Monday 24 April 2023

#171: Losing It and Loving It (Self-portrait XVI)

You: 

lost in something you enjoy: 

in the state where you are losing your shit and loving it: 

where you just don’t care how you look: 

you are not even thinking about it: 

(zero fucks):


you are just in that moment: 

doing whatever in wherever.


(For example, while singing it loud at the indie disco).


Monday 17 April 2023

#170: Divine Youth? (Self-portrait XV)

The self-portrait in your own mind of how you imagine yourself to be.  That is, the version that lives inside your current self and that is the image you see in your mind’s eye before looking in the mirror - possibly causing you to get a bit of a surprise when you see the real you - especially if, like Nicky Wire, you are seeing a sort-of idealised younger version of yourself and your inner self does not match-up with your outer self: 

“Divine youth is lying in

A battered and a bruised skin

I wear but don't recognise.”

Monday 10 April 2023

#169: Put yourself in Munch's place (Self-portrait XIV)

Take a look at Edvard Munch’s Self-Portrait. Between the Clock and the Bed.  


Behind him is a room full of light, showing his life and work.  Beside him stands a reminder of passing, counting down his time left on earth, to one side, and, to the other, his deathbed.  Each waiting to take him away.  


Put yourself in Munch’s place. 


What would you be leaving behind at The End?  

What would be in the room behind to represent your life?


And how would you look when facing the inevitable? 

What would be going through your head?

:

What would your Self-Portrait look like?


Monday 3 April 2023

#168: National Memory (History of Britain's Involvement in Slavery Edition)

A display cabinet alongside a filing cabinet.  

In each is a card.  

The one in the display cabinet reads, “What do we want to display?” while the one in the filing cabinet reads, “What do we want to file away and forget?”  

The display cabinet additionally contains a number of boards on which are printed the following articles:

Olusoga, David (2023) The Ties That Bind Us. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2023/mar/28/slavery-and-the-guardian-the-ties-that-bind-us (Accessed: 28-29 March 2023).

Younge, Gary (2023) Lest we remember: How Britain Buried Its History of Slavery. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2023/mar/29/lest-we-remember-how-britain-buried-its-history-of-slavery (Accessed: 29-30 March 2023).


See also: The Guardian Cotton Capital Special Series.

#167: Collective (and Individual) Memory and Forgetting

A mantelpiece and a wastepaper basket.  

One card stands on the mantelpiece in a frame, another is crumpled and sits in the bin.  

Both read, “What goes here?”


After: Spinney, Laura (2022) If the secret police had a file on you, why wouldn’t you want to see it? Ask the Germans spied on by the Stasi. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/nov/28/secret-police-have-file-do-you-want-to-see-it-stasi-east-germany-siegfried-wittenburg (Accessed: 28 November 2022).