march2022
Index Cards, C'mon C'mon, and Basma Al-Sharif
The beginning of March had a Monday-morning feeling–I told myself it could be a reset, that I could look with new eyes at what was around me and hold onto gratitude. I wanted to focus on what was in front of me instead of, like last month, getting ahead of myself.
That worked on some days, correlated with sunshine and the first spring ice cream cone of the season, but on those days when winter crept back in, and a mix of rain and ice fell from the sky, that reset felt harder. We’re ending the month on a day when snow is falling outside my window, and I find myself thinking to April, how maybe it will be the month where my internal dialogue (and the sunshine) feel more reliable.
Here’s what inspired me through March:
Index Cards by Moyra Davey
I found this book through someone’s recommendation on The Creative Independent newsletter. (Side plug: I highly recommend signing up for this newsletter because I wake up every day with a conversation between two inspiring and creative people in my inbox, along with their recommendations for books/songs/creative practices that might be nourishing).
Index Cards is an essay collection by photographer and filmmaker Moyra Davey, an experimental collection of fragments that blend together to look at her evolving relationship to art. I was drawn to the perspective of a visual artist reflecting on writing and a writer reflecting on visual art–as well as someone who was grappling with the weight of illness and her own internal dialogue.
I read the book in a day, on the way to Santa Barbara for my spring break. There was something about reading her words while in the sky, waiting to touch down and reunite with my friends, that, as the airplane cliche goes, heightened them for me. There were a few passages I took photos of to hold onto and roll around in my head for the weeks after, and I’ll share one here.
C’mon C’mon
I had been waiting for a few months to see this movie, and I’ve been returning to it in my mind ever since I did. I am, of course, a sucker for a movie that revolves around a sweet little kid learning about the world. I also think this movie is something I’m thinking back on as a reminder that it’s okay to be human and sometimes be swept up by the ups and downs of the world, that it’s okay to not know what you’re doing. It also had me thinking a lot about family, and who and how we reach out when we need people, and how beautiful New York City seems in black and white.
Capital by Basma Al-Sharif
On a whim, I signed up for free tickets to go see an artist talk at The Art Institute this month. The talk was by Basma Al-Sharif, a filmmaker and artist of Palestinian heritage, who spoke about her current exhibition Capital, which is showing now at the museum. I had only briefly researched her work before showing up to the talk, and I was blown away by how she makes work critical of repressive governments in a way that uses coded imagery in order to make the critique.
She walked through the elements of the exhibition and its critique of the idea of “new capitals,” especially in Egypt where she previously lived, and how the emergence of new capitals bolsters the power of the surveillance state and the intensifying divide between those who live in these capitals and those who work in them. But the talk was also about how to bring playfulness and humor into art that serves to critique, how to keep a viewer interested and engaged without feeling overwhelming heaviness. I left feeling like I hadn’t been to an event that activated so many thoughts, ideas, and feelings, both artistically and politically, in a very long time.
