCO June 24-25 www.sfpride.org 

The 2017 San Francisco Pride Celebration & Parade is scheduled for the weekend of June 24-25 in the heart of citywide events commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Summer of Love. The theme for this year's Pride event is A Celebration of Diversity. The San Francisco Pride Parade/March will take place in downtown San Francisco on Sunday, June 25, along Market Street. The Celebration, a rally and festival at Civic Center Plaza in San Francisco, will take place on Saturday and Sunday, June 24-25. The Celebration features keynote speakers addressing pressing issues facing LGBTQ communities; along with performances, live entertainment, and more than twenty community-produced stages and venues.

SITGES June 8-12 www.gaysitgespride.com

This year the Sitges Gay Pride, June 8-12, 2017, brings together all participants to enjoy a great atmosphere, activities and fun as never before. Sitges is celebrating its eighth anniversary and wants to celebrate it in the best way possible with the main bar of the Gay Village open uninterruptedly the five days that this event lasts for a meeting point where you can come together with thousands of people and enjoy the best party in the entire Golden Coast. All this surrounded by the best environment where diversity is the hallmark, plus some of the best beaches on the Catalan coast.

SWEDEN June 7-11 www.westpride.se 

Don't miss the chance to see the city of Gothenburg covered in Pride colors for two weeks, securing its reputation as one of the most LGBTQ-welcoming cities in the world. West Pride, Gothenburg's LGBTQ culture festival, is a unique fun-filled event, free of charge, which takes place on June 7-11 – the most beautiful time of the year. The program consists of about 260 activities, where 30 are in English. On Saturday June 10, it's time for the big Rainbow Parade with more than 15,000 participants and some 25,000 people lining the streets. A major part of the program has not yet been made official.

TORONTO June 23-25 www.pridetoronto.com 

One of North America's leading gay destinations, Toronto has been holding Pride observances since the '70s, and events have been held annually there since 1981. These days, Toronto Pride's most prominent event, the Pride Parade draws more than 1.2 million spectators and participants annually, making it one of the top such draws in the world. The key Toronto Gay Pride events generally take place in the city's Church Street area, around the intersection with Wellesley Street – a neighborhood also known as the Gay Village.

VIENNA June 9-18 www.viennapride.at 

Vienna Pride 2017 will be the longest that Vienna has ever seen. The highlight is the Rainbow Parade, which will take place on June 17 on the Ringstrasse Boulevard. Vienna Pride will last a whole 10 days this year. For these 10 days, Vienna will be the center of gay and lesbian Austria. Numerous parties, art and information events, live performances and of course the Rainbow Parade will turn up the heat in Vienna and make a visible statement for the acceptance of homosexuals and against their exclusion. The focal point of the activities will once again be the Pride Village, which will be erected from June 14-17 against the beautiful backdrop of City Hall. What's more, the Vienna Fetish Spring will also take place from June 14-18, 2017.

ZÜRICH June 9-10 http://zurichpridefestival.ch 

Under the motto "No Fear To Be You" the Zürich Pride Festival wants to draw attention to the situation of LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) refugees. While Zürich's Pride consists of scores of demonstrations, resource booths, bars and entertainment, the focus remains squarely on advancing its human rights agenda and raising awareness of and support for the community efforts.

This was originally published in Wire Magazine Issue 19.2017

[5minswith]

London-based Tim has been a photographer for over 25 years. His professional career began in beauty and fashion but soon moved to interiors, food and travel. He has worked with many clients across the UK including: Cath Kidston, Country Living Magazine, Principal Hotels, Sunday Times Style, imbibe and Good Housekeeping, to name just a few.

Tim’s work has also featured in several books, with the most recent being Paula Pryke OBE, Wedding Flowers: Exceptional Floral Design for Exceptional Occasions.

1. How did you get from being an aspiring photographer to doing it full time, for a living?

I worked in Lloyd’s of London insurance market as a trainee underwriter for 18 months straight from school, quickly realising that I didn’t want an office-based life.

I joined a camera club, one evening a week, then found a job as assistant to a commercial photography studio in Oxfordshire, where I had grown up. I worked there for just over a year, printing negatives of cracks in metals for a local Government laboratory, as well as photographing books, paint tins and other products on a large format camera against paper backgrounds. Not the most inspiring work, but a fantastic technical grounding. From there I went to Gloucester College of Arts and Technology to take a 2-year HND in Advertising and Editorial Photography.

The course was hands on, practical and in no-way arty-farty, and aimed to send graduates out into the industry as competent assistants. Next stop London, and within a couple of weeks I had secured a full-time job assisting a long-established advertising photographer who at the time was shooting billboard campaigns for British Airways.

I assisted him and several other photographers for three full years, before finally feeling ready to step-up and go on my own, and immediately picked up a few small jobs for magazines (She, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping et al). From there work ballooned, I took on an agent and had ten very solid years in fashion and beauty work, before making a switch to interiors and food imagery.

2. Do you have a specific technique to help you achieve the results you require?

I like to light my images to achieve a degree of consistency (and have been told my style is very “clean”). I use a mixture of daylight and flash (we work mainly in the UK so daylight can throw up continual challenges). That said, I like to be flexible, and take the attitude that the client has a better idea of what they would like to achieve for the shoot than I do. I will not engage in battles of ego, and learnt from Anthony Crickmay, a photographer whom I consider to be my greatest mentor, that there is no room for stress in the workplace.

3. What other photographers have influenced your career?

Anthony Crickmay was my greatest influence. He used to shoot portraits of the Royal Family, Royal Ballet, and countless celebrities, actors and musicians. He was also responsible for many Athena posters, for those who can remember them.

He had the most beautiful studio in Fulham, and I was at times responsible for hiring it out to other photographers. Through this I met Patrick Demarchelier, who was shooting portraits of Princess Diana, and Michael Roberts (Sarah Ferguson in his case). They both bought large teams of assistants with them, but through all that I could see that their lighting styles were incredibly simple.

4. Can you tell us about your latest project?

I am currently engaged in a long contract shooting for Principal Hotels, who are refurbishing several huge landmark hotels in Edinburgh, York, Manchester and soon London. Principal have a very strong visual brand identity, and we have had to establish and maintain a clear style and “feel” to images in each room.

The cavernous reception area of #principalmanchester with horse sculpture by Sophie Dickens

A post shared by Tim Winter (@twinter1) on Feb 28, 2017 at 8:58am PST

We will be shooting images of the Principal London, (formerly the Hotel Russell) in Bloomsbury, over the next few months, in time for its relaunch in the Summer 2017.

I also shoot regular updates for the Aqua group of restaurants. Each time I am asked back to the 32nd floor of The Shard to photograph food, cocktails and staff, I get a real buzz of affirmation that I am doing the job I love.

Covering all angles @aquashard #foodshoot #foodphotography #menu #food #restaurant #england #landmark #london #theshard #theshardlondon

A post shared by Tim Winter (@twinter1) on Oct 4, 2016 at 5:37am PDT

5. From your whole body of work, which is your favourite photo and why?

Without a doubt, it is a portrait I took some years ago of actor Jenny Agutter. Unfortunately, the image was shot on film, and is hidden away in storage somewhere. It was for a magazine feature called “My favourite dress”, and she had chosen a Zandra Rhodes, elfin, pleated rust-coloured number.

I should point out that I had had a huge adolescent crush on Ms Agutter (think Walkabout, Equus) and was quite nervous at the prospect of meeting her. We hired a studio that happened to have a wooden throne and two enormous floor-standing candelabras, so sent out for 40 large church candles, sparked them up, and awaited hair and make-up to do their thing. I hadn’t at this point had the chance to say hello to my sitter.

When she walked on to set, my voice went. I was unable to speak.

Jenny coped well, and said “Hello. Tim, isn’t it? I suspect you would like me to sit here, Tim?”.

I nodded.

She sat, very upright.

“I could sit like this and look very sweet, or, and I think you might prefer this, I could sit like…this”, at which point she slid down in the chair, and reclined in the most alluring way.

I nodded. Then pressed the shutter a few times, and nodded again and gave a weak wave to suggest that I had all I needed.

She stood, thanked me, and went off to the changing room.

A while later she returned, thanked us all once more and started to head off to her taxi. Seeing my opportunity, I picked up her bag and escorted her out, hopeful that my power of speech might return. It didn’t. We got to the cab, she got in, I shut the door, and nodded. And waved.

And Just for Fun…

6. What is the one thing you wish you knew when you started taking photos?

It would have helped had someone given us a warning that digital technology was due to come in and upset the apple-cart! When I was at college, there was one word-processor in the whole faculty. We shot film, were careful in our use of polaroid, and had to keep an eye on how many frames we took of an image. That meant we composed, checked, dusted, rechecked everything as we went along. We also used our imaginations more, and were more decisive about how and what we were shooting.

Digital has changed everything. We used to have our own favourite film types, and knew how to manipulate the film in chemical processing. This can all be done now in post-editing in Photoshop, and there are myriad apps and filters to take you “there” with an image, but the excitement of waiting, sometimes in doubt, to see if you have achieved the planned result has been taken away, as has the social circle that was the processing laboratory. This is now the preserve of the bearded hipster. Clients don’t want or need to see film now, nor pay for the conversion of it to a digital file.

That said, Photoshop has bought so much more control. We shoot more by coalition now, with many more people having input on the day, and it has made photography more affordable to more people.

7. If you could take a photograph of anyone or anything in the world, past, present or in the future, what would it be?

I still have a wish-list, and am trying to make time to tackle it. I have always wanted to see and photograph the Aurora, be it in the Northern or Southern hemisphere. I was finally going to have a commissioned chance this spring (now, in fact) as I was invited by a cruise company to guide a group to shoot the Aurora Borealis in Norway. Unfortunately, their company went under in January, so I will have to keep looking.

8. What are you most afraid of?

Like any freelance professional, I most fear that the phone will one day stop ringing. Our industry favours youth, but that said, having survived two large and one small recessions, as well as reinvented myself in the digital era, I hope I am doing something right. The current generation of photography graduates have grown up with digital media, and should have a competitive advantage, but having learnt my trade by looking in detail when composing an image, there is a lot to be said for experience. Oh, and those running snakes on Planet Earth!

9. Where is your favourite holiday destination and why?

New Zealand. We went there for our honeymoon 22 years ago, and are going back this year, this time with our children. It is the most photogenic place I have seen, and so varied. That said, I am getting better at looking and enjoying the moment now, rather than feeling obliged to snap at every juncture.

10. What is your favourite quote?

I personally detest manifesto-style preaching: so many people use Instagram to illustrate that they have just found another daily mantra! Route 1 to an “unfollow” in my book.

I quite like one I heard on “Quote, Unquote” the other day: “Everyone has a plan ’till they get punched in the mouth” Mike Tyson!

View the gallery below of Tim’s work:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

See more of Tim Winter’s beautiful photography at timwinter.co.uk You can follow Tim on Instagram – @twinter1

Read our #5minuteswith professional photographer Tim Winter @T12Winter #photography London-based Tim has been a photographer for over 25 years. His professional career began in beauty and fashion but soon moved to interiors, food and travel.