“Beauty had this penalty—it came too readily, came too completely.” (VW)
had this penalty
Author: dig
AG2023_1120828a or through the valley-depths of shade and dark obscurity
“like being pleasant to touch and smell,
like converting sunlight
into food, like making it easier
for us to breathe.”
“Say maiden wilt thou go with me
Through the valley-depths of shade,
Of night and dark obscurity
[…]
To live in death and be the same
Without this life
[…]
The present mixed with reasons gone
And past, and present all as one.”
AG2023_1120885b or scenes of assemblage
“What constitutes infrastructure, in contrast, are the patterns, habits, norms, and scenes of assemblage and use.
This is what it means to invent alter-life from within life,
heterotopian impulse” (LB)
AG2023_1120885a or madness illuminates his heart
“This sudden access to terrestrial madness illuminates his heart: he begins to think about the other Caribbean islands, their volcanoes, their earthquakes, their hurricanes.” (SC)
“engender dissociation and prefer the inconclusiveness of life in ellipsis.
[…]
heterotopian, which attends to living in the copresence of many forms of life.” (LB)
Recently seen while out there
Suzanne Césaire
“Spinelessness takes hold of this divided heart. And, with it, the usual trickery, the taste for “schemes”; thus blossoms in the Antilles this flower of human baseness, the colored bourgeoisie.
And when, abruptly, in the Caribbean night, all decked out in love and quiet, there bursts forth the call of drums, the Blacks ready themselves to respond to the desire of the earth and of the dance,
It is thus that the Caribbean conflagration blows its silent fumes, blinding for the only eyes that know how to see,”
“The Great Camouflage”, trans. Keith L. Walker, in Césaire, The Great Camouflage, 2012, pp 39-46. monoskop.org
Present
1-54 is pleased to present Sparkling Islands, Another Postcard of the Caribbean, a group exhibition of contemporary Caribbean artists coinciding with the fair’s 9th New York edition. This is the first exhibition by 1-54 Presents, a new programme of pop-up exhibitions by 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair; curated by Caryl Ivrisse Crochemar; 11 – 20 May 2023.
Diane Enns on Thinking Through Loneliness
Q: Thinking Through Loneliness also draws on artistic and literary works. How did working with these texts help you in thinking through loneliness?
I wouldn’t know how to discuss any intense experience of suffering without reference to artistic and literary works. To be moved by a work is as essential, in my view, as to be inspired or provoked intellectually. I was struck by the longing for intimacy conveyed in Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved decades ago on my first of many reads, which has stayed with me. And who can read Franz Kafka’s story ‘The Metamorphosis’ without shuddering over the terrifying alienation and loneliness of Gregor Samsa, understanding our own alienation through an encounter with his?
It would be difficult to analyse loneliness by referring exclusively to philosophical texts that engage with the subject, since there are so few. And in general, aside from Fromm-Reichmann’s 1959 essay, ‘Loneliness’, and a handful of other works, I found the social science literature to be rather too scholarly for understanding such a complex experience. Many of the categorisations of this or that type of loneliness landed too far from the original experience and as a result glossed over the vicissitudes of loneliness.
The most poignant descriptions of human experience always come from artists and writers. Given their intent is not to settle the rich complexity of an experience into something more systematised and palatable, we really must look to them for understanding.
Q and A with Professor Diane Enns on Thinking Through Loneliness (2022)