Circles
“There’s only transformation.”. I came accross this quote on one of my million notes from our meetings and research during No More (Cruel) Optimism. It’s a quote by Sin Wai Kin that I heard on the podcast episode Back to Earth: Queer Currents, which Romane had recommended on the group chat. I remember I was walking back home when I listened to it and how meditative and powerful it felt, which made me reflect on how our project has also been a healing and transformative experience for me.
I thought of when we first met in person on the top floor of a former office building, now a temporary space for art studios. We had booked the room for a few days as a residency space and we had decided to call that first part of the project Fertile Soil, as it seemed to go in line with how we were approaching the next few days: an open space for nurturing and growing ideas.
From the very first day when we were unpacking our works in this empty rectangular room, with a view to the city’s financial district, we naturally stood in a circle as we were having a conversation. There was something both distressing and safe about being in a circle. We had no choice but to face each other and be seen by each other, which at first felt intimidating but soon became a democratic space where we could speak our minds.
In the following days, every time we went inside the building we had to sign in at the entrance and spell our foreign names to the recepcionist, write down the arrival time and our room’s number. There was something about this routine that made me feel our entrance was an intrusion. The building’s former purpose was still visible everywhere, through the carpeted floors, the long corridors with white cubicles, the motivational quotes on the walls and the communal kitchens, that were made of microwaves and filtered water. It had been a space made for practicality and over-production, which hugely contrasted with our purpose of experimentation and exchange with an open outcome.
But as we met in the room forming one of our many circles, we developed a space that was going beyond its physical limitations. Looking back at it, I see us as some type of growing seedlings in the concrete. The ability to let ourselves go and fully dedicate to the exchanges that were happening during those days, while embracing all possibilities of what the project could be, has been deeply impactful to me and my practice. Accepting and nurturing transformation through collaboration might just be the least cruel form of optimism.
Published on the publication of the project No More (Cruel) Optimism, May 2023.
I thought of when we first met in person on the top floor of a former office building, now a temporary space for art studios. We had booked the room for a few days as a residency space and we had decided to call that first part of the project Fertile Soil, as it seemed to go in line with how we were approaching the next few days: an open space for nurturing and growing ideas.
From the very first day when we were unpacking our works in this empty rectangular room, with a view to the city’s financial district, we naturally stood in a circle as we were having a conversation. There was something both distressing and safe about being in a circle. We had no choice but to face each other and be seen by each other, which at first felt intimidating but soon became a democratic space where we could speak our minds.
In the following days, every time we went inside the building we had to sign in at the entrance and spell our foreign names to the recepcionist, write down the arrival time and our room’s number. There was something about this routine that made me feel our entrance was an intrusion. The building’s former purpose was still visible everywhere, through the carpeted floors, the long corridors with white cubicles, the motivational quotes on the walls and the communal kitchens, that were made of microwaves and filtered water. It had been a space made for practicality and over-production, which hugely contrasted with our purpose of experimentation and exchange with an open outcome.
But as we met in the room forming one of our many circles, we developed a space that was going beyond its physical limitations. Looking back at it, I see us as some type of growing seedlings in the concrete. The ability to let ourselves go and fully dedicate to the exchanges that were happening during those days, while embracing all possibilities of what the project could be, has been deeply impactful to me and my practice. Accepting and nurturing transformation through collaboration might just be the least cruel form of optimism.
Published on the publication of the project No More (Cruel) Optimism, May 2023.