Longer-form pieces of writing, usually about art, history, and queer theory.
collaborating with others with different experiences, though often more difficult, can be beneficial—for both parties or just one? collaborating across lines of privilege when you are the one holding that privilege, requires responsibility and respect. how do we navigate this best for growth, for both parties, without exploitation or appropriation?
It was a simple install, materially - two pieces of Halswell quarry stone in the main room; a small portrait leaning against the wall at the back of the hall, in what once may have been a laundry cupboard; and two delicate pencil drawings of what looks to be detailed masonry paired with poetry printed on office paper stock, in two separate rooms.
There is a sea change in the Ōtautahi arts scene. I can only speak to some of it, being Pākehā, but there is definitely change afoot and space is being made. This city feels a lot more like home than it did when I left over a decade ago, and on every visit since. I’m hearing the same from others who have moved or moved back, especially from those also marginalised in some way - suddenly, Christchurch feels possible. A big part of that, for myself and others, is the space and representation being given to marginalised voices in the arts community. Space both physical and metaphorical. Programming like Still, Like Air, I’ll Rise [SLAIR] is a prime example.
The context of this city in 2016 is irremovable from earthquake recovery, but the tone of that context has moved from shock and mourning to exploring the potential of the rebuild as well as frustration with that process. This has necessarily changed how artists are working in Christchurch – there is a strong culture of collaboration, not only in creating art but in creating spaces to work and exhibit. Artists have had to make space work for them, and there has been a proliferation of art created in vacant spaces in the past few years.
If being abject is distant, is other, is not something normative society wishes to face, then weaponising that abjection, emphasising it and making it impossible to ignore, is a radical act. We wear the abject like an armour, refusing respectability politics and the normalising process. In this work, the abject becomes personal and weaponised. We are brought from the ‘other’ world where normative society relegates us, and into the world they occupy, in a physical and confronting manner. The abject is here, it is in your face, all around you, and it has a body.
Perhaps what we need is a new L Word; one filled so thoroughly with minority representations that we no longer are the minority; one that does not utilise our representations to justify harmful normative ideals.
“How could it be unhealthy, that which makes a man happy and inspires in him beautiful and lofty things! His only misfortune is that social barriers and penal codes stand in the way of ‘naturally’ expressing his drive. This would be a great hardship.”
Contemporary workings of parasexuality describe specific kinds of relationships between majority groups and marginalised groups or people; relationships where structural power imbalances are at work. As in typical Victorian parasexuality, contemporary parasexuality seems to involve the “gifting” of conditional power to the marginalised group or person. However, it also involves the utter denial and erasure of that group or person’s minority identification. Contemporary parasexuality stems more often from a place of denial and punishment on the part of the majority party rather than the Victorian place of acknowledgement and accommodation.
I got an email from Alex Mitcalfe Wilson about a piece he’s writing as part of Artspace’s critical texts series on W e l c o m e.. The following is my response, containing his questions. The piece is in reference to the essay Para- and the accompanying sculpture.