Community, Memory, and the Difficulty of Being Alive
#132: Pacita Abad, Jose Tence Ruiz, Oli Mould, Diébédo Francis Kéré (P. Clayborne), Sikodiwa Reader (C. L. Cervantes), Squeaky Ants (K. Shen), and "Memory" (by Futurescape)
HERE & NOW
In case you were wondering, this issue is emerging a bit late, due to prior commitments.
The last couple of issues have me contemplating memory and community, and the difficulties of being alive. The links I chose for the Rabbit Hole section—and even the “squeaky ants” link—reflect that. After reading and writing about the gratitude ritual of the Subanen people, I find myself thinking more often about what I’m grateful for. Likewise, the anger expressed by my grandmother and the Sambal people have me pondering the roots of my mother’s anger, as well as my own. Recently I re-read my old essay, “Filipinos in the Midwestern Chautauqua Circuit,” published in Our Own Voice: Filipinos in the Diaspora1 (2004), inspired by my grandfather’s role as a musician performing at international expositions for the Philippine Constabulary Band in the early 20th century, before leaving the Philippines to live in the Midwest.
I suspect that the most difficult aspect of this family research will be the parts relating to war, or wars (at least two, possibly three), which have played oversized roles in the lives of my family and my ancestors.
So, I’ll keep delving into my family history through my parents’ letters, as well as the cultural and historical contexts, and continue writing about it in Eulipion Outpost.2 Yet, how does all this relate back to arts and culture, the topic to which this newsletter is dedicated? I think that all the artists, writers, and scholars I’ve featured in the “Rabbit Hole” and “Soundings” sections, below, have some possible answers to that question—even Kuai Shen, the Ecuadorian naturalist who studies the sounds that ants make!
ART
The first drawing, below, was a doodle drawn while watching Lynch/Oz, an independent documentary by Alexandre O. Philippe. The second, even smaller, drawing is a spawn of the first. Neither of them address the film in any focused way, other than being traces of the (mostly) abstract shapes emerging from my imagination during and after the film.
Like many of the Boomer generation—including director David Lynch—The Wizard of Oz film starring Judy Garland (1938), had a big influence on me when I was a kid3—aided by the fact that I also read the entire series of books by feminist writer L. Frank Baum—thanks to my childhood buddy, Annette Rosenberg. The Lynch/Oz documentary viewed the film through Lynch’s eyes, excavating the dark, surreal tension around the 1950s post-war innocent longing for “home” or a homeland, and the dark realities of what it takes for settlers to claim that space.
RABBIT HOLE
A retrospective show on the works of the well-traveled multimedia and textile artist Pacita Abad has been up at SFMOMA for several months. It ends today, so if you missed it here’s a video of Victoria Sung discussing her work in depth:
“The relevant and irreverent Jose Tence Ruiz” in Positively Filipino, and a video on “The Difficulty of Being Alive”:
. . .Do I use my knowledge for ornamentalism? I think that’s the question we ask ourselves every time. Do I just do something to brighten up your wall?”—Jose Tence Ruiz
I’ve been reading a book by Oli Mould called Seven Ethics Against Capitalism, which advocates for a planetary (as opposed to “global”) commons, a kind of solar-punk approach to challenging the inequalities of authoritarian systems. Strangely enough, I first encountered Mould from reviews about his earlier book, Against Creativity—a phrase that I think the author chose to purposely raise hackles, although it relates more to the hypocritical use of “creativity” by government and corporations as a political construct to co-opt our creative impulses.
Peter Clayborne (of Anarchy Unfolds) spotlights Burkina Faso architect Diébédo Francis Kéré. As Clayborne’s article and Kéré’s Ted Talk (below) reveals, Kéré draws on the cultures and resources of local communities to inform and construct his designs, which are beautiful. “At the intersection of utopia and pragmatism we create contemporary architecture that feeds the imagination with an afro-futurist vision.”—Francis Kéré
Carl Lorenz Cervantes’ Substack newsletter, the Sikodiwa Reader, explores folk psychology and indigenized spirituality of the Philippines. Is it possible to be an animist in an urban space? This is one among a number of questions he addresses:
We bravely enter the dark forest of our collective cultural subconscious to seek the hidden wellsprings of ancestral memory. —Carl Lorenz Cervantes
SOUNDINGS
Ants are squeaky. . . and percussive. Here is the sound of ants communicating, from Kuai Shen, an Equadorian naturalist and media artist who loves ants and is interested in multispecies cooperation. Check out his article on the rain ants of Sarayaku. And here’s an interview with him:
“Memory,” very relaxing, Japanese-cyberpunk-inspired ambient sounds for a rainy day by Futurescape:
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Our Own Voice was edited by author and archivist Remé-Antonia Grefalda who, I learned several years ago, is a cousin!
. . . maybe not all of it, and not in every issue; I want to save some for the book project that I hope will emerge from this.
. . . even if I didn’t see it until a couple decades after it was released (on television).