From Brussels to Mechelen, Mexico City to New York City
I’m writing from Mexico City airport, with a rum and coke. Feeling somewhat ambivalent about this trip. From Brussels, Mechelen to Mexico, I find myself trying to process the past 3 weeks of pseudo-work-study-trip.
Brussels was a semi work trip that proved fruitful with my coming presentation at Arc Residency in Switzerland this summer with André. Mechelen was a mix of voluntary obligations with e-flux live coverage of Contour Biennale 8’s symposium. I left Mechelen super stressed about my thesis.
Mexico was a relieve from Amsterdam, honestly, but the roughness, the disorganize-ness brought back the stress. Daytime felt extended, the heat in the day was demanding and the chills at night created too much discomfort as well.
In Oaxaca, we (DAI-Casco-Crater Invertido) got involved with the actual construction of the residence of Lugar Comun. Which was fun as hell and a great hands-on learning experience on building a residency “from scratch”, as well as understanding the organizational aspects of running a residency program. Upon returning to Mexico City, we (DAI-Casco group) finally got our shit together for a community-radio broadcast on the 25th in collaboration with Crater Invertido and other partners on radiolibre.co. We had segments that ranged from interview discussions to songs and experimental noise. I presented my segment almost entirely in terrible Spanish (except for the opening lines), reading a subchapter titled “Zapatista’s Theoretical Revolution” by Walter Mignolo that lasted torturously long (for an hour) after much encouragements from colleagues from Crater Invertido. At some point I actually hated myself for doing this radio-performance, making people listen to me for an hour in badly translated English text into Spanish. However, the idea behind is really to expose the reality of a “(post) colonial assumption” of how everyone should be speaking English — overentitled-ness of that expectation. The subchapter of Mignolo’s text itself explains very much Zapatistas’ political strategies in Mexico in the light of decolonization theory, which then brings Zizek’s critique on Singapore and ex-Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew into Mignolo’s argument. The crossover of decolonization theory and role, double translation sort of reveals this complex power structure behind economic strategies of nationstates and (crisis of) identity. Anyhow, my segment was well-received and it feels like there is actual potential in developing this work. But for now, I’m going to have to prioritize on my thesis in order to graduate in time!
At some point I actually hated myself for doing this radio-performance, making people listen to me for an hour in badly translated English text into Spanish. However, the idea behind is really to expose the reality of a “(post) colonial assumption” of how everyone should be speaking English — overentitled-ness of that expectation. The subchapter of Mignolo’s text itself explains very much Zapatistas’ political strategies in Mexico in the light of decolonization theory, which then brings Zizek’s critique on Singapore and ex-Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew into Mignolo’s argument. The crossover of decolonization theory and role, double translation sort of reveals this complex power structure behind economic strategies of nation-states and (crisis of) identity. Anyhow, my piece was well-received and it feels like there is actual potential in developing this work. But for now, I’m going to have to set my priority right, on finishing my thesis in time for graduation.
During this two weeks in Mexico, I had a bad stomach, fever, my sinus returned, got sunburnt and starved way too often (lost weight). Still, I must say I enjoyed very much despite tensions and some discontentment. Perhaps, only started enjoying a wee bit too late! I miss those guys at Crater Invertido already, to be honest, and it feels like there is something to accomplish there although I have no idea what yet.
For now, I look forward to reclaiming my Singapore identity by visiting Chomp-Chomp, a Singaporean diner in NYC.
Further reading:
Walter Mignolo, Geopolitics of Sensing and Knowing: On (De)coloniality, Border Thinking, and Epistemic Disobedience.
Wayne Lim wrote on Apr 2:
@S No discussion needed (it is exactly how I described it "pseudo-work-study-trip" :P)!! Hahaha! But for real though! Honestly, it is also making networks and it is quite at the peripherals of artmaking. Let's not forget that we students, paid for this trip and not forget the sources and the flow of funds. It is hardly artmaking.
@M I completely agree! I think we often take it for granted.
co-director (m) wrote on Mar 29:
You're a busy man for someone on hiatus, Wayne.
Thanks for these links though; I'm curious about a lot of Latin American art which, as an English speaker is sadly off my radar. English speakers are indeed the laziest language learners but ultimately we lose the most in the end.
co-director (s) wrote on Mar 29:
This is another post that makes us want all of us to get together and discuss each of our idea/definition of "art practice" / "artmaking" or "being on hiatus from making art" -- How obsolete these rhetorics (and even actual ideas) are (: