Eero Yli-Vakkuri
The West (2018) ContraPoints. She’s referencing Kwame Anthony Appiah (notes from earlier). An entertaining video highlighting contradictions that make up the definition of “the west”.
A young kid in the Sternberg Park children playground had a snake with her. She wore it around her shoulders and waist while walking around a water fountain. Kids swarmed around her but they soon got bored and continued with their games.
Learned about Shaun Leonardo’s I Can’t Breathe workshops (a 2017 article on Hyperallergic by Seph Rodney). Leonardo’s workshops are in stark contrast to the Police Horse Care & Control workshops we organised with Pietari. Leonardo is teaching people how to survive police chokeholds – We are teaching audiences what it feels like to support the weight of a police officer with your body and to have your body supported by theirs in exchange.
Finnish Cultural Institute in New York published my artist profile on their website.
Participating in the ISCP weekly Open Doors Thursday. The beginning of the day was busy. I got to meet nice people but I got tired pretty fast. I retreated into my studio and started to log/quasi-edit Signal #6 (Cifas) footage which was shot by by Camille Laufer in 2017. Here is a raw cut of the Trans-Horse Parade and some footage form Care & Control workshops.
My visit to Staten Island (on Monday) felt like a beating, I’m still recovering. Busses were late, I was late, it was hot and I was so sweaty I couldn’t hold my camera rig steady. I didn’t have stamina to direct the interview I shot. The footage is almost good, better then I feared (More on that later). Bought a Rode RodeLink Wireless microphone system which worked well (Learning how to balance the audio will take a while).
Discovered Kensington Stables at Prospect Park. 45$ for an hour with a horse – Not bad! I learned from the news that there are a drastic development plans for the area and the local urban horse culture is under thread. I guess I’ll go to a riding class next week.
Why the Ed Sheeran lawsuit makes no sense (2018) Adam Neely. A very convincing video, arguing that some copyright lawsuits benefit lawyers (who work for corporations), at the expense of artists (who work for music).
Animals and Anthropology (2018) AnthroPod podcast. A good source for learning about approaches animal studies offer anthropology (and arts). When human interests (white male) are positioned outside the focus of a study, different beings have the opportunity to emerge. For example “wildness” (as a state of being) is linked to colonial views of what nature is. Wildlife reserves are for animals which fit westerners views on how wild beings should behave – Uninterfered by human development, like in paradise. The podcast provides (yet an other) argument that anthropomorphisation is not as bad as previously thought, when it offers us a way to approach others (as informants of situated knowledge). There is also a call for decolonisation of animal studies.
More-than-Human Politics (2016) AnthroPod podcast. A less compact series of talks and discussions, which investigates how to translate nonhuman knowledge into words and texts. I think this is a silly question to begin with… It’s not actually a question, it’s a statement (or a prayer, like loreipsum), uttered to further the omnipotence of words. The statement is fuelled by able-bodied nostalgia and a mystic believe that there is a meaning behind what we experience. Judging from a recent column Sofie Oksanen is a victim of the same mysticism A Soviet shadow looms over the Putin-Trump summit in Helsinki (2018).
Language shapes reality, and our recent history still makes Finland behave in a certain way.
DIY Margiela Fusion Sneakers (2018) Tabasko Sweet. (Yet another) Artist learning to cope in queer plasticity futures. Very inspirational craftsmanship.