“And, they tell us, we at home Live free from danger, they go out to battle: fools! I’d rather stand three times in the front line than bear One child.” Euripides, Medea (431 BCE) So it’s been one year and nine months since I finished my MA at Chelsea College of Arts, and in the… Continue reading On Paula Rego’s Feet
On Pervy Old Men: Part 1
“But the picture of the Madonna went with him. Continually, even as he sat in his small hard narrow room or knelt in the cool churches, it stood before his outraged soul with its sultry, dark-rimmed eyes, with a mysterious smile on its lips, naked and beautiful. And no prayer could exorcise it.” Thomas Mann,… Continue reading On Pervy Old Men: Part 1
On Bacchus and the Beast
“ ‘All present, Cap'n!’ responded the mate Opheltes, leading along the shore what he thought was a prize he had won in a lonely meadow, a boy with a beautiful face like a girl's. Their captive appeared to be staggering and struggling behind a drowsy, drunken stupor. I looked at his dress, his face and… Continue reading On Bacchus and the Beast
On ‘Chroma’
"Blue of the bugloss, and self-sown cornflower; Blue of the sage and winter hyacinth; Pink and white roses blooming in June; And the scarlet rosehips, fiery in winter; The bitter sloes to make sweet gin. Brambles in the autumn, And gorse in spring."Derek Jarman, Chroma: A Book of Colour - June 1993 (1993) This is… Continue reading On ‘Chroma’
On Decisions
"In passing from history to nature, myth acts economically: it abolishes the complexity of human acts, it gives them the simplicity of essences ... it organises a world which is without contradictions because it is without depth, a world wide open and wallowing in the evident, it establishes a blissful clarity. Things appear to mean… Continue reading On Decisions
On Severed Heads
“Ah! thou wouldst not suffer me to kiss thy mouth, Iokanaan. Well! I will kiss it now. I will bite it with my teeth as one bites a ripe fruit. Yes, I will kiss thy mouth, Iokanaan. I said it; did I not say it? I said it. Ah! I will kiss it now .… Continue reading On Severed Heads
‘Traces of a Future Portland’
Rosie Dahlstrom: 'Belleisle', Still from 'Traces of a Future Portland' by Portland Collective, 2020. Image credit: Belleisle Conservatory, Ayr The isle has been the site of quarries for centuries, but the growth of cities like London, with the capital status as the world’s most important urban centre, built on the wealth gained plundering people and… Continue reading ‘Traces of a Future Portland’
On Everyday Filmmaking
The Mundane and the Magical: Filmmaking of Every Day Nalini Malani: ‘Can You Hear Me’, film projections, Whitechapel Gallery (2020 – 2021) I would like to write an article about the intimacy of everyday artmaking. This is not that article; the following text is adapted from a proposal I've recently submitted to a writing prize… Continue reading On Everyday Filmmaking
On Andrea Rocha
Andrea Rocha: Cutting Skin, Cutting Paper Fig. 1: ‘Wash Your Hands’, photographed collage, 2020 Two energies, or two competing forces, are at work in the photographic montages of Andrea Rocha (b. 1964, Rio de Janeiro). These warring visual phenomena, which we could refer to as what Sartre called the real and the ‘irreal’, can… Continue reading On Andrea Rocha
On ‘Deadwind’
This is an overdue love letter to one of my favourite things in the world: Nordic Noir TV shows. Deadwind (Karppi in Finland), Netflix, 2018 - 2022 So, I moved back to London last week which has been very surreal. Starting work again doing what I was doing before lockdown did indeed, as I thought… Continue reading On ‘Deadwind’
Sertraline Dreams 