innumerable sailboats

(Safety Space, site specific, December 2010, 80 kg of salt, 6 rolls of double-sided tape, a sari and some cushions)

One long Monday and a weekend that already seems eons ago later, I've now spent the evening drawing out tickets and posters for the upcoming play - The Fairytales of Mr Night - that has been written and directed by two lovely coyears of mine, and will be happening this Saturday and Sunday. Cue minor panic on my, the producer's, behalf, as I've got quite a couple of props and costumes left to source. Considering the play is about fairytale characters (who begin to consider that the Brothers Grimm aren't the ones in charge of their destinies), there are some odd items I'm still hoping to stumble upon somewhere in this rural countryside area of India.

As for the rest of MUWCI-living, we had a College Meeting on communication and decision-making again today, although once again it remained rather ambiguous as to why and what and how we were discussing. There's a Change of Pace day on Wednesday, as it is India's Republic Day, so that'll be good for EEing/sleeping/doing some more art.

To explain the above piece, it was an attempt at creating a 'safety space' - I'd researched into bunkers and tried to consider what safety might mean. I discovered that salt had a lot of interesting, contradicting meanings in religions and cultures, so I wanted to use it as the core material (the texture is also rather appealingly gritty) to convey a concept of inherent contradictions of vulnerability/security, preservation/destruction, freedom/captivity. There was already double-sided tape from a previous exhibition on the walls, so I added to that to allude to previous inhabitants and a void of attempted personalisation of the room. It also remained sticky, making it uncomfortable to lean back, as over-the-top safety often makes one felt clung unto. There are also some allusions to Gandhi and the sea, which I could go on about but I think I'll just post the document I wrote about it at some other point, and try and refocus on India and sleep.

Love.

fairytales of grim and glory

(Madurai, during winterbreak)

To backtrack a little, I traveled for ten days in December, down in the Indian south. We spent a great amount of time on buses, which varied from beds as seats to rockhard tiny benches with deafening Bollywood music playing in the early hours of the morning, but managed to also see a lot of beautiful things. Madurai itself wasn't the nicest city, and we'd had what I would say was the worst bus journey of the lot, as there was a continuous draft, no way to get comfortable and the bus station was smogged out and ten kilometres away from the centre.

The temple, on the other hand, was rather impressive. A World Heritage Site, with a multitude of colourful tower-things (called gopurams) that are painted once every twelve years, it contained a mini museum of sorts and required my travel-companion (a Danish boy in shorts) to put on a lungi (a type of wrap-around cotton skirt worn by Indian men in the south).

(If I wasn't slightly scared of him not appreciating the photos I took of him in it, I'd post them. Alas, I suspect they'd be detrimental to his masculinity?)

The temple was already full of praying people when we got there at eight in the morning, and the place held a certain haunting quality that definitely stifled the garishness of the stalls selling gold plastics and religious paraphernalia. It was massive too, and we spent a while simply wandering around barefoot on the cold stone floors, before heading off to the Gandhi Museum and our next destination of Tanjore.

this orient

(Fort Cochin)

(Mysore, incense rolling)

(Pondicherry)

Some photographs of my wintertime travels as I readjust to the erratic pace of campus-living. Theatre Season starts this weekend with Blackbird, and in the meantime, this is a poem that somewhat described the dislocation sensation of being home/interviewing/home/traveling/home/in France/home/in India this past holiday.

Mayakovsky - Frank O'Hara

Now I am quietly waiting for

the catastrophe of my personality

to seem beautiful again,

and interesting, and modern.

The country is grey and

brown and white in trees,

snows and skies of laughter

always diminishing, less funny

not just darker, not just grey.

It may be the coldest day of

the year, what does he think of

that? I mean, what do I? And if I do,

perhaps I am myself again.

rain in the realm of fantasy

(photo taken by Jeppe during Ganpati in September)

Issues are slowly culminating on this little hill of ours. It really feels like part of the 'experience' - we're struggling with the implementation of (surprising?) rules, spending time in meetings and heated courtyard discussions instead of studying or sleeping, and through all this controversy of sorts figuring out our ideas, ideals and priorities.

At least, so I like to think.

We've been told about rules that will now be properly enforced, such as the one about not sleeping in other rooms and have been presented with new ones, including the appointment of some sort of 'paternal figure', who will aid us in our 'living' here. Everything is a little dubious and ambiguous as of right now, but discussion (as long as that will truly occur) ought to help all of us (as the 'community' we like to call ourselves) work out something, at least personally.

On a less serious note, I went down for Active English today for the first time this term. I got a group of boys to play games with outside, which was a lot of fun and a welcome relief to be able to imitate animals, race through 'heads, shoulders, knees and toes' and just generally think no further than the next 'educational' game we could play to keep up the energy.

explosion explode

close up of hans hartung's T. 1966-R.4

winterbreak 2010/11 is over, and thus i have returned to india for what will be the last time in a while. it's exciting, it's worrying, it's nostalgia-inducing, it's sunny, it's disorientating and school started today.

hans hartung, T. 1966-R. 4

busy with piles of ib coursework, laundry and social 'obligations', it's incredible how fast the time here at a uwc has gone. i feel changed, static, tired, a mixingmeltingpot of fears and hopes and thoughts and loves.

irma blank, eigenschriften

last term, i went to see the dalai lama talk at a peace festival in pune, celebrated ganpati (honouring ganesha and throwing red powder at eachother) and diwali (the festival of light), made another art installation and traveled the south of india. i've been home too, and i'm trying to remember to keep dreaming.

nieuwjaarduik scheveningen 2011 (source)

we went to paris, where these art photos are from, and spent time in france, during which i finally started my ee properly. at home, i did the new year dive for the third time, and got interviewed by a chinese radio as they spotted my chinese heritage. after brief visits to the museum, town, library and friends, i was back on a plane out.

i ran into an italian friend from school on the plane, and am now working my way through the things i need to do. hopefully, i'll have pictures of traveling/art/campus soon, so this blog will be kept a little more up to date.

here's to one more term of writing in indian ink!

x.