London thoughts: On Privilege (2)

Live drawing of the play on 3 November 2017 at the Brady Centre, Tower Hamlets, London as part of the “Season of Bangla Drama”  ‘The Cafe’ by Bishwo Shahitto Kendro (BSKL) Written by Bulbul Hasan and directed by Syeda Saima Ahmed. 

This year, I have had some time to consolidate and reflect on a lot of our work in Paraa and a lot of my own work. As the current drawing exhibition is taken down, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on a series of points as we go on to launch some more interesting projects and collaborations in the coming year.  This is a long post / and I am still working through some of the ideas in the post, comments/feedbackack welcome. I will do one more post on Privilege in the coming weeks, in which I will explore the theme of the sense of entitlement within those of us that are privileged.

It seems aspects of life are about linearity – a simple cycle even – for me, for productive outcomes, linear thinking helps.  However, for me, in my reflexive and contemplations on the human condition, it feels correct to meander across ideas.  Often they sync in ways that we perhaps I would not see it if looked at in a linear manner. My latest meditation group session gave me some fruitful ideas again to embed in the post.

Its been a fascinating chance to reflect on the big change in my perceptions. My blog is a good, honest reflection of my self & some friends will argue I reveal more here than I do in person with them sometimes.

The privilege of the artist.
To be true to yourself and your work is perhaps the ultimate role of the artist. However, I question the narcissist in me & the various processes of art-making, architecture-making, and critical thinking required to help nurture my creative working self.  To unthink – a big aspect of the reflexive process has been a big part of my process. This is often in contradiction to the fervent making or doing, a practice or behaviour that is requisite to being a creative practitioner.  The unthinking requires to not do, but to be contemplative.

Yet, the privileged artist in me, privileged as I have somehow been able to carve out the time to continually requestion the very purpose of my art – is one that always raises for me interesting questiosn – for the utility? a social good? beauty in itself, to be enjoyed? to engage with? A phenomenon outside of certain constraints? for personal satisfaction?  a way to deal with ideas and the outside world without using a written medium? Its hard for me to decipher – my friends, who are my most ardent critics have often told me how interesting the work is, and at the same time question why it is I did it. Its there and then that I am at a loss to see the purpose of the creation – concerned much more about the next idea.  The privilege to forget perhaps is one thing – to not atone for the mess created, but to continually remember and reflect, is for me, the difficult and iterative process of art making. Is that my inability to process certain acknowledgments? that I do not appreciate my own ability to make art? or is it that am aware, that it is just an idea – or being my own critic – I forget the privilege of being able to create in the first place.

I am told at times I am doing important, meaningful purposeful work, experimenting, questioning and making and representing, archiving, speculating.  Its an immense privilege to be able to do those things, and I often forget about that privilege. To remind myself, of course, I must do this, to write, and engage with my thoughts. I am always able to walk away from the thoughts – not so much, from the urge to make art.  Another privilege of the artist, it seems, is that it never fully reaches that pinnacle of truth, it is a personal representation, an emotive evocative response or reaction to a situation or an idea.  So is it a lie? are all artworks just attempts at the Truth? So, never really being True? My question to myself is, what if I am not doing those things? My privilege affords me the ability to stop, reflect, and change if needed.

The privilege of the viewer.
I visit many events, shows, exhibitions etc – not as a critic may have to, but as a privileged viewer, and at some point, it feels gluttonous. this year I said I would only go to shows or events that I wanted to really see – ( Yet I still ended up going to many more )

Great art ought to move the soul, or the inner being, somehow, I read somewhere… yet its honesty, seeing it for what it is, that I am always curious about – the privilege to have time to let Art move you is probably something that I am curious about too. I happen, by accident, as a child to fall in love with reading.  It was reading that led me to explore so much of my imagination, ideas, places, people. Drawing, a technical skill I was good at, never really mattered so much. It was ideas that fascinated me. Yet, the merging of the two – idea into a drawing, was a way forward. Pushing the boundaries of that method for certain ideas, intrigued me.  As a privileged viewer, though, I question what it is the purpose or feeling or emotion behind certain ideas, and its this – that as a viewer that can often frustrate – as all that is available is the piece of art – and often a critics interpretation ( that may or not be suffice ) to trust my own emotional engagement with art then, is difficult – as we are forever requiring more information in order to engage with it. A child-like wonder or experience is much more valid to me, and I forever seek art that may just make me react.

Yet, trotting through so much of wonderful, interesting art, I seem to not have the head or heart space to be moved – the penny may drop later, of course…I would like to question my privilege of being able to view and engage with such art in the first place, and the consumption of it as an ipso facto process – as if it requires critical head space. The emotive response to a piece of art is the most important – to know that a certain set of ideas proposed by a musician, a sculptor, a writer, or a painter or performer, can move me emotionally is a great privilege. Being a consumer of the arts, and being an artist, it is a very strange place of privilege. It allows for me to challenge and push my own boundaries, in relation to others, either my contemporaries or the past great masters.

However, the privilege of the viewer is to acknowledge and critique the relationship of the art with his or her self, rather, than, I believe.  The question to ask – does this piece of work move me, if so why? what relationship does it have with my history? with my present or my environment, or my thoughts and emotions?  These are much more important questions to ask, I feel, with just enough context of any piece of work, that allows for an interesting connection to develop and continue on from.

It is, for this reason, I feel many museums and galleries do not have a diverse enough audience or reach beyond a certain glass ceiling – they cater for the market that is already able to consume it. Its a market exercise, rather than one of human and emotional well-being – and if galleries and museums were honest about their engagement investment, they would acknowledge that there is so much more to do.  The privileged viewer going from theatre to gallery to opera house to cinema, in a mega spree of absorbing culture for the sake of it, to be seen, for instance, is still something that irks me. As an artist, I continue to see, comment and care about fellow artists work, and hope they care enough to comment and come see mine. These social networks of support are crucial for artists, I believe. However, for the average or disengaged viewer, it can be a much more difficult process and one that either puts them off from engaging further in the future.

In a roundabout way – as a curator or artist, I realise that I cannot give people waffle. I can only be honest about the work being presented – in that its an idea, a representation of something, and often, my own work is just exactly what you see – a drawing of something. Nothing more. It is not Truth itself.

These two aspects above also force me to draw in a third privilege, although not so directly related, but, I feel, relevant in my thought processes in the past few months.

The privilege to be able to love and receive love.
Over the recent weeks, I have been seemingly accused of not being able to love or receive it in a meaningful way as I do not have a monogamous relationship with another individual. These relationships are apparently of less emotional value, than it seems if I was to have one monogamous partner.  I am of course, stumped by this accusation, and have little way of refuting it. Love, I believed, is something that we feel, and sometimes express across the various aspects of our lives, including emotionally – with friends, family, lovers or beyond and most importantly, reflecting honestness. Although some conceptual ideas about being vulnerable with multiple people seem absurd, – a license to play – it also is quite a significantly simple way of being honest about the frailty of my own human condition.  My human-ness is embedded in understanding and acknowledging that Love is fundamental to my well-being.

However, the accusations or the opinions or judgments that are made – I feel deter away from conversations about what is it to receive and give Love, versus structures of a behaviour found in some religious traditions, or certain societies that want to impose their ideals.

So, in a roundabout way, the privilege to be able to love, is quite spectacular, the life-source of many passionate creations and people, love that inspires and excites and spurs towards an ever burning light of Truth – it definitely is the emotion that spurs me on to pursue my passions. The closer we get, I feel, to being able to fully love, to be able to give Love, without conditions, the closer we are to our most vulnerable self, and perhaps, the closest we are to understand what it means to be human.  In the meditation class last night, again we explored binaries of joy/sorrow  being/doing and beyond.

And its this self that needs to be fully connected to those around us whom we also wish to receive love from – if we are able to acknowledge that receiving love is also a privilege, as much as the privilege is to be able to give love. We are not ‘entitled’ to it. Love, requires work. It is a very reciprocal process, one that requires courage and inquisitiveness.  However, the capacity to love, ought to come from within understanding that the capacity is potentially a finite emotion – and here – is where a conundrum arises.

There was an accusation that there is not enough investment in these ‘love’ relationships because you cannot spread love across so easily. You cannot be so vulnerable to so many people. Or we cannot feel the same, or differently same, with so many people. I question this precisely because to be able to give love, we must be in a great position of privilege. To exercise this privilege, is perhaps, one of the most beautiful human emotions.

To summarise this post:
I explored the privileges of the artist and the viewer, and the privilege to be able to receive and give love.  Bringing this back to the arts then, creating art requires this source of inspiration too, and it requires it not at the sacrifice of other aspects of love, rather, in conjunction with and in addition to it.  For me, more and more, acknowledging the privilege is crucial precisely because it allows for the development of the self to continue – to continue becoming human.   A fundamental deterrence is understanding the time it takes to do this, is one of extreme privilege. Life often is busy with just making ends meet, or to survive. Although the artist may struggle to articulate it with words, often, its not so necessary. Human beings are much more than just words, and this, I feel, I neglect when attempting to understand the importance of what it means to be able to love.

Click here for the link to the previous post on Privilege.