nature plus labour equals culture

Within an institution of “culture” (the gallery) I laboured to produce “culture” (a “garden” lets say) from “nature” (leaves scattered on the floor.) “Nature” (children) came into the gallery and destroyed my labour, returning my attempt at producing “culture” back to “nature.” I am now asking the gallery to salvage my production of “culture” through “law” thus validating my labour so it falls to the side of “culture” and does not remain on the side of “nature.”

no garden

A group of children playing in a field might come across a flower garden. If the children run freely through the garden while an adult is present, and the adult does not intervene, the children will believe it is o.k. to run through gardens. The question is, should the adult intervene and educate the children about gardens? If the adult chooses to not intervene, (believing the gardener wishes to privilege freedom of choice) the result is the garden is destroyed and the children experience permission from an adult to run through a garden.

Later, upon learning the gardener would have preferred the adult present to intervene, the adult could do a variety of things, none of which, however, will revive the garden. The children, never seeing the flowers that might have bloomed, will never know the consequences of their action of running through the garden. The gardener has no garden.

There is no garden.

may 30/31, 2011 – sunset 20:34 sunrise 5:09

life will, at times, give you such beautiful gifts. tonight, this my last night in the gallery, two beautiful women appeared. they both have left the space, but both of them will remain with me in spirit for a long time to come. thank you adriana, thank you maia.

may 29/30, 2011 – sunset 20:33 sunrise 5:10

although made of paper, these leaves are real to me.  i have been spending so much time with these paper leaves, in this gallery, during the nights. the leaves, i have to tell you, are beautiful. i walk among them, turn them over, pick them up, place them down. i read their undersides and create poetry from the texts inscribed in their skins. i put leaves in envelopes and then deliver the envelopes to people’s mailboxes hoping they too will cherish and see beauty in these leaves of paper. i have endeavoured to protect and honour them.

this is why my heart breaks when these leaves are treated with disrespect. when my work at honouring them is destroyed.

r u talkin’ 2 me?

leafs don’t talk. leafs don’t talk. leaf’s don’t talk (to us.)
and really, why should they? we don’t listen. we don’t listen, we don’t listen.
to leaves.

i remember a time when we, us humans, thought, whales don’t talk, whales don’t talk, whales don’t talk. then we discovered, yes they do talk, and we tried to figure out what they were saying. we discovered, yes the whales do talk, just not to us. but why should they really? i mean, would we listen, have we ever consulted them on matters of importance? like what might happen if we wanted to extract oil by drilling a hole in the bottom of the ocean? i mean, you would think we would consult the whales if we knew they talked. they probably know a lot of things about the ocean we don’t know. but we don’t talk to whales. not a priority. probably don’t want to get into issues of property rights. the whale might, after all, live in the ocean where we want to drill.

same with leaves. but i know leaves talk. i’ve been listening to them. i encourage you to do the same, go, sit under a tree. close your eyes. listen. listen to the leaves, they are talking to you and telling you things you need to hear.

 

may 28/29, 2011 – sunset 20:32 sunrise 5:11

so yeah, we cut the night in two and gave half to the new day. the birds are not duped. they know when dawn opens her sleepy eyes and lets the light shine through a new day is upon them. this 1 am in the morning talk is not for the birds. they know it is night, us humans, uh uh, no. we try to eradicate the night. we deny night an identity. it is lumped in either with the outgoing day or the incoming day. as if we don’t give night its own place, it can’t really exist.

1st man: what day is it?

2nd man: tuesday. tues day.

1st man: what night is it?

2nd man: thinks to himself, tues day night? tues night?

1st man: (again) what night is it?

2nd man: no response

1st man: (louder now) what night is it?

2nd man: still no response

1st man: (louder still) night. what night is it?

2nd man: i have no name for this, or any other night.

although i inhabit the night, the day does not respect my decision. she tries to leak into my dreams at every opportunity so i am sleep walking and sleep talking. so be it. soon enough she will get the hint and leave me alone.

may 27/28, 2011 – sunset 20:31 sunrise 5:12

although the sun sets and the sun rises with a regularity i find comforting, and although i want to find comfort within my own repetitions, and although i will be awake during the same night hours, i will not be at the gallery. tonight i stay home.

what was is no more

Hello karen,

I hope you are well. I wanted to inform you, a class of children came today and they ruined the order you had put in the reading room. I am sorry for that, I  hope you will be able to make something out of that “surprise”.

Have a fabulous weekend

J.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

when an artist spends weeks, arranging in an intricate mosaic pattern, paper leaves, image side up, on a floor, in a gallery, and people walk over said leaves, for the second time – maybe the artist needs to rethink their strategy of intervention? or rethink what it is they are hoping to convey. for example, what could it mean to persevere? or not?

may 26/27, 2011 – sunset 20:30 sunrise 5:13

http://davidharvey.org/2008/07/marxs-capital-class-06/

there are now many books from many thinkers that discuss how the working day evolved. but if you don’t want to read em, this chapter of marx as discussed by david harvey is a good start.

on a personal note i remember my father, a geological engineer, telling me how, a particular mine in northern canada he was affiliated with, could not honour the quota imposed on the mine by the government to hire a percentage of  ‘locals.’ as i remember my dad explaining it to me (this was about 27 years ago) it went something like this:

me – “what? don’t you pay enough?”

dad – “sure we do, it’s the workers. those workers are crap. we can’t keep em. you never know if they’re going to show up or not. on any given day they’ll just take off.”

me – “weird, i wonder why?”

dad – “hunting. when hunting season comes along, bang, they’re gone…can’t say i blame em.”*

evidently, this exchange with my father stayed with me. probably partly because i could sense the conflict within him that was mirrored by the conflict between us. a conflict with an authority that, if you decided, you could just ignore. you could, “on any given day, just take off.”

* note: my father loved to hunt and i can hear him adding, “lucky bastards” at the end of that utterance.

leaf talk #3*

required

shoots in July (or appears so)
valuable for its

salubris black mulberries
common in woods and armed with true prickles
which in time turn orange-red

Sicily plants are to flower

also

*words appropriated from the underside of leaves