Our Homeland is Each Other
Dear Friends,
I am writing, because I think we share certain values and a sense of solidarity, that there is a connection between us that transcends borders, class differences, religion and ethnicity - no matter for how long we haven’t heard from each other, or even if we lost contact. And this awareness is not limited to the art world.
"In the current climate of arrested utopias, attacks on cultural heritage, assaults on imagination and knowledge, the Imago Mundi global art project breaks the silence, transcends differences, and aims to raise awareness on the power of contemporary art beyond geographical and political borders."
(Imago Mundi)
The declared goal of Imago Mundi is to map the global contemporary art world and there are already 20,000 artists from 150 countries involved in the project. Now I have been invited to the Imago Mundi Highlights project. Each participant is commissioned to work with a pre-fabricated small canvas (10cm x 12cm). We are allowed to remove the canvas, and only use the frame. The final object can be up to 7cm deep.
With my contribution I want to mirror the idea of the Imago Mundi Project, on a smaller personal scale: to highlight that there are networks based on friendship, no matter how close or distant we are from each other - and that we all operate within them. No-one is just a self-contained ‘Self’. To visualise this very basic thought, I am going to make a piece that consists of several smaller bits that fit together like a puzzle (physically held in place by the frame I have been given by Imago Mundi). Each piece will be cast in resin. Remove one piece and the puzzle becomes unstable, remove too many pieces and it falls apart.
For this puzzle I would like to invite each one of you to send me a small sample of dust, dirt or soil from a place that has a personal significance for you. It is meant to be just a small amount that fits easily in a standard envelope to be sent by post. Please email me a few lines about why you chose to send me a sample from the particular place you chose - if there is such a place. I am interested in a sense of ‘belonging’. If such a place does not exist for you I would still like to invite you to write me a few lines. Please feel free to email me your text in the language that feels right for you to write in. It could be English, but I am also very happy to receive the text in your mother tongue (Danish, Polish, Spanish, Arabic, German, Korean, Russian, Hindi, French, ...). All texts will be collected on a website, sort of a digital counter-part to the physical object.
THIS PROJECT STILL IS A WORK IN PROGRESS. EACH ONE OF YOU ALREADY IS REPRESENTED BY A CLEAR PUZZLE PIECE. AS SOON AS YOU SEND ME A TEXT OR SOME DIRT OR SOIL, I WILL CAST A NEW PIECE TO REPLACE THE PIECE THAT NOW STANDS IN FOR YOU. I WILL SEND YOU THE CLEAR PUZZLE PIECE AS A GIFT, A TOKEN OF OUR CONNECTION THAT TRANSCENDS BORDERS, CLASS DIFFERENCES, RELIGION AND ENTHNICITY.
I’d be very happy to hear from you - I am curious to know how you are doing. Write me in any case. I hope you are good!
With warm greetings,
Daniel
2017 - present
to be longing
to belong
to be
( )
Art Theorema #1
Daniel in conversation with Irina Ungureanu
Art Theorema #1
Curated by Irina Ungureanu & Claudio Scorretti
Art Theorema is a continuation of the research and promotion of the artistic talents in Imago Mundi; it integrates the over 150 collections dedicated to the nations and native communities of five continents. This first collection, Art Theorema#1, presents 231 works by 203 artists from 104 countries.
Irina Ungureanu: You are an emerging German artist with a special focus on individuals and communities. Previously you worked with disabled people during one year of Voluntary Service in India and coming back to Europe you studied Philosophy at Freie Universität in Berlin, before becoming an artist. How did your previous experience influence your artistic evolution?
Daniel: When I was a child I loved to draw and to paint. I always wanted to become an artist. Yet in India I understood Geography for the first time - what it meant to be born in a wealthy country: to be privileged by birth. In India there is so much more poverty and truly urgent social issues. When I returned from India in my early twenties, “making art” felt somehow pointless and meaningless in comparison. This is why I started to study a combination of Social Sciences and Philosophy in Berlin. However, back in Germany I felt that some things that I appreciated in India, i.e. how the members of a village community rely on each other, the support structure in families, a certain openness and straightforwardness in everyday interactions, were lacking in the much more reserved “West”.
I never completed my studies in Berlin. Despite all my doubts I decided to still become an artist, but with a different perception of what kind of ‘art’ I wanted to make. I am interested in communities (and individuals), in class, identity and migration, in social organization and coping strategies. To make a new piece of work is a negotiation process. I see it as an interplay of action, reaction and reflection.
Irina Ungureanu: For a certain period in your life, while being a student, you lived in a van, which became your “mobile studio”. How did this choice impact on your art projects?
Daniel: I could not afford to live and, at the same time, study in London without making debts. So I tried to find an alternative, a gap in the system that I could use to my advantage. In a way, to live in a van was a necessity at that time. But it also meant that I had to learn the rules first: I had to make sure that I could find an affordable van which still met London’s Low Emission Standards to avoid heavy fines. Also, I had to find a safe place where I could park, but luckily I have a good network of allies and friends. With their help I discovered Cody Dock in the London Borough of Newham. Officially I am Cody Dock’s first artist in residence.
When it comes to my projects, I learned a great deal from this experience, especially about rules and regulations and how to navigate them. I do a lot of background research for each project, and as soon as the direction is clear I am happy if I end up with a more open outcome. I like friction, chance encounters, detours and surprises that change or challenge, sometimes even make the piece.
Irina Ungureanu: Starting from the idea of Imago Mundi, you created a project focused on the topic of belonging, in which you intended to bring together over 140 individuals from all parts of the world. The initial phase, presented in your artwork for this collection, has involved 32 people who contributed to your miniature 10 x 12 cm work: a puzzle that embodies the idea of networking, of affinity and interrelation. Which is the story behind this idea and how do you see it develop in the future?
Daniel: When I was invited to participate I chose Imago Mundi’s declared goal to transcend differences and to raise awareness on the power of contemporary art on a global scale as a starting point. I immediately thought about how the variable network of social contacts that every person builds during a lifetime also has the potential to transcend differences on a very personal level: through friendship. So, I sat down and I wrote a list of names of all my relatives, my closest childhood friends, loved ones, more recent friends, people who helped me out when I was in trouble and everybody who can count on me, but also more recent professional contacts, artists and curators with whom I think I share certain values and ideas: a total 146 names.
At this point in time, 32 people have responded. The work remains a work in progress, even though it also is “complete” in a way. It can always be exhibited in its current state, further pieces can be added and, with each new contribution, pieces will be moved. Networks change over time. And there is space in the object to reflect this change.
Irina Ungureanu: A collaborative, relational process, rather than an individual path? How do you see the future of contemporary art evolution?
Daniel: If I look at the world today, I think it is in general more and more necessary to network and to meet people in order to sustain an artistic practice. I also think it is easier to raise relevant questions by trying out ideas collaboratively or in direct relation to others. So yes, I think if art wants to retain a meaningful dimension, it should be be more of a collaborative process rather than an individual path.
Our Homeland is Each Other
Ada Kruszynski
Adetayo Duroshola
Al Cree
Albertine Duscher
Alberto Duman
Alicja Rogalska
Pele's Hair
Instead of dust, dirt or soil I've given you a lock of Pele's Hair - thin basaltic glass fibers which are a form of lava named after the Hawaiian goddess Pele. The strands are created when molten lava is ejected into the air from lava fountains and cascades in the form of tiny droplets (Pele's Tears) that then stretch and elongate. In Hawaiian mythology Pele is a goddess of fire, dance and volcanoes; she lives in the crater of the Kilauea volcano.
There are many legends about Pele's provenance - one claims that she was expelled from her family home in Tahiti, another that she fell in love with a mortal and travelled to Hawaii to be with her lover, creating other islands on the way. What's remarkable is that Pele's route described in the legends mirrors the progression of volcanic activity in geologic time, that is - long before humans.
I have a jar of Pele's Hair on my mantelpiece and it really does look like hair. It was a present given to my partner and I a few years ago by Emily Paige Short.
I met Emily for the first time in 2009 at Arsenal Gallery in Poznań, Poland where she was installing a large, kinetic, Buckminster Fuller-esque recycled wood sculpture for a group exhibition we were both participating in. Afterwards, we saw each other a few times in London, and we occasionally exchanged messages. In the meantime Emily decided to study geology and cycled around Iceland to raise money for children in Haiti, victims of the 2010 earthquake. When Martin and I were travelling to Iceland on a shoestring budget a year later, she kindly lent us her tent and a camping stove. After we got back, we invited Emily for a dinner as a thank you, and since she'd just returned from a volcanology summer school on Hawaii, she gave us the jar of Pele's hair. I think this was probably the last time I saw Emily, as we were both travelling extensively and working lots and life got in the way. In December 2014 Emily killed herself. I found out about it from Facebook. I had no idea she had suffered from depression.
P.S. Be careful when handling Pele's Hair - it is very brittle and very sharp, and pieces can pierce the skin or harm your lungs when inhaled.
André Chapatte
Andrea Basti
Andrea di Serego
Andreas Martin Kolb
Steinchen vom Gehweg neben dem Fluss meiner Kindheit
(München, Bayern)
Little stones from the path next to the river of my childhood
(Munich, Bavaria)
Irgendwie werden die Zeiten immer finsterer. Es passieren immer mehr Dinge, die man nie für möglich gehalten hat, jetzt hat jeder von uns einen Freund verloren und wird mit der Endlichkeit des Lebens konfrontiert. Als meine Großväter gestorben sind war das eine Art Normalität aber jetzt mit meinem Studiumskollegen Robert und Niklas, den ich jeden Morgen an der Bushaltestelle gesehen habe als ich noch mit dem Bus in die Schule gefahren bin. Wir werden sie nicht vergessen und sie werden mich immer daran erinnern wie wertvoll unsere Zeit im Leben ist und wie wenig wir eigentlich davon haben.
Mein Plan war, dir ein bisschen von dem Flussbett zu senden in dem ich praktisch meine Kindheit verbracht habe. Steinchen vom Gehweg neben dem Fussbett sind auf dem Weg zu dir und sollte heute oder morgen bei dir ankommen.
Aneta Szyłak
Anita Burato
Anna Keen
Anne de Boer
Annelie Menzel
Ashraaf Ahmad Azlan
Awa Sanou
Benedict Seymour
Benjamin Breitkopf
Benjamin Wellen
Carl Anderson
Cecilia Bengtsson
Charlotte Warne Thomas
Foil of 24kt Gold
In the spirit of collaboration, which I know from experience you are an excellent participator in, I enclose a foil of 24kt gold. This shows the remains of a work I made for Lindsay Seers, a response to her 23sec film made for us, 'Peer Sessions', on the occasion of our collaborative exhibition 'Future Refrains'. I feel that this little piece of gold, and its short history, reflects the intention of your piece made for 'Imago Mundi' well, in that it links us, and it is sent in the spirit of collaboration and friendship. I envisage that you can remove some of the gold and it into 'my' resin puzzle piece - which should look nice I hope. It is up to you of course, but I hope you will be able to weave it into your project somehow, and I look forward to seeing the results. I hope this will do instead of a sample of soil or dust... I don't feel that attached to any places that have soil or or dust - but gold is another story!
P.s. Of course gold is also a great metaphor for friendship - it is indestructible and so rare - always worth its weight in gold!
Chris Timms
Claudio Scorretti
Dagmar Dressel
Daniel Dressel
Venice to Munich / October 2017
Lynne and me are on a sleeper train from Venice to Munich.
We spent the last four days at the Venice Biennale.
The train conductor just told us that another guest would join us in Udine, our last stop before the Austrian border. Nevertheless we try to sleep. We are the only two people in a six person sleeper compartment, so we decided to take the two top beds.
In Udine we wake up because someone enters our compartment. He is a shy, middle-aged man, with a train ticket in his hand. He is black. I ask him wether it is ok if I locked the door. He nods and prepares his bed at the bottom.
I have difficulties to fall asleep.
When I look down I see the man on the floor. He crouches in a corner and he is moving the luggage around.
Finally I drift away.
"BOOM BOOM BOOM"
"OPEN THE DOOR!"
"BOOM BOOM BOOM"
"POLICE, OPEN THE DOOR!"
I wake up, my heart is racing. I must have dreamt heavy. The train is not moving anymore.
"BOOM BOOM BOOM"
"POLICE, OPEN THE DOOR!"
It is very hard to open the lever. Sleep drunk. Somebody is pushing on the other side.
It takes a while...
"AUSTRIAN BORDER POLICE, IDENTIFY YOURSELVES!"
"PASSPORTS PLEASE!"
I look down and I cannot see the other traveller anymore. His bed is empty. At first I cannot find my passport. I'm still waking up. The police points his torch into our faces. I am very annoyed. Then I find it. A quick inspection: everything seems to be ok.
"WHERE IS THE THIRD PASSENGER?"
I have no idea. I have slept and so did Lynne. The police men search between the different bags under the bed. They point their torches into dark corners. Then they find him. He is hiding under his bed.
"SHOW ME YOUR PAPERS!"
He is still crouching, panic in his eyes, like a beaten dog, his arms raised up.
"SHOW ME YOUR PAPERS!"
"YOU UNDERSTAND?"
"GERMAN? ENGLISH?"
"NOW! SHOW ME YOUR PAPERS!"
"NOW! NOW! NOW!"
The man ducks down. Then he finds his papers. I can see them, German refugee registration papers. He must have left his 'zone'.
"AHHHHH REFUGEEE..."
"YOU! COME WITH US NOW! TAKE YOUR THINGS. COME."
Then the police officer turns at us and shouts:
"DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS?"
"DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS?"
He stutters. Loud and angry.
"BECAUSE IF YOU DID..."
"IF IF IF..."
"YOU DID!"
"THEN THEN THEN..."
By now I am angry. What then? Of course we knew he was here! The man has a ticket. If the police says one more thing, I will ask for their credentials, name and ID. I am still waking up. Everything feels like a bad dream. They handcuff the man and they take him away. As they go Lynne touches his shoulder and wishes him good luck. We will never see him again.
I regret that I did not ask for their credentials. I should have done it and I am still angry.
Another ID check at the German border. This night is chopped into brief periods of insufficient sleep.
Before we reach Munich the train conductor enters our compartment with three sets of breakfast. He asks about our fellow traveller. When we tell him that he was taken by the police he is shocked. Even though the man had a valid ticket, the conductor was not notified when he was arrested. Only Lynne and me witnessed it, the other guests were sleeping.
The conductor leaves two sets of breakfast with us. He takes the third one away.
Things happen at night.
It felt violent - and it was done in secret.
I don't feel anymore like I belong to a specific place. But for sure I belong to a network of people, to family and friends that hold me, to people that share certain ideals and that live in different places on this planet, some in places where they feel at home, others forced from home. If we strengthen and reinforce our ties, if we keep to grow our support for each other, with a genuine acceptance of each other's differences, then we might eventually start to work toward a different future, together - when no police forces our door open to drag out our fellow travellers in handcuffs, simply because they supposedly are not supposed to be where they are.
Daniela Haag
Dave Charlesworth
Dave Corbet
From the Site of Green Academy Trust / former Croft Nursery
Nottingham, UK
Croft
Fell off climbing frame.
Remember boy with eye patch and
the pretty teacher in a fur coat.
Mum’s Lipstick.
Speech therapy.
Picky eater
spoon fed margarine,
before Diana.
Fire in bus depot,
next door to nursery.
Burnt rubber
toxic black metal ribs.
Brittle acrylic recast
into viscid tectonics.
David Mabb
Dimitri Procofieff
Dina Türtscher
Dirk Dressel
Dominique Rivoal
Dorina Kleinlein
Dorothee Löhner
Dorothee Schelenz
Eloïse Bonneviot
Emily Rosamond
Eva Balzer
Fika Magarik
Florent Borgna
Francesco Lauscher
Francis Almendárez
Frederik Lindner
Plant Soil
Moving to a new place, a new city - it takes some time to get connected to people and even to the surroundings. It takes time to create a history that you are a part of. In the last five years I have lived in four different cities. The soil I am most connected to is the one in my flowerpot. My flatmate shared an offset of a plant with me, years ago. Now it moves around with me. Even though I haven't seen my flatmate in years, it reminds me of the good times we had. Soil full of roots.
Frederique Pisuisse
Gabi Herrmann
Brotkrümel von meinem Tisch
Breadcrumbs from my dining table
"Mein Tisch"
- barock, bis 10m ausziehbar. Hab' ihn in der Scheune neben einem schwäbischen Herrenhaus entdeckt und fast geschenkt bekommen —- den Besitzern zu gross.
Seit 1975 —— mein Lieblingsmöbelstück.
Er ist Zentrum für Familie, Freunde, allerlei Gäste und auch für mich zum schreiben, malen, lesen.
Am glücklichsten bin ich, wenn alle Plätze um ihn herum besetzt sind, diniert und gefeiert wird:
- deshalb "Brotkrümel" - vom meinem Tisch.
Ganesh Nepal
Gerhard Vollmond
Holzrückstände und Keuper aus dem Main
Wood Shavings and Keuper from the river Main
Keuper
Mein Leben lang habe ich in Orten am Main gewohnt: Ochsenfurt, Kahl, Schweinfurt, Würzburg, Aschaffenburg, Margetshöchheim. Der Wasserlauf, Fluss, begleitete mich immer bei Wanderungen, Spaziergängen, Radtouren mit seiner malerischen Landschaft, den Weinbergen und seinem Klima. - Zuerst alleine, dann mit meiner Familie.
Holzrückstände
Aus meiner Werkstatt: hier kann ich mich gehen lassen und entfalte, werkeln und hantieren. Ich kann entstehen und schaffend tätig werden. Als Rest bleiben Sägemehl und Holzspäne übrig. Das Weggenommene, das das Werk sichtbar macht.
Aus Kirsche (vom Vater) und aus Eibe (aus meinem Garten).
Gui Pondé
Hasmukh Vasava
Hiltrud Geis
Staub / Schmutz aus meinem Wohnmobil
Dust / Dirt from my Campervan
Mein kleines Wohnmobil ist der Ort, in dem ich ganz bei mir und mit mir sein kann, Es bringt mich zu Begegnungen mit Menschen, Landschaften und Kultur. All dies bereichert mein Leben.
Hrafnhildur Helgadóttir
Hugh Nicholson
Huib Swets
Ilya Plotnikov
Irina Ungureanu
Iris van Wijhe
Jacob Raeder
James Roach
Jana Zapf
Humus
Humus
Als Symbol für Werden und Vergehen hat Erde für mich derzeit eine besonders große Bedeutung. Im Herbst ist mein Vater nach einer kurzen Krebserkrankung gestorben. Viele Gedanken und Erinnerungen voller Dankbarkeit für all die wunderbaren Momente, Augenblicke und gemeinsamen Erlebnisse sind seitdem ständige Begleiter für mich.
Gleichzeitig warte ich gerade darauf, dass meine Tochter sich auf den Weg zu uns macht und das Licht der Welt erblickt.
So nahe liegt doch alles zusammen, - ein ewiger (?) Kreislauf.
Die Erde stammt aus dem Komposthaufen im Garten meiner Eltern. Als er angelegt wurde, war ich noch nicht im Kindergarten, fand das Holzgestell als Klettergerüst jedoch sehr spannend. Seitdem wurde er bereits viele Male von meinem Vater erneuert. Im Sommer wird mein Sohn vermutlich seine ersten Kletterversuche daran erproben, beobachten wie der Kompost umgesetzt und die frische Erde gesiebt wird. Wir werden gemeinsam die Hände in die frische Erde stecken und ihre Kraft spüren.
Jenn Romero
Joachim Drescher
Jochen Vollmond
Haselnusspollen (konzentriert)
Hazel Pollen (concentrated)
Jochi Labourt
When I think about belonging many things come to mind: migration is the first one. Moving, changing contexts, taking a distance from whats the closest to you. Thats when you become aware of where you come from; but I guess belonging has another layer, something related to attachment and a certain kind of comfort that's associated with familiarity, to something that became familiar through time and repetition, and building a specific relation with certain things. Belonging makes me think of a past time spent building something: relations (to people, to things, to places, ways of doing, getting to understand /know/see them in particular ways). It stands for hours of one's life invested in these what makes it valuable, and the feelings associated to them. I always think on the line on Le Petit Prince about the rose: “It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important”.
On another note, I think the rawest association of belonging is the body. Belonging makes me put into question my /our relation with our own bodies. It feels that the body is our first level of belonging, the one place that (as long as we are alive) is always there (it can transform, change shape, suffer, lose parts, makes us feel uncomfortable and not belonging as well, but to exist we need to inhabit its shape somehow), and inevitably we must spend time building a relation with it in order to survive: we feed it, wash it, we give it rest, dress it ("it"?), we appropriate it since childhood. There are also many people for whom being in a body of certain characteristics makes them specifically uncomfortable and difficult thing the feeling of belonging to it in terms of identity and how the world hierarchizes certain bodies and identities over others. I've been thinking a lot about growing old these days, how all these changes happen to our bodies, unavoidably, and how this materiality that was with us since birth wears out progressively , somehow expelling life from it as it gets closer to its limit of endurance time , somehow making the feeling of belonging to it more and more difficult and painful. I still need to experience it more thoroughly to understand it better.
John O’Driscoll
Irish Coral
Jonas Dressel
Jonas Herrmann
Pyritstaub
Pyrite Dust
Pyritstaub steht für meine Leidenschaft. Steine haben eine ewige Geschichte hinter sich und werden noch länger existieren.
Jonathan Montague
José Varela
Judith Vollmond
Erde / Kulturzentrum E-Werk, Erlangen, Dutschland
Earth / Cultural Centre E-Werk, Erlangen, Germany
Seit ich die Konzertfotografie für mich entdeckt habe, kriegt mich nichts mehr unter... Sie ist wie Therapie für mich, wie viele, viele kurze Auszeiten aus dem Alltag, besser als Urlaub, der perfekte Ausgleich. Sie erfüllt mich und macht mich unbesiegbar. Egal was passiert, iim Fotografieren ist die Welt vergessen und ich bin nur bei mir, allein mit meinen Emotionen. Diese Erde stammt vom Kulturzentrum E-Werk in Erlangen, Deutschland. Dort fotografiere ich regelmäßig und verbinde mit diesem Ort endlos zauberhafte, energiegeladene, bewegende, beruhigende, durch und durch glückliche Adrenalin-Momente.
www.vollmond-konzertfotografie.de
Jules Shapter
Julia Briscoe
St Andrews Sand
I have given you a little envelope with sand from the East Sands in St Andrews, Scotland. I grew up in Scotland and spent whole summers on this beach. I knew the best rock pools for crabs and limpets, I knew the best patches to swim in the sea where the warm patches from currents were and where you wouldn't get tangled in any seaweed. I could see the beach from my kitchen and bedroom windows and I knew every tide. My mother would make us get changed in the porch to stop the "endless spread of sand into the house". I used to inspect the jelly fish that washed up from deep sea following storms, I used to climb the cliffs and watch nesting birds, I used to try to dig holes to get to Austrailia or at least feel the heat of the centre of the earth or even just find bed rock - failed each time. I used to dig canal networks and islands for the tides to submerge. I used to watch the grey seals watching me and think about the shapeshifting legends from Orkney of Selkies who are seals in the sea but turn into beautiful men when they are on land. I liked to watch the fishing boats as they came into harbour followed by loud seagulls and I used to watch the waves crashing over the pier in storms. I learned to cartwheel on this beach. I learned to think and enjoy my own company on this beach. I went to my first parties and got drunk on cheap wine with friends on this beach. I remember the road flooding with one freak tide and friends coming down the road in canoes to see if we were OK. I remember eventually thinking there was "nothing to do here" and moving to big cities for study and more action. And when I go home and visit this beach now, I'm filled with happy memories and can't believe anyone could get bored with it!
Kate Pickering
Sheffield Earth
The claim of the Imago Mundi project to transcend differences and borders and to highlight the power of art is a compelling one, and echoes a widespread belief about the inherent virtue of contemporary art. Contemporary art in the West is a heterogeneous and shifting construct, broadly based on notions of inclusion, liberality and progressiveness in addition to an engaged or imminent criticality. Yet, there are places where Western contemporary art stops short, forms its own boundaries, refuses admittance. Boris Groys, in Art Power, has written on the exclusion of propagandist forms of art from the arena of Western art discourse. Artistic forms of proselytism, including not only political but religious works, are excluded from the canon, deemed to be antithetical to the singular, diffuse and radically open nature of contemporary art.
I lived in Sheffield from the age of 19 to 30. I was involved in a large church, which, during that time swelled in size to over 1,000 members, a large proportion of which were young people. It was led by a handsome and charismatic pastor, who galvanised his congregation through exciting and inspiring preaching with a vision to win back the city of Sheffield for God by reaching out to the homeless, vulnerable and spiritually lost. Services were held on a Sunday evening in a disused nightclub. These events would be highly charged and spectacular, with loud music, emotive messages and hundreds of bodies dancing and singing on the darkened dancefloor. Over this period, the pastor encouraged us to meet together during the week in ‘clusters’, groups of like-minded people. I came to lead a group of artists, to which misfits of various kinds (those who didn’t fit in to the generally homogenized culture of the church) also gravitated. We called this group Home.
I now live and work as an artist in London, and am beginning to research forms of collectivity for artists. I have yet to experience in this city the sense of community we found in working, living and making art together in Home. Evangelical Christianity may be problematic for a raft of political and social reasons, (not least it’s exclusion of non-normative forms of sexuality) yet in its’ literalism, through its embodiment of building community, being in relationship, working together, it offers models that might reinforce the fragile and shifting alliances experienced in the competitive and individualized culture of much of the contemporary art world. Home was a manifestation of difference and singularity, bound together by a commitment, a mythos in common.
Katharina Hartmann
Katie H.
Friday Night in West Ealing / #IS7
I'm trying to write this on the train to work again, feeling disappointed that I won't be able to finish it off during work as I'm supposed to be doing a handover to the new me today - it made the day go loads quicker. I'm having one of those weeks (or fortnights) where it feels like all your time is divided up into little slots and all of them have been filled and you're going to have to be extra on the ball to make sure everything hangs together except I'm not sure I am functioning at full capacity as this weird illness that everyone seems to have has been hanging around for so long that I've almost forgotten it's there, but then every so often I think about it properly and realise I'm feeling terrible. I'm very sleepy as S was doing a lot of snoring and snorting last night and I haven't seen him for a couple of weeks and I always need to get used to sleeping next to a noisy sleeper again and yesterday was also kind of a busy day - I got up early to finish and send off this proposal I've been writing, then C came round so that we could work on this workshop we're doing at this thing next week, then S arrived and we went to Ealing so that I could go to the dentist (I had an appointment a couple of weeks back and completely forgot to go, which isn't like me. "I said to reception, that's not like you", said Dr M, the dentist - side note. I just had to look up wether or not its correct to call dentists doctors or not as I'm always correcting my mum who alwys calls our dentist Ms M, but apparently it's optional... I need to pay more attention to what she actually calls herself), which has moved to this fancy building which dicombobulated me a bit as I've been going to the same dentist my entire life, then we walked back to my parents place where my mum gave us a massive sack of pears from the garden and then we headed back into town to go for a birthday dinner for T, who's my mum's godson. J was driving so we got back at a reasonable time but I'm still feeling groggy and sore-throaty and generally like I really can't be bothered to come in for the last day of this job that I couldn't be happier about leaving. Damn my obedient and employer-pleasing nature. I keep catching sight of my hair in the tube windows and it looks crap. I should have washed it this morning. I'll have to duck into loos at Stamford Brook station to do an emergency hairdo, which will be a nice bookend to my time at this job - on the day of my interview I turned up really early and was super happy to find out that Stamford Brook is pretty much the last London underground station with a free toilet so I could kill time fiddling with my hair which looks awful 90% of the time but I can't think of any options that wouldn't just make matters much worse, so I guess I'm stuck with longish and straggely... all I have to do is get through today, which promises to be slightly more painful than usual as we're meant to be finishing slightly early to go for leaving drinks which I couldn't be looking forward to less and am seriously hoping will be cancelled but at least I've got a decent excuse, which is that I'm going to a jazz gig tonight and so can't stay any longer than an hour. So once I make it through the day and the drinks, I can have a nice jazz time and then tomorrow I don't really have to get out of bed until the evening. Next week is going to be another time-partitioned-off-into-tiny-slices-and-filled-with-pressing-tasks-and-activities-to-maximise-efficiency kind of week, so the more lying down that happens the next two days, the better.
Gone
*leaving a shitty job fuckyou/euphoria playlist * 1. Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues
I am on the tube heading back into town, having just finished the job I've complained about for the last 3 and a half years. It feels kind of surreal and also completely brilliant but also a bit like I've walked off a cliff edge. I have had this job for the entire time I've been writing this zine. Life looks less and less how it looked when I started (although in this case, is clearly an improvement).
2, 3, 4 and 5 - I was enjoying the McClusky does Dallas (No, New Wave Fun, Collegen Rock, What We've Learned and Day Of Deadringers)...
6 - ...before I moved onto one of the biggest bangers Of All Time: Fuck Y-Self by The Bug ft Wayne Lonesome. If you have never heard this, or indeed any of the album it's from, Pressure, I implore you, go find it online now and prepare to have your brain blown open.
7 - The Blacker The Berry - Kendrick LaMar
We went to the pub after work and it was fine, - my least favourite person wasn't there hallelujah - I had a glass of wine and could make pleasant enough chit chat and they gave me a card and presents -
8 - Darling Nikki - Slow Process
- this cutesy new adventures bag with a bunch of Good luck charms in, a posh key ring and a bloody enormous candle. My bosses did seem genuinely sad and grateful and well-wishing and I found myself saying all this stuff that totally wasn't true, like "it's been a pleasure!" and "I'll miss you!" and "of course I'll keep in touch" which makes me feel a bit weird and dirty now that I'm safely out of Chiswick and have no reason to ever return. I always had this slight fantasy that the day I left would be the day I told everyone what I really thought but in the end I just fake smiled and kept my mouth shut like I have for the last three years -
9 - The Day The World Turned Day Glo - X-Ray Spex - I'm self-preservationist, cowardly, lazy and a hypocrite.
John Etheridge's Zappatistas,
Pizza Express Jazz Club,
September 2017
So I turned up ready to watch John Etheridge doing the Zappa thing feeling kind of confused and ineffectual and met S, J, F and my mum and dad at the venue. We had a pizza (I have had to do a lot of explaining of the weird Pizza Express Jazz Club, which is pretty much what it says on the tin, except ot's a proper, legit jazz venue which sounds kind of strange combined with a high street chain pizza restaurant. Jazz and pizza is a pretty undeniable combo though) and then John Etheridge and the Zappatistas - tonight the line up was Steve Lodder (keys), Annie Whitehead (trombone), Rory Simmons (trumpet), Theo Travis (sax), Rob Statham (bass) and Mike Bradkey (drums) - came on the stage and launched into Hot Rats and instantly put me into an outrageously good mood. Turns out there's not much more cheering than a ridiculously banging horn section playing Frank Zappa songs. I'm not really a Zappa connoisseur or anything although I'd say I was a very casual fan - my dad is a massive Zappa devotee, as is S, and my both of parents were (are) totally obsessed with the song Take your Clothes Off When You Dance and put it on a ton of mixtapes we used to have in the car (since J has semi-stolen my mum's car, we've given some of the car tapes a pretty heavy rotation and its definitely on at least 2 of the ones that were in the glove compartment - but this was one of the best things I've seen all year, both in terms of the music and how much fun it was. The highlight for me was their version of Montana - which the next day S and I went online and watched a live version of which pretty much melted my mind. I'm going to post a link here and suggest you go and watch ASAP.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVQzOh8eayQ
Good huh? Afterwards I spent a long time reading Zappa's Wikipedia page (its extremely long) and then had that weird experience when you don't really know that much about someone, and suddenly you know loads, both good and bad, and don't really know what to think. The good mainly being that he was a genius musical polymath and the bad mainly being sexist lyrics and his insistence on justifying them via his obsession with freedom of speech, which is something that probably feels very different to someone reading in 2017 when freedom of speech gets wheeled out as a defence to being offensive and not wanting to acknowledge that you might be wrong about something with increasingly frustrating regularity. I guess this is a strange and inevitable by-product of suddenly finding out all of the information about someone with a moderately long and detailed career in a very short space of time, but on the other hand, kill your idols, I guess? I don't know if anything will ever diminish my love of the Smiths but I still vocally admonish Morrissey for his love of Nigel Farage every time J and I listen to the Smiths tape in the car - "HOW CAN YOU UNDERSTAND SO MUCH ABOUT THE HUMAN CONDITION AND LIVING IN THE SKIN OF ANYONE WHO'S EVER BEEN CONFUSED AND YET BE SUCH A FUCKING DISAPPOINTMENT MORRISSEY? HOW? and whenever I hear one of his new songs on the radio, I'm hyper aware and scanning it for subtle (or not so subtle) hate speech (I heard Spent The Day In Bed and cringed when I heard the words 'emasculation' and 'castration', not least after all the stuff about not watching the news considering Morrissey's recent outburst that the reason professional Islamophobie Anne Marie Waters didn't win the UKIP leadership was a conspiracy. Imagine being so fixated on UKIP that you think that someone who's whole public persona is based around the persecution of a religion of billions of people not winning the leadership is some kind of left conspiracy?) "Don't use 'freedom of speech' as an excuse to be a jerk Frank", I think as I watch Frank Zappa playing a face-melting solo whilst Napoleon Murphy Brock pretends to ride a tiny horse along the borderline, perhaps unfairly as I start to mix up 1974 and 2017 in a big mind stew (though I don't think thinking hard about something is really a bad thing...).
www.smallzinevolcano.bigcartel.com
Kaya Psarras
NOW
As I travelled back to the past I am now sending you ethereal dirt. It really is dirt - but not yet manifested in any physical dimension. Therefore I send it to you before its materialisation and just with my intention to give the closest patch of dirt near you. Here is its energetic signature, sent to you, but then again not. The ethereal space is an ambivalent one, may this dirt prove otherwise.
Kim Forni
Kim Joseph Stahl
Kristoffer Petersen
Laura Tori Petrillo
I am very happy to be part of this project because I do believe that values such as empathy that can be trigged by art and can eventually lead to better relationships in life obviously much beyond art and the art world. Not only that, this year I have witnessed thanks to a collaboration between Academy Now and an established firm of business consultants that art can trigger new ways of connection with other people also in business environments.
Going back to the issue you are addressing, so the sense of belonging, I cannot think of an object that can represent the place I am more connected to, maybe it could be a collection of different objects from different places, funny enough, not really “earth". I am one of those people with mixed background so I can easily feel home in different places. When I was younger, so let’s say until I was around 20-23 years old, I had to live with a strong sense of displacement, so not really feeling home where I was living which was not where I was born and not where I wanted to be.
The sense of displacement then evolved into an awareness of being able to feel home in different countries (UK, USA, France, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland and Austria) and with different people. In the last 10 years I have started valuing very much the quality of the relationships I am able to establish with people I am surrounded by as the basis for a successful personal and professional life.
Leo Nielson
Lisa Schlenker
Lynne K.
Soil from my Mother's Garden
I am writing you because we do share certain values and a sense of solidarity. There is a connection between us that transcends borders, religion and ethnicity. And for sure our connection is not limited to the art world either.
With this letter I send you a small amout of soil from my mother's garden. It actually feels weird to do this as I wouldn't really say that I belong to this particular soil. I did not grow up in my mother's current flat and in addition I have the feeling that the soil around these blocks is anyway imported from somewhere else and it still is somehow alien, as there houses were only recently built. The thing is: I just don't know what other soil I might belong to. My relatives are spread across the world and I am living abroad. Even though I don't want to think about nationalities, your request for a bit of dirt from the place I belong to triggers such thoughts.
When I talked to my mother and sister about a future boyfriend choice they mentioned three characteristics he should have:
1. He should treat me well.
2. He should really like me the way I am.
3. He should not come from the same country as me.
The last point was told as a joke. But still I might heed this advice. It has become a family tradition to spread and to build families with people of other origins. This is a statement I'd like to perpetuate. We all belong everywhere.
So how could I send you a piece of dirt from a particular place I belong to? But I still did send you some dirt. I do belong to my hometown as I'm a child of its spirit. And I belong to my mother as I am her child in spirit and flesh. Her apartment is the one place in the world that will always and unconditionally be open for me as long as she is alive. I really cannot express how lucky I am to have such a place. In that sense SHE is the place I belong to.
Manon Vila
Marek van de Watering
Marianne Theunissen
Mud from the river Maas
This year I have moved my parents from their house in the village to an appartment in the city, where they would have more help in the household and for my father who could not walk that well anymore. My mother was very happy, it was a great appartment. After I came back from my holiday in Nepal however my father’s health became worse, he was just too old. So I had to visit them a lot. All the time I thought of picking up soil from the river the ‘Maas’ in which I played always as a child, I was curious if the soil from the Maas in the city would smell different from the Maas in the village. But I never had the time to visit the river, even though my parents lived nearby: I simply had to help them with so many things that I never got the time. Last month my father fell on the floor, my mother who wanted to help him fell as well. They both broke their hips. They had surgery in the hospital, which went fine, but than my father got a lung infection and he had to breathe through an oxygen mask. He died in the bed, in hospital, next to my mother. This was expected, and he died quietly, he was already very old. The next day my mother also got a lung infection, but she was OK: she was much younger and in good health. However, one day later she appeared to have the after affects from a minor heart attack, from the stress, and she also had to put on an oxygen mask. The combination of things appeared fatal: she died two days later. I had to arrange a cremation and goodbye service for both my parents, who died of the same causes, next to each other.
Both my parents have always lived on and near the Maas. The ashes from both their bodies will be thrown into the Maas, exactly at the point where I always played as a child: a barrage in the river from where I would jump into the water that would drag me along for a few miles, passing the very village in which I lived. Soon the ashes of my parents will also follow the rivers’ course, very fast in it’s wild waters. The smell of the river is just as wild, I have no idea if you can imagine it: a rotten muddy smell, combining French, Belgian and Dutch waste from cities and villages, factories and farms, children playing in the water and boats, with stones and sand, but also freshened up by the oxygen with which it gets mingled through the turbulence of the barrage.
As soon as I am able to pour the ashes into the barrage I will pick up some mud and send it to you. It marks the beginning and the end of my childhood, as I am an orphan from now on.
Marina Rudenko
Maroesjka Verhagen
Markus Vollmond
Martin Clarke
Martino Morandi
Matt Grisenti
Matthias Mai
Matthias Rambow
Melanie Dorfer
Melanie Wolfsteiner
Michael Dignam
Mona Wunschel
Nadia Mesbah
Épice marocaine
Moroccan Spice
C’est un plaisir d’avoir fait ta rencontre, parler de plaisir nous nous sommes toujours rencontré autour d’un repas... ?!! - que ce soit lors d’une soirée on au café.
Je profite de l’occasion pour te remercier du son tien que tu ma apporté à ma petite entreprise depuis le premier jour, je ne te remercira jamais assez.
Nicolai Herrmann
Ton Staub
Clay Dust
"ICH AUS TON"
Nicht nur der Name meines langjährigen Solo-/Bandprojektes, sondern auch die Beschreibung meines persönlichen Beitrages. Es handelt sich um Tonstaub, den ich von einer in der Kindheit aus Ton gefertigten "Selbstportraitfigur" abgeraspelt habe. Wir alle kommen aus der Erde und gehen in sie zurück - schön wenn wir zwischendurch einen klangvollen Ton anschlagen und uns in gemeinsame Wellen werfen dürfen.
KLARTEXT.
Text. Konzept. Songtexte.
Niklas Blach
Nora Vollmond
Olav Konijnenberg
Oskar Vollmond
Panagiotis Panagiotakopoulos
Paul Kuper
Penelope Koliopoulou
Pernille Kier
Peter Dressel
Petter Yxell
Quingzhen Han
Rebekka von Zimmermann
Renate Vollmond
Erde aus unserem Garten
Soil from our Garden
Erde aus unserem Garten, von unserem Grundstück
Wir haben das Grundstück gekauft und ein Haus gebaut. Es ist unsere Heimat geworden und wir, Eltern und drei Kinder, sind hier glücklich geworden. Die Kinder sind jetzt erwachsen und ausgezogen. Das Schönste für mich als Mutter ist: Sie kommen gerne hierher zurück, treffen sich mit Freunden und mit ihrer Familie. Das ist für mich immer ein Fest, wenn alle da sind!
Robert Clarke
Roel van Putten
Roma Piotrowska
Ruth Keating
Saemundur Thor Helgasson
Sandra Bonnén Riis
Sara Cattin
Sara Kramer
Sascha Brosamer
Serj Tubash
Playground Sand
I’ve just sent you a letter with a handful of sand from the sandbox on the playground near the building I live in. Of course, it is not the same building where I was raised and where I’ve spent my childhood. And surely it is not that backyard and this very sandbox. But still, it is remarkable that this bulk material, so often used as a metaphor for time, is one of the first memories of my childhood.
I think there is no need to remind you that I was born in Russia and that I grew up as a citizen of the USSR, a completely different country than the one where I live now. At that time and in this place almost all things were 'typical': people, buildings, flats, playgrounds and even the sand in the sandbox. Of course, this fact deprived us of the novelty of colors, but on the other hand, the world seemed predictable and home-like, familiar.
Returning to the question of the time, I clearly remember how long I could stay in the sandbox - playing. I have won an uncountable number of sand battles, built and destroyed a myriad of castles and I have lived thousands of lives. It is amazing to see how empty the sandbox is now when I look at it from the window.
In some way, I feel like I am an immigrant, forced to change his place of residence. The worldview and the values I was brought up with differ significantly from the ones that surround me now.
Of course, I have no regrets and I have no desire to go back in time, but I have a strong feeling of being lost in time and space. I don't feel my belonging to anything and my identity is much like sand. It does not want to preserve a static form.
Shane Mc Carthy
Sif Lina Ankergård
Silvia Duscher
Simon Dressel
Lindensamen, Moos, trockenes Gras, Rinde und Dreck aus dem Garten meiner Kindheit.
Lime seed, moss, dry grass, bark and dirt from the garden of my childhood.
Simon Martin
Simon Myers
Yew Shavings & Chalk
Sinan Guven
Sophie Innmann
Boden aus unserem Birkenwäldchen
Soil from our Birch Copse
Ich schreibe diese Zeilen aus meiner aktuellen Residency in Barcelona. Ursprünglich wollte ich dir bereits letzte Woche schreiben, als ich noch in Hof war um meine Austellung aufzubauen. Im ganzen Trubel habe ich es vergessen und habe deswegen gerade mit meiner Mama telefoniert, die für mich ein kleines Stückchen Boden aus unserem Birkenwäldchen (so nennen wir den oberen Teil unseres Gartens hinterm Haus) an der Stelle, wo im Sommer immer die Hängematten installiert sind, ausgegraben hat und dir zusammen mit diesem Brief zuschicken wird.
Wo ich schon einige Zeit unterwegs bin und ständig an anderen Orten unterkomme denkt man automatisch über Heimat, Zugehörigkeit und ähnliche Begrifflichkeiten nach. Mit diesem Fleckchen Erde verbinde ich viele gute Erinnerungen von früher Kindheit bis heute. Ich komme immer wieder gerne an diesen vertrauten Ort zurück. Dort haben mein Bruder und ich rumgealbert, sind aus der Hängematte geflogen, meine Eltern haben das ein oder andere Buch gelesen und mein kleiner Neffe hat dort für Familienfotos posiert. Kurzum, gute Familienerinnerungen an den Ort, wo ich groß geworden bin.
Steffi Gingter
Erde aus unserem Garten
Soil from our Garden
Ich bin gerne zuhause. Ich schicke dir etwaas Erde aus unserem Garten. Im vorletzten Jahr haben wir begonnen ihn umzugestalten, ihm unsere persönliche Note zu geben, haben Obstbäume gepflanzt und uns im Anbau von Gemüse versucht. Wir haben dort viel Zeit verbracht, und viel Arbeit reingesteckt, die belohnt wurde. Wir konnten die Pflanzen wachsen sehen. Dieses Heim ist noch mehr zu unserem Heim geworden. Unser Kind wächst hier auf. Er hat schon im Alter von einem Jahr im letzten Sommer mitgebuddelt, beobachtet, geerntet, geharkt und gespielt in diesem Garten und damit mein Herz froh gemacht. Jedes Mal wenn er draußen war schlich er um das Erdbeerbeet und schaute, ob er vielleicht noch eine reife Beere zum Naschen finden konnte. Er hat Tomaten gepflückt, sie wurden Teil eines Spiels und landeten auch mal in der Gießkanne. Er hat die Pflanzen gegossen, sprang wie wir früher auch bei den Großeltern, duch die Gartenbrause... all dies sind unschätzbare glückliche Momente für mich, die ich in meinem Herzen trage und die ich mit diesem Ort verbinde.
Suzanne Raaf
Tammo Schuringa
Filler Material
The dust I collected is a little bit of the filler that I used to give volume to a big doll. Everywhere on the floor of my studio I found small particles of this filler when I finished the doll.
Last year I made a big doll, inspired by the age-old 'topsy-turvy doll'. According to www.thefreedictionary.com 'topsy-turvy' has two meanings:
1 - With the top downward and the bottom up; upside-down
2 - In or into a state of utter disorder or confusion; 'Upside down', in a literal and figurative sense.
The topsy-turvy doll has been around for a long time, probably its origins lies in American plantation life. It is a double-ended doll, typically featuring two opposing characters. The doll combines a white girl child with a black girl child, originating from the same waist. There are all kinds of theories about the meaning of the doll, the most common is that black slaves provided the children of their white master during the day and their own children in the evening. They gave their own child(ren) a topsy-turvy doll to be prepared for their future ambiguous care tasks.
In 2017 I showed a 2.73 m. large topsy-turvy doll on the first weekend of November at a central location in the Engelmunduskerk in Oud Velsen, the Netherlands. A doll with two faces, black and white. Visitors could change the position of the doll by turning the crank of the frame in which I placed the doll. The length of the doll I tuned to the longest man that ever lived, Robert Wadlow (USA, 1918-1940). The topsy-turvy doll is exactly one cm longer. A primal mother with two faces, longer than the tallest man ever.
Theresia Vollmond
* 7.12.1925 † 3.10.2017
Thomas Rambow
Thomas Schlereth
Thomas Vollmond
Ulrike Rambow
Ulrike Vollmond
Durch Funde belegt war das Land bei Bad Königshofen bereits in der Jungsteinzeit besiedelt. Heute ist es ein kleiner Kurort zwischen den Haßbergen und er Rhön. Ein sehr fruchtbarer Boden und eine sanfte hügelige Landschaft mit vielen Hecken, Steuobstwiesen, Feldern und Wäldern. Dort, in Bad Königshofen unter einem alten Apfelbaum wurde die Erde genommen. Mein Bruder hat das Haus meiner Großeltern übernommen und umgebaut, zu dem Garten nach und nach alte aufgelassene Gärten dazugekauft und so einen parkähnlichen sehr großen Garten geschaffen. Der Baum trägt heute noch Äpfel und ich kann jederzeit dorthin gehen und ihn besuchen und diese wunderbaren Zitronenäpfel, die es nirgends mehr zu kaufen gibt, mit ernten.
In meiner Kindheit sind wir jedes Wochenende dorthin gefahren. Auf diesen Tag habe ich immer sehnlichst gewartet. Das Entscheidende war natürlich nicht er Apfelbaum sondern allein mein Opa. Mein Großvater war der Anker meiner Kindheit und über seinen Tod hinaus. Auch er wartete auf mich, ich war immer willkommen, geliebt und geborgen bei ihm. Immer erzählte er neue, selbst erfundene Märchen, vom Rübezahl, von Feen und Elfen, Zwergen und Tieren, und jedes Pflänzchen, selbst ein Grashalm hatten ihre Bedeutung und ihren Wert. Es gab nicht Gut und Böse, sondern Bedrohung, Leid und Krankheit und die konnten immer gelöst und geheilt werden. Immer hatte er ein kleines Geschenk, etwas zu naschen, eine Kastanie, einen schönen Stein.... Mein Opa hat mich nicht im konventionellen Sinn, mit Vorschriften Strafen und Tadel “erzogen”, sondern durch Liebe, Verständnis und Vorbild. Während eines Mäuseplagejahres hat er für mich mit dem Suppenschöpfer aus dem Gully ganze Mäusefamilien gerettet und aufs Feld getragen. Er hat mich und meine Nöte verstanden und ernst genommen. Er war das Licht in meiner Kindheit.
Was also diesen Platz ausmacht ist nicht der Platz, sondern die Erinnerung und die Erfahrung die ich dort machen durfte: ich wurde bedingungslos geliebt und angenommen.
ES IST DIE LIEBESERKLÄRUNG AN MEINEN GROSSVATER UND DIE DANKBARKEIT FÜR DAS WAS ER MIR FÜR MEIN GANZES LEBEN GESCHENKT HAT
Nicht der Platz, sondern die Liebe und die Achtsamkeit die ich dort erfahren habe sind wichtig. Und was kann die Liebe besser darstellen aus die Leere die alles möglich macht.
Umama Hamido
Vicky Maddox
Small stones from the Sensory Garden at Cody Dock, London, UK
A Meditation on belonging.
It was a feeling, a yearning, a vague memory strung out across time and here in this place no sense of it.
The frustration of normality, the rigidity of conformity, the prescribed life doesn’t fit or bring me comfort.
Distractions and addictions take me away from the call of my heart. Jaded by the lack of romance and freedom the man made world brought upon this nature created Earth.
The Harsh and Brutal opposing the soft and gentle, she hides her compass away from the naysayers and disenchanted.
But I have a memory.
Through lifetimes I hold it dear and treasured. Freedom to love without fear. Rejection, loss and separation.
A place of Eden, of Bliss, of Happiness.
The contrast leaves me devastated by its loss.
Ideas formulated into constructs have distorted our perceptions of each-other. Suspicion projects outwards as we struggle to protect anidentification with self preservation.
The mind a powerful tool and an utter fool to love, it is nescient to truth.
But truth is what I seek. My spirit strong with exploring the inward and outward realms of consciousness.
And then I find what can’t be unfound.
Steered here by unseen forces, I arrive.
I sit in divine presence, I need little else.
The light golden with radiant blessings.
I am opened to Source by the consciousness of another.
The act of creation through creating. The separation of Human from animal.
I am home. I am free to be me, to explore my sovereignty as a spiritual being.
Unconditional love through accepting and acceptance.
Love and freedom are in the consciousness of the hearts mind.
It isonly through discerning what we listen to and act on that makes itreal.
My port in one of life’s storms,
Cody Dock is where my heart found peace,
Where my memory finds its resonance,
Anchored in the eternal promise, a new dawn begins.
