https://georgiakareola.cc Georgia Kareola Thu, 18 Sep 2025 07:52:52 +0000 https://georgiakareola.cc en https://georgiakareola.cc/Information Sun, 20 Jun 2021 10:46:39 +0000 Georgia Kareola https://georgiakareola.cc/Information Georgia Kareola is a queer, multi-ethnic writer, researcher, yoga teacher, and plant medicine apprentice based in Amsterdam. They are a co-founder of Neo-Metabolism, a research and design collective based in Amsterdam and New York.&nbsp;In their work they honour land-based spiritual practices and more-than-rational ways of knowing, while advocating the decolonisation of land, people, and practices. Georgia holds an MA in Cultural Analysis and an rMA in Religious Studies from the University of Amsterdam.&nbsp; <img width="2320" height="3088" width_o="2320" height_o="3088" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/bd96231c0ac5d0fd67c121255663f819d977a0df6513febc953a2ec21155f34f/Ascona.jpg" data-mid="219511837" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/bd96231c0ac5d0fd67c121255663f819d977a0df6513febc953a2ec21155f34f/Ascona.jpg" /> https://georgiakareola.cc/Index Sun, 20 Jun 2021 10:46:40 +0000 Georgia Kareola https://georgiakareola.cc/Index ESSAYTETEM ENSCHEDE&nbsp; From Supernova to Supercomputer –Deep Time Travel with silica. RESEARCH CAPSULENEO-METABOLISM&nbsp; Utopian Thinking (in the dark times). ESSAYMU Hybrid Art House To live and die with soil. ESSAYZORA ZINE Planetary infrastructure as resistance. ESSAYKUNSTLICHT #42: SPELLBOUND Grove is in the heart. Human and nonhuman agency in post-anthropocenic ritual. CONFERENCE PAPER SOLAR IMAGINARIES @UPENN On solar energy, and power. SHORT FICTIONNEO-METABOLISM All the Qings spoke. FREE THOUGHTSON SUSTAINABILITY Enough clay. SHORT FICTIONNEO-METABOLISM Since the plastic purge. ART REVIEW&nbsp;DAILY SERVING Loving Memory.&nbsp; ART REVIEW DAILY SERVING “A strange mixture of guilt and pride can be sensed in the hunters’ eyes.” ART REVIEW SAATCHI ONLINE “The fountain has both a practical and a ritual function, symbolising the relationship between physical cleanliness and moral purity.”&nbsp; https://georgiakareola.cc/yoga Thu, 18 Sep 2025 07:52:52 +0000 Georgia Kareola https://georgiakareola.cc/yoga <img width="1200" height="750" width_o="1200" height_o="750" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1699e4d8248e2016cd821a5037c3eb822023e0e3121168a00abf28d4b8a11146/3.jpg" data-mid="238695790" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/1699e4d8248e2016cd821a5037c3eb822023e0e3121168a00abf28d4b8a11146/3.jpg" /> Next month, I plan to travel to India to take the Sivananda Yoga Teacher Training Course. I've been practicing yoga for over 20 years, and have practiced Sivananda Yoga for the past 1.5 years. To me, this style of yoga combines the strength-building of Ashtanga, with the calm of Hatha, while placing a strong focus on overall lifestyle, pranayama (breathing exercises), and mantra singing. It is a holistic and, in my experience, healing practice. I would love to start sharing it with others. In my own practice, my aim is to incorporate that which is beneficial to mind and body, while addressing the systemic problems that have slipped into yoga, such as patriarchal and hierarchical practices. My classes will be inclusive, queer-friendly, and non-dogmatic. At this moment, I’m raising the last funds to make this journey happen. And I’d love your help in this.&nbsp; Using the links below, you can make a contribution to my teacher training. In return, I would like to offer you to experience this style of yoga with me. €15 donation&nbsp; Gives access to a group class (in-person or online)&nbsp; €85 donation&nbsp;Gives access to a 1:1 class (in-person or online)Please mention your name and email address in the payment reference, so I can’t contact you to schedule a class.&nbsp; If you’d like to support me, but don’t feel like participating in a yoga class, I’d fully understand. Donations of other amounts are very welcome, too. Donate (credit, debit, ideal) Donate (paypal) https://georgiakareola.cc/Grove-is-in-the-Heart Sun, 20 Jun 2021 10:46:39 +0000 Georgia Kareola https://georgiakareola.cc/Grove-is-in-the-Heart <img width="777" height="825" width_o="777" height_o="825" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b2d5d6fbbe0228d3a5934572b4bdb3ba2d69d13728006e177a314de5454ed9eb/Enter-the-Forest_-Jasper-Griepink_-MU-_-2020_-Hanneke-Wetzer-46.jpeg" data-mid="111831206" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/777/i/b2d5d6fbbe0228d3a5934572b4bdb3ba2d69d13728006e177a314de5454ed9eb/Enter-the-Forest_-Jasper-Griepink_-MU-_-2020_-Hanneke-Wetzer-46.jpeg" /> Grove is in the Heart. An exploration of human and non-human agency in Post-Anthropocenic rituals.(originally published in Kunstlicht #42: Spellbound, 11 June 2021,download PDF) Abstract:&nbsp; This essay analyses Enter the Grove, a performance piece by artist and performer Jasper Griepink, featuring interactive ritual, oral narration, music, dance, and techno. The performance includes a collection of existing and new works, including S T O N E O R G Y (three songs and ritual performances, 2019) and the fictional narrative D E E P S O I L (2020) that can also be performed and/or experienced separately. By holding these works, and particularly the rituals contained within them, in the light of New Materialist theory, I will explore how the notion of the sacred, insofar it is present in the works, relates to the concept of human and non-human agency, and how both the sacred and agency can be seen as embodied, as well as transcendent. Additionally, I will analyse the socio-political dimension of the works and look at how the dichotomy between an understanding of ‘the land as sacred’ and ‘the land as natural resource’ can be compared to the tension between the Anthropocene and the Chthulucene, as proposed by Donna Haraway. <img width="3920" height="5676" width_o="3920" height_o="5676" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b610536e515820259d9d27333962897de2d6daef0f71b9072f361d6f778dbde9/Grove-is-in-the-heart-Georgia-Kareola--2021-1.jpeg" data-mid="111825110" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b610536e515820259d9d27333962897de2d6daef0f71b9072f361d6f778dbde9/Grove-is-in-the-heart-Georgia-Kareola--2021-1.jpeg" /> <img width="3779" height="5651" width_o="3779" height_o="5651" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c31247bb32d66e7a72c9f8db2da7674eb600837089ceac82bbad806caa186e75/Grove-is-in-the-heart-Georgia-Kareola--2021-2.jpeg" data-mid="111825111" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c31247bb32d66e7a72c9f8db2da7674eb600837089ceac82bbad806caa186e75/Grove-is-in-the-heart-Georgia-Kareola--2021-2.jpeg" /> <img width="3792" height="5646" width_o="3792" height_o="5646" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/aa56868e66b32644215cecdf67cc2072f8a760c0654683d3d91dd2c05e4387f0/Grove-is-in-the-heart-Georgia-Kareola--2021-3.jpeg" data-mid="111825112" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/aa56868e66b32644215cecdf67cc2072f8a760c0654683d3d91dd2c05e4387f0/Grove-is-in-the-heart-Georgia-Kareola--2021-3.jpeg" /> <img width="3898" height="5644" width_o="3898" height_o="5644" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c5dc684fd4e05fef454c8f1373294ab5a6c3180e40c11296be2e11d05a5a8d8c/Grove-is-in-the-heart-Georgia-Kareola--2021-4.jpeg" data-mid="111825113" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c5dc684fd4e05fef454c8f1373294ab5a6c3180e40c11296be2e11d05a5a8d8c/Grove-is-in-the-heart-Georgia-Kareola--2021-4.jpeg" /> <img width="4018" height="5694" width_o="4018" height_o="5694" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3d911a8515ceaa6fc60f89bb52f174494beefca72320af10141a6a7c28e50434/Grove-is-in-the-heart-Georgia-Kareola--2021-5.jpeg" data-mid="111825114" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3d911a8515ceaa6fc60f89bb52f174494beefca72320af10141a6a7c28e50434/Grove-is-in-the-heart-Georgia-Kareola--2021-5.jpeg" /> <img width="3878" height="5673" width_o="3878" height_o="5673" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b0d72b7601b6ac07e030d5fc63ca47292a3783d916367aab2b2e3dab5d42e405/Grove-is-in-the-heart-Georgia-Kareola--2021-6.jpeg" data-mid="111825115" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b0d72b7601b6ac07e030d5fc63ca47292a3783d916367aab2b2e3dab5d42e405/Grove-is-in-the-heart-Georgia-Kareola--2021-6.jpeg" /> <img width="3941" height="5698" width_o="3941" height_o="5698" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/40990ea67107b104d97ef0cb34381a5e8d17f882ddefff3ee54dabaa7db93876/Grove-is-in-the-heart-Georgia-Kareola--2021-7.jpeg" data-mid="111825117" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/40990ea67107b104d97ef0cb34381a5e8d17f882ddefff3ee54dabaa7db93876/Grove-is-in-the-heart-Georgia-Kareola--2021-7.jpeg" /> <img width="3892" height="5678" width_o="3892" height_o="5678" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d7ea3fbf74443d30d8f4e6ef8496b2b72904f9705b036986cc9749ddb6c6a857/Grove-is-in-the-heart-Georgia-Kareola--2021-8.jpeg" data-mid="111825118" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/d7ea3fbf74443d30d8f4e6ef8496b2b72904f9705b036986cc9749ddb6c6a857/Grove-is-in-the-heart-Georgia-Kareola--2021-8.jpeg" /> <img width="4022" height="5696" width_o="4022" height_o="5696" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f1cbe4c2f93e94d536b3cbc0af4e820a68da7da9e64684ce188bbf985e192d3c/Grove-is-in-the-heart-Georgia-Kareola--2021-9.jpeg" data-mid="111825119" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/f1cbe4c2f93e94d536b3cbc0af4e820a68da7da9e64684ce188bbf985e192d3c/Grove-is-in-the-heart-Georgia-Kareola--2021-9.jpeg" /> <img width="3888" height="5658" width_o="3888" height_o="5658" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f25282af223e70bc973b67495e9f000b4b2e3afa407828fcc5ae12d23f3bc47c/Grove-is-in-the-heart-Georgia-Kareola--2021-10.jpeg" data-mid="111825121" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/f25282af223e70bc973b67495e9f000b4b2e3afa407828fcc5ae12d23f3bc47c/Grove-is-in-the-heart-Georgia-Kareola--2021-10.jpeg" /> <img width="3988" height="5702" width_o="3988" height_o="5702" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/dffcd151b5737ebc0b736722946e89759224925970c90fa29d0d5de9fc2ae2a8/Grove-is-in-the-heart-Georgia-Kareola--2021-11.jpeg" data-mid="111825122" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/dffcd151b5737ebc0b736722946e89759224925970c90fa29d0d5de9fc2ae2a8/Grove-is-in-the-heart-Georgia-Kareola--2021-11.jpeg" /> <img width="3876" height="5676" width_o="3876" height_o="5676" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/639a663afcba48861110bbc64d5a667058abb87936c55c228f5747358aaec801/Grove-is-in-the-heart-Georgia-Kareola--2021-12.jpeg" data-mid="111825123" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/639a663afcba48861110bbc64d5a667058abb87936c55c228f5747358aaec801/Grove-is-in-the-heart-Georgia-Kareola--2021-12.jpeg" /> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; When visiting ancient sites of rituality, like the Hunnebedden in the Netherlands, artist, writer, and performer Jasper Griepink (they/them) “discovered that the true sacred site is inside of us.” In their anti-capitalist, pro-pagan spoken-word pieces and songs, like the ones featured in Enter the Grove, a collaboration with electronic music producer and singer Giek_1, they connect with the rhythm of the heart (‘an internal sacred space’) through the use of ritual performance and techno. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Enter the Grove, an hour-long performance at IMPAKT Festival 2020, is a collection of artworks by Jasper Griepink, including S T O N E O R G Y (three songs and ritual performances, 2019) and the fictional narrative D E E P S O I L (2020). By holding these works, and particularly the rituals contained within them, in the light of New Materialist theory, I will explore how the notion of the sacred, present in the works, relates to the concept of human and non-human agency, and how both the sacred and agency can be seen as embodied, as well as transcendent. First, I will analyse the socio-political dimension of the works and look at how the dichotomy between an understanding of ‘the land as sacred’ and ‘the land as something to exploit’ can be compared to the tension between the Anthropocene and the Chthulucene, as proposed by Donna Haraway. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Standing in a dark space sparsely populated with tree branches and lit with the gently flickering, blue-green light of a nature projection, Griepink is wearing a long white skirt and a harness of rope and translucent rings, with dedicated nipple compartments. Their face is painted in metallic streaks with silver lips, head topped with a platinum wig. The sound of nocturnal animals is playing in the background. Giek_1, behind the keyboard, wears a floor-length white dress with long, angelic sleeves and a low neckline exposing her chest tattoos, a chunky silver necklace, and matching metallic make-up. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; The performance begins with the oral story of D E E P S O I L, telling the tale of a planet called AARD, where the people of Kinfolx live. In the old days they cultivated Deep Soil, a subterranean layer of earth, minerals and nutrients said to have a consciousness of its own. They used cyclical, regulated fires to release nutrients and replenished nitrogen. The rhythm of the fires was their clock. They worshipped Bhajita, an entity “synonymous with the fires, the dances, the songs and the long shadows, the silhouettes.” The Kilnfolx spoke with trees and branches, and had a synergetic relation with the natural world. This was, until “progress” happens on AARD. One of the tribes, a family of glassmakers led by an elder named LUBEA, started the Imperial Company, specialised in turning “sand into transparent matters, thick and solid as brick, but tranquil as a still pond.” This industrial intervention changes AARD, enormously. No longer do the people of Kilnfolx live with the cycles of the land; they now live “by the call of the hot glass.” Eventually, those in charge of the Imperial Company want to start mining the Deep Soil, leading to conflict among the different lineages on AARD. At a council meeting among elders, the tribe of EINRIHH, whose lineage lives in accordance with nature, is accusing the tribe of LUBEA of “trying to conquer Bhajita in the name of progress” while instead, “we were working with her.” &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; This polarity between progress and earthly connection recurs throughout D E E P S O I L. What transpires is a dichotomy between an understanding of the land, the soil, and the trees as sacred and, on the other hand, an understanding of the land as something to extract and exploit. These opposing perspectives bring to mind a tension between the commonly used concept of the Anthropocene and the concept of the Chthulucene, as proposed by Donna Haraway. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; The Anthropocene functioned initially a warning sign. The late meteorologist and atmospheric chemist Paul J. Crutzen used the term around 2000 to bring awareness to human-induced ecological collapse. He proposed the latter part of the eighteenth century as its starting point. This date also coincided with James Watt's design of the steam engine in 1784. Watt's invention and the industrial revolutions that followed, changed the Earth’s ecosystems enormously, analogous to how, in D E E P S O I L, the industrious revolution set in motion by the glass makers of the Imperial Company changed AARD. In 2009, the historian and postcolonial theorist, Dipesh Chakrabarty, famously described the Anthropocene as a time in which “humans, thanks to our numbers, the burning of fossil fuel, and other related activities—have become a geological agent.” Human agency was from then on connected to the Anthropocene. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; The Anthropocene, as a term, has proven contagious; it is used widely in the humanities and arts, and acts as a buzzword at conferences. It has also raised some very valid critique by, among others, the feminist sociologist Donna Haraway. In her 2016 book Staying with the Trouble, Haraway argued for a more cautious use of the Anthropocene as, to her, the term is too firmly rooted in human exceptionalism. With its direct link to the invention of the steam engine the term is, according to Haraway, based on a History of Man and Tools. “The infectious industrial revolution of England mattered hugely,” she says “but it is only one player in planet-transforming, historically situated, new-enough, worlding relations.” So, human history runs deeper than the industrial revolution but, most of all, we (humans) are not the only actors at play in changing and building the world. Many humans and non-humans across different temporalities commingle in co-creation, reminding of the ancient conditions on AARD, and the conversations between trees and the people of Kilnfolx. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Haraway poses additionally that “the Anthropocene is a term most easily meaningful and usable by intellectuals in wealthy classes and regions; it is not an idiomatic term for climate, weather, land, care of country, or much else in great swathes of the world, especially but not only among indigenous peoples.” The Anthropocene as a term is, in short, not very inclusive, as it refers to a subset of humans (the post-industrial Man) and its destructive effect on the planet. Haraway’s playful and provocative alternative is the beautiful but not easy to pronounce Chthulucene, poetically described as “an ongoing temporality that resists figuration and dating and demands myriad names.” The Chthulucene is named after ‘the Chthonic’ deriving from the ancient Greek khthonios, meaning “of the earth.” The name also refers the Pimoa cthulhu, an “eight-legged tentacular arachnid that (…) gets her (…) name [also] from the language of the Goshute people of Utah.” With the Chthulucene, Haraway opens up our thinking about our time and makes it rather tentacular, with focus on the interconnections and entanglements that continuously unfold in a multi-species world. Haraway moves away from linear, teleological thinking towards collapse, and celebrates the flourishing of all human and non-human life. This flourishing and commingling of human and non-human life connects to both the ancient ways of life on AARD, and the future vision embedded in D E E P S O I L, which we will get to later. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Thinking Chthulucene instead of Anthropocene affects the matter of agency. Whereas the Anthropocene is a term used to recognise humans as a geological and destructive force – which arguably only applies to the Enlightenment-, or post-steam-engine Human, not to the indigenous one – the Chthulucene can help to understand humans as a part of a multi-species assemblage, with multiple actants living across multiple temporalities. This makes agency a much more pluralistic affair. Not something one-directional (Man with Tool affecting Earth), but something conversational, omni-directional, and dynamic. These different notions of agency become apparent not only in the narrative of D E E P S O I L, but also in the ritual elements in Enter the Grove, and the song elements in S T O N E O R G Y. <img width="500" height="750" width_o="500" height_o="750" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/396460ac5ae47a43f79612a321a29b4b7c29fe921c81e293e240a31e1daf3c64/Enter-the-Forest_-Jasper-Griepink_-MU-_-2020_-Hanneke-Wetzer-20.jpeg" data-mid="111831464" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/500/i/396460ac5ae47a43f79612a321a29b4b7c29fe921c81e293e240a31e1daf3c64/Enter-the-Forest_-Jasper-Griepink_-MU-_-2020_-Hanneke-Wetzer-20.jpeg" /> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; The S T O N E O R G Y trilogy was born from the acknowledgement that sacred sites often contain standing stones, and a desire to merge the sacredness of land and rocks with the sacred sites inside the body. “The sacred” is a category with a lengthy history and a multitude of meanings. In the New Materialist approach, which “recognizes publicly performed material manifestations of religion, as understood in worldly dynamics” the sacred is “often spoken about in relation to social, political, and economic forces, removed from the realm of religious experiences and understandings of transcendence.” There are schools of New Materialist thought however, that perceive the material not separate from, but as an incarnation of the transcendent. Griepink speaks of the sacred as “a life force, a choice, an understanding, an agreement” and it is perhaps not too far-fetched to compare their notion of ‘the sacred’ to ‘agency.’ If we, as a thought experiment, would substitute the ‘sacredness’ of external and internal sites with ‘agency’ could we speak of a multi-species assemblage, with unfolding agential entanglements between human beings and stones? &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; The entanglements between humans and stones can certainly be found in the ‘orgy' part of S T O N E O R G Y, which was chosen by Griepink as a metaphorical space of merging, and refers in this case more to the etymological root of the word than to its common contemporary use denoting often indiscriminate debauchery. The Greek orgion (ὄργιον) means ‘secret rites or revels’ and in ancient Greek religion an orgion was an ecstatic form of worship characteristic of some mystery cults. Griepink describes the concept of a stoneorgy as “a sacred gathering in the woods where music and eco-spirituality meet as a new form of ancient pagan ritual” and how one of the aims of S T O N E O R G Y is to “bring people together in orgiastic moshpits.” When Griepink mentions that the true sacred site is within, they specifically mean this not as a psychological metaphor, but in a literal sense, as in materially and physically located inside the body: “it’s in our bones, our vessels, our cavities, our heartbeat.” This appreciation of both rocks and the spaces within, brings to mind a passage from political theorist and New Materialist philosopher Jane Bennett’s book Vibrant Matter, in which she highlights the connection between minerals and human agency by referring to Manuel DeLanda’s account of the process of mineralization. Until about 500 million years ago, all living entities were made up of merely soft tissue: “At that point, some of the conglomerations of fleshy matter-energy that made up life underwent a sudden mineralization, and a new material for constructing living creatures emerged: bone.” Bennett sees this process of mineralization as the creative agency with which bone was produced, making “new forms of movement control possible among animals, freeing them from many constraints.” Bones as a form of mineral, closely related to rock, appears thus “as the mover and shaker, the active power” in the process of evolution and “the human beings, appear as its product.” &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; This observation gives way to a new kind of appreciation: humans, as entities, co-evolved with minerals, and we owe our own agency (be it partly) to this process of mineralization. We would be nowhere without our bones; we would be blobs on a beach. This insight also shines a different light on Griepink’s notion of ‘the sacred rock’ and the ‘sacred site within’. Similar to how Griepink states that the sacred space is within, in our vessels, cavities and heartbeat, the source of our agency, our capacity to have effect, is situated inside, and is connected to this process of mineralization. Both agency and the sacred can be seen as internal, and material, as well as metaphysical. We can perceive both as embodied, and as transcendent. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; When performing S T O N E O R G Y, Griepink uses a combination of electronic sound, spoken word, and participatory ritual to convey their reflections on the sacred, while simultaneously addressing pressing issues of our time, such as human-induced climate change and ecosystem collapse. One of the songs they perform, Dirty, speaks to “a time before dirt was dirty” and invites the audience to “pray to the soil god.” Its message echoes environmental writer and political activist George Monbiot, who headlined in 2015 by stating “we’re treating soil like dirt” and that “it’s a fatal mistake, as our lives depend on it.” Whereas Monbiot speaks about soil neglect in relation to industrial farming and its subsequent food shortages and planetary depletion, Griepink addresses this issue more indirectly by bringing attention to the semiotic confusion of calling dirt dirty, and directing the listener’s gaze to the more positive qualities of soil. Their focus could be compared to what the environmental humanities and feminist scholar, Maria Puig de la Bellacasa, calls soil care. It is the perspective that soil is not dirt, but a multi-species formation; an assemblage of living and non-living actants, including worms, grains of sand, and cultures of bacteria, that depends on human-soil relations of care for its thriving. However, where Puig de la Bellacasa's call to action revolves around care, Griepink urges to pray, marking a significant difference in their approach to the human-soil relationship, and to human and non-human agency. This reflection on soil care, also reminds of the story of D E E P S O I L, and how the people of Kilnfolx related with their land. Caring is a direct way to have effect (on soil, or otherwise). Praying is more indirect, as it requires a third relationship with, in this case, a soil god, a speculative non-human actant who is possibly placed in between humans and soil, or embodied in the soil. Whereas caring for the non-living confirms a position of human responsibility for, and control over, nature, praying elevates the non-living to a deity of sorts, thus inverting the power balance. Focusing on prayer instead of care, especially when performed rhythmically and repetitively, makes the experience of knowledge transfer in Griepink’s work ritualistic. Ritualistic at least in the classical sense of cultural anthropologist Victor Turner, who sees rituals “as essentially life-enhancing ludic experiences, a chance to step outside social structure [and] even to challenge that structure from within a ritually-created community.” <img width="900" height="600" width_o="900" height_o="600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/503ff38531abd5776fc509d736e6263eff13c75034f2d2af605128701f7d9cb6/Enter-the-Forest_-Jasper-Griepink_-MU-_-2020_-Hanneke-Wetzer-69.jpeg" data-mid="111831962" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/900/i/503ff38531abd5776fc509d736e6263eff13c75034f2d2af605128701f7d9cb6/Enter-the-Forest_-Jasper-Griepink_-MU-_-2020_-Hanneke-Wetzer-69.jpeg" /> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; This is where the transformative quality of Griepink’s work becomes apparent, as thinking and acting with prayer, and with the soil god, allows for an excursion outside of a social structure in which the soil god is generally not recognised. At the same time, it challenges notions inside this social structure, which tends to perceive dirt as dirty. Perhaps more importantly, ritualizing the human-soil relationship in this way allows for a more explicit sense of embodiment. Whereas Puig de la Bellacasa’s suggestions for soil care are predominantly philosophical, pragmatic, or scientific in nature (thinking with, working with, and looking at the soil), Griepink uses dance to amplify the message. As religious studies professor Corinne G. Dempsey suggests, “bodies are instrumental to the process of conveying and receiving knowledge.” How bodies are used in (artistic) ritual is ontologically, and categorically different to their use in academia or in fieldwork, and a main asset of ritual practices, in art or otherwise, is that they help convey and integrate knowledge in ways other than academic, through different modes of embodiment. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; At the end of Dirty – which includes electronic tribal drums and a New Age-y intermezzo – Griepink shifts their attention and speaks directly to ecological concerns: “At a time when every major ecosystem on the planet is under assault, calling nature, rock, stone, and soil sacred, is a radical act.” The ‘assault on ecosystems’ spoken about by Griepink relates directly to the type of Anthropocenic human agency mentioned earlier; a destructive force, putting insurmountable pressure on ecological systems. Griepink’s ‘radical act’ of calling nature sacred is a gesture of rebellion against this human-industrial agency. Their work could in that sense be seen as Anti-Anthropocenic. However, Enter the Grove is too multi-dimensional for such a one-directional denominator. Exemplary of this is the narrative break, when Griepink finds themselves confused in their role as a storyteller. It was never their intention to create such a strong polarity between different perspectives. They ask: “Why does there always need to be a struggle of some evil system that needs to be overthrown?” and, consequently: “How to write stories that are sexual, spiritual, political, ecological, and compassionate?” This last question is answered in the finale of D E E P S O I L, in which Griepink depicts the future they desire, centred around an Orgiastic ritual, in which the Kilnfolx return to, and merge with, the Deep Soil. Their bodies are seen as made of the plants and the soil, and the magic fire of their fertility revives the richness of the forest, as well as their sacred Bhajita. “Naked and Euphoric, post-orgasm and deep in bliss (…) the evening rain would help sink the bliss of Bhajita towards the deepest of the deep – the Sacred Soil below.” &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Griepink’s Enter the Grove highlights the entanglements of human and non-human agency with the use of ritual performance, oral storytelling, and electronic sound. Through its narrative, combined with physical, sensory practices, the collection of works offers a novel mode of knowledge transfer, and strengthens the perspective on agency and the sacred, as both embodied, and transcendent. In terms of its socio-political dimension, Enter the Grove, is not Anti- and not even Post-Anthropocenic. The emphasis on a lively, thriving, and unruly human-soil relationship, makes Enter the Soil a ritual tale of the Chthulucene. https://georgiakareola.cc/Loving-Memory Mon, 02 Jan 2023 14:44:50 +0000 Georgia Kareola https://georgiakareola.cc/Loving-Memory <img width="5409" height="3487" width_o="5409" height_o="3487" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/79611dd3e058d45889db3f3da4e03c2b08a23f494b1661df010a48592f706056/035.STEDELIJK-MUSEUM-MIKE-KELLEY-2012.PH.GJ.vanROOIJ.jpg" data-mid="163288030" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/79611dd3e058d45889db3f3da4e03c2b08a23f494b1661df010a48592f706056/035.STEDELIJK-MUSEUM-MIKE-KELLEY-2012.PH.GJ.vanROOIJ.jpg" /> Loving Memory&nbsp; Review of Mike Kelley’s retrospective at Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.&nbsp;(originally published on Daily Serving in 2013) <img width="4724" height="3471" width_o="4724" height_o="3471" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0badf4874a0792085af9fac86cd8416d195e111f3dcdd3812b2df6abd9f078c3/032.STEDELIJK-MUSEUM-MIKE-KELLEY-2012.PH.GJ.vanROOIJ.jpg" data-mid="163288056" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/0badf4874a0792085af9fac86cd8416d195e111f3dcdd3812b2df6abd9f078c3/032.STEDELIJK-MUSEUM-MIKE-KELLEY-2012.PH.GJ.vanROOIJ.jpg" /> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;For the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam to choose Mike Kelley for their reopening exhibition was, to say the least, symbolic. The Stedelijk opened its newly refurbished and expanded premises in September last year, after years (and years) of highly controversial, heavily debated and stupendously overpriced refurbishments. The enormous white bath tub that is now hovering in front of the institution's old facade, (brainchild of Benthem Crouwel Architects), the white washed walls and sterile interior, leave little room to reminisce and ponder over what was once a rustic building with creaking floorboards and quaint brick walls. Taking the escalator inside the tub, which is inevitable if you want to see what's inside, feels as if you're moving through the architects' rendering — it's lifeless, plastic and cold. The visual and physical experience, as well as the €127 million ($170 million) price tag have made the memory of the old building in many ways an uncomfortable one. It's something rather not mentioned, or thought about for too long. It's brushed over in conversation because, in all honesty, it hurts. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; It's either complete self-unawareness or ultimate bravery that a museum that has gone through such an awkward moment in time, and which has to deal with the unpleasant consequences of its decisions, chose the current exhibition to start this new era with. The show is, mainly because it was unexpectedly forced into becoming a retrospective after Kelley's sudden death on the 1st of February last year, the largest exhibition of the artist's work to date. It takes visitors systematically through the stages of Kelley's development as an artist and thinker, and displays him, rightly, as one of the most diverse and broadly talented visual artists of our time. Above all, it shows him as a master in dissecting memory and digging up awkward historical moments - themes that reoccur especially throughout the artist's later work. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Starting in the bath tub's poorly lit basement, the first couple of rooms show Kelley's earliest sketches made while still at CalArts. Also on show are instruments that were used for his Early Performative Sculptures and Objects (1977-79), referencing his immersion in performance pieces and anti-establishment punk. His bird houses reveal influences from his conceptual master teachers John Baldessari, David Askevold and Douglas Huebler. But as with many artists, Kelley's work only began to mature after he finished art school and was left to his own devices. The works in the next rooms, including Pay For Your Pleasure (1988), testify this. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; The starting point of what could later be seen as the artist's main theme are works like Half a Man (1987-92). This series of works comprises of stuffed animals sewn together in compromising, often sexually provocative positions. For Kelley they were a comment on the commodity discourse and gift culture, on the fact people often end up with pointless and unwanted objects and the herewith related guilt. The fierce reaction these works evoked in American society (it was generally assumed that Kelley had experienced a traumatic, utterly fucked up childhood) were what made him, unafraid and unashamedly, delve into subjects like trauma and memory loss. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; What followed were works like Educational Complex (1995), a large-scale model of every institution Kelley ever attended as well as his parent's house. The buildings are pristine white, and the spaces between them to be interpreted as memory blanks—empty places where trauma could have happened, and which were—eventually—to be filled. Works like the John Glenn Memorial Detroit River Reclamation Project (1968 -1972) touch on a similar, though less personal vein. The giant sculpture covered in mosaics, is part of a larger project exploring the history and neglected remnants of Detroit, city of Kelley's youth. Things were to get more extreme. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; On the first floor of the Stedelijk, where the exhibition continues, room has been made to display Day is Done (2005), which once filled the entire Gagosian Gallery on West 24th Street, New York. The multi-faceted multimedia installation brings together Kelley's ideas in grotesque installations and moving images which feature sweating barbers jerking off behind bathroom doors and singing teenagers with Colgate smiles performing pop songs in cowboy hats—both equally disturbing. Childhood trauma is here brought to the fore, with no white walls or censorship to hide it. It's an overwhelming, nightmarish experience, which is tantalizing and stomach turning at the same time. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; After this overwhelming visual and sonic encounter it's a pleasant surprise to then walk into a room filled with Kandors—Kelley's softest and most aesthetically pleasing works. Based on the Kryptonian city of Superman's childhood, which was miniaturized by Braniac and captured in a bottle, Kelley created ten different versions which light up the room with an almost magical illumination and peaceful glow. Heart warming sculptures depicting something inherently sad. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; A few video works follow in the museum's surprisingly great theatre, after which the exhibition—rather abruptly—ends. Before you know it you're released into wild where you're reminded of the harsh reality that is the museum itself. The cold, white spaces that follow make you realize what a pleasure and privilege it was to be immersed in Kelley's universe, where there was no hesitation, shame or fear, to show us the present, future, and past. https://georgiakareola.cc/Adrian-Wong Mon, 02 Jan 2023 15:01:33 +0000 Georgia Kareola https://georgiakareola.cc/Adrian-Wong <img width="766" height="511" width_o="766" height_o="511" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/dfdbd54558330d6a17966e93f8b768731e8bd3b17f5874951d8ff7da8872c5e6/Bless-All-Ye-Who-Enter-Here--2007--pine--bamboo--epoxy--latex--incense--tea--Taoist-excorcists--12-x-12-x-3-m..jpg" data-mid="163289798" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/766/i/dfdbd54558330d6a17966e93f8b768731e8bd3b17f5874951d8ff7da8872c5e6/Bless-All-Ye-Who-Enter-Here--2007--pine--bamboo--epoxy--latex--incense--tea--Taoist-excorcists--12-x-12-x-3-m..jpg" /> Critic’s choice&nbsp;(originally published on Saatchi Online Magazine in 2009) &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Adrian Wong (1980) worked with bamboo, incense and Taoist exorcists to create a cleansing ritual as part of a performance called Bless Ye All Who Enter Here (2007) (pictured). &nbsp;After having experienced a wave of misfortunes, in which nearly all his possessions got stolen and his health was badly damaged, the artist, who was originally trained as a research psychologist, decided a cleansing ritual was needed to get back in tune with the positive powers of the universe. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Part of the performance was a tea ceremony. Tea, whether green or black, is a crucial facet of human culture and Britain would plainly feel naked without the drink. In China and Japan, tea occupies a ritual and mystic position; it is used by Geishas in intricate ceremonies of seduction and is cooked for hours by the Chinese for its healing qualities. Wong, exploring all traditional aspects of the cleansing ritual, could not have gone without his tea. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Wong’s earlier performance and sculptural installation A Fear This Is (2007) explored the workings of tea in a different context. With this work, Wong addressed the human emotion of experiencing fear and tried to deconstruct phobias. Part of the artwork is a tea fountain, Fountain: Organic Matter Breaks Down at 100 º Celsius (2007). The fountain has both a practical and a ritual function, symbolising the relationship between physical cleanliness and moral purity. &nbsp;It shows the human need, which is also pivotal in most religions, to be both morally and physically clean. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; The use of tea in this fountain, which is compiled from an inflatable pool and plates and cups from street restaurants, is slightly peculiar but intriguing all the same. Wong uses Oolong tea, which has exceptional cleansing qualities, to suit the process of rinsing the body outside and within. The combination of the healing herbal liquid and the mishmash of random objects from Hong Kong’s street life addresses anxieties over hygiene and public health. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Wong’s work, which is both culturally critical and religiously aware, illustrates the artist’s strong connection to contemporary city life, and his interest in using ancient rituals to accentuate the dark corners and eccentricities of metropolitan existence. https://georgiakareola.cc/William-Kentridge Mon, 02 Jan 2023 15:31:42 +0000 Georgia Kareola https://georgiakareola.cc/William-Kentridge Review of William Kentridge – Black Box / Chambre Noire at the Jewish Historical Museum(an earlier version was published on Daily Serving &nbsp;in 2012) &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; At the end of William Kentridge’s miniature theatre piece Black Box/Chambre Noire (2005) a rhinoceros gets shot. The shooting, taken from old black and white film footage and projected onto the theatre’s back screen is clumsily executed by a clearly inexperienced rhinoceros hunter. After the deed is done, said hunter runs back and forth between the animal and his original position to check the status of his prey, anxiously trying to ensure he killed the beast. The awkward killing foregoes a celebration of the victory over the immense powers of the rhinoceros. Seconds after the first shot, a group of human beings is seen strapping the animal’s legs together, preparing it to be carried away. A strange mixture of guilt and pride can be sensed in the hunters’ eyes. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Black Box/ Chambre Noire is a 21-minute performance, starring sometimes quirky but often deeply sinister motorised creatures in a theatre crafted from paper and wood. The creatures, including a melancholy megaphone and robotic soldiers who commit violent killings, move in rows across a multi-layered stage. In the background, images of charcoal drawings, postcards, documents and archival video footage are in an intentionally chaotic manner projected onto the theatre’s structure. The work draws inspiration from what the UN named the first genocide of the 20th century. In 1904, in what is now called Namibia, over 80.000 people found their death when the indigenous Herero and Nama people came into resistance against the German colonists. Many died instantly through the force of the violence, others were forced into the desert and died from exposure to extreme temperatures and draught. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Kentridge created the theatre as a means to communicate his contemplations about the killings.&nbsp; He ploughed through Namibian state archives, visited sites and collated material. He did extensive research and visualised his findings and thoughts in charcoal drawings - of people, landscapes and rhinoceroses - often on the original Namibian papers. It was a project born less out of political conviction and than out of social engagement and intrigue. The work is explorative – Kentridge asks questions about history and behaviour, in an attempt to pierce through the core of human nature to find our need for violence. It is something that crosses borders, cultures, and times. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Saying that Black Box/Chambre Noire tells the story of a genocide would not be doing Kentridge justice, and it wouldn’t be true. The story of the genocide is told by the museum – written on the walls and available to take home in the shape of the freely available literature. Kentridge’s work is a visual landscape in which fragments of information follow each other in a quickly changing, seemingly illogical sequence. This manner of animating and projecting gives the historical events a place in the world, but it also makes them anonymous and archetypal. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; As Kentridge says in an interview about his earlier charcoal animations, two of which are shown downstairs at the museum (Felix in Exile [1994] and The History of the Main Complaint [1996]) there is something in the act of drawing an object and in the hours of physically studying it that makes the act compassionate. Kentridge notes that artists use other people’s pain as raw materials for their work, but that the act of contemplating it and spending time with it, redeems the activity from merely being exploitative or abusive. Moreover, the act of spending time with the pain of others, of compassionately contemplating it and translating it into work, makes it possible for us to feel and digest the pain. It gives us a tool to learn from others’ mindless killings.&nbsp; https://georgiakareola.cc/Reading-2 Sun, 20 Jun 2021 10:46:39 +0000 Georgia Kareola https://georgiakareola.cc/Reading-2 READING 2 ︎︎︎&nbsp;Marcel Proust, Selection 2 from À la recherche du temps perdu Prof. Olivia Theyskens, born April 15, 1976, is a fictitious American literary critic and Sterling Dean of Literature at the fictitious Cargo University. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; She has published innumerable fictitious reviews and articles, as well authored two fictitious volumes of short stories. She is perhaps best known for the fictitious story The Tin Ribbon. This will be her third fictitious workshop for The Writer’s Retreat. <img width="2162" height="3000" width_o="2162" height_o="3000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e68f8fef3cd030e4019b9b9629e6909fb15125acc87aeedb4e2fa8c3a263713a/Professor-Georgette-Theyskens.jpg" data-mid="111818571" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e68f8fef3cd030e4019b9b9629e6909fb15125acc87aeedb4e2fa8c3a263713a/Professor-Georgette-Theyskens.jpg" /> And so it was that, for a long time afterwards, when I lay awake at night and revived old memories of Combray, I saw no more of it than this sort of luminous panel, sharply defined against a vague and shadowy background, like the panels which a Bengal fire or some electric sign will illuminate and dissect from the front of a building the other parts of which remain plunged in darkness: broad enough at its base, the little parlour, the dining-room, the alluring shadows of the path along which would come M. Swann, the unconscious author of my sufferings, the hall through which I would journey to the first step of that staircase, so hard to climb, which constituted, all by itself, the tapering 'elevation' of an irregular pyramid; and, at the summit, my bedroom, with the little passage through whose glazed door Mamma would enter; in a word, seen always at the same evening hour, isolated from all its possible surroundings, detached and solitary against its shadowy background, the bare minimum of scenery necessary (like the setting one sees printed at the head of an old play, for its performance in the provinces) to the drama of my undressing, as though all Combray had consisted of but two floors joined by a slender staircase, and as though there had been no time there but seven o'clock at night. I must own that I could have assured any questioner that Combray did include other scenes and did exist at other hours than these. But since the facts which I should then have recalled would have been prompted only by an exercise of the will, by my intellectual memory, and since the pictures which that kind of memory shews us of the past preserve nothing of the past itself, I should never have had any wish to ponder over this residue of Combray. To me it was in reality all dead.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Permanently dead? Very possibly. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; There is a large element of hazard in these matters, and a second hazard, that of our own death, often prevents us from awaiting for any length of time the favors of the first. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; I feel that there is much to be said for the Celtic belief that the souls of those whom we have lost are held captive in some inferior being, in an animal, in a plant, in some inanimate object, and so effectively lost to us until the day (which to many never comes) when we happen to pass by the tree or to obtain possession of the object which forms their prison. Then they start and tremble, they call us by our name, and as soon as we have recognized their voice the spell is broken. We have delivered them: they have overcome death and return to share our life. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; And so it is with our own past. It is a labour in vain to attempt to recapture it: all the efforts of our intellect must prove futile. The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in some material object (in the sensation which that material object will give us) which we do not suspect. And as for that object, it depends on chance whether we come upon it or not before we ourselves must die. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Many years had elapsed during which nothing of Combray, save what was comprised in the theatre and the drama of my going to bed there, had any existence for me, when one day in winter, as I came home, my mother, seeing that I was cold, offered me some tea, a thing I did not ordinarily take. I declined at first, and then, for no particular reason, changed my mind. She sent out for one of those short, plump little cakes called 'petites madeleines,' which look as though they had been moulded in the fluted scallop of a pilgrim's shell. And soon, mechanically, weary after a dull day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate than a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, but individual, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory—this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me, it was myself. I had ceased now to feel mediocre, accidental, mortal. Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? I was conscious that it was connected with the taste of tea and cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savors, could not, indeed, be of the same nature as theirs. Whence did it come? What did it signify? How could I seize upon and define it? &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; I drink a second mouthful, in which I find nothing more than in the first, a third, which gives me rather less than the second. It is time to stop; the potion is losing its magic. It is plain that the object of my quest, the truth, lies not in the cup but in myself. The tea has called up in me, but does not itself understand, and can only repeat indefinitely with a gradual loss of strength, the same testimony; which I, too, cannot interpret, though I hope at least to be able to call upon the tea for it again and to find it there presently, intact and at my disposal, for my final enlightenment. I put down my cup and examine my own mind. It is for it to discover the truth. But how? What an abyss of uncertainty whenever the mind feels that some part of it has strayed beyond its own borders; when it, the seeker, is at once the dark region through which it must go seeking, where all its equipment will avail it nothing. Seek? More than that: create. It is face to face with something which does not so far exist, to which it alone can give reality and substance, which it alone can bring into the light of day. And I begin again to ask myself what it could have been, this unremembered state which brought with it no logical proof of its existence, but only the sense that it was a happy, that it was a real state in whose presence other states of consciousness melted and vanished. I decide to attempt to make it reappear. I retrace my thoughts to the moment at which I drank the first spoonful of tea. I find again the same state, illumined by no fresh light. I compel my mind to make one further effort, to follow and recapture once again the fleeting sensation. And that nothing may interrupt it in its course I shut out every obstacle, every extraneous idea, I stop my ears and inhibit all attention to the sounds which come from the next room. And then, feeling that my mind is growing fatigued without having any success to report, I compel it for a change to enjoy that distraction which I have just denied it, to think of other things, to rest and refresh itself before the supreme attempt. And then for the second time I clear an empty space in front of it. I place in position before my mind's eye the still recent taste of that first mouthful, and I feel something start within me, something that leaves its resting-place and attempts to rise, something that has been embedded like an anchor at a great depth; I do not know yet what it is, but I can feel it mounting slowly; I can measure the resistance, I can hear the echo of great spaces traversed. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Undoubtedly what is thus palpitating in the depths of my being must be the image, the visual memory which, being linked to that taste, has tried to follow it into my conscious mind. But its struggles are too far off, too much confused; scarcely can I perceive the colorless reflection in which are blended the uncapturable whirling medley of radiant hues, and I cannot distinguish its form, cannot invite it, as the one possible interpreter, to translate to me the evidence of its contemporary, its inseparable paramour, the taste of cake soaked in tea; cannot ask it to inform me what special circumstance is in question, of what period in my past life. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Will it ultimately reach the clear surface of my consciousness, this memory, this old, dead moment which the magnetism of an identical moment has travelled so far to importune, to disturb, to raise up out of the very depths of my being? I cannot tell. Now that I feel nothing, it has stopped, has perhaps gone down again into its darkness, from which who can say whether it will ever rise? Ten times over I must essay the task, must lean down over the abyss. And each time the natural laziness which deters us from every difficult enterprise, every work of importance, has urged me to leave the thing alone, to drink my tea and to think merely of the worries of to-day and of my hopes for to-morrow, which let themselves be pondered over without effort or distress of mind. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; And suddenly the memory returns. The taste was that of the little crumb of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before church-time), when I went to say good day to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of real or of lime-flower tea. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it; perhaps because I had so often seen such things in the interval, without tasting them, on the trays in pastry-cooks' windows, that their image had dissociated itself from those Combray days to take its place among others more recent; perhaps because of those memories, so long abandoned and put out of mind, nothing now survived, everything was scattered; the forms of things, including that of the little scallop-shell of pastry, so richly sensual under its severe, religious folds, were either obliterated or had been so long dormant as to have lost the power of expansion which would have allowed them to resume their place in my consciousness. But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, still, alone, more fragile, but with more vitality, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us, waiting and hoping for their moment, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unfaltering, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; And once I had recognized the taste of the crumb of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-flowers which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy) immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like the scenery of a theatre to attach itself to the little pavilion, opening on to the garden, which had been built out behind it for my parents (the isolated panel which until that moment had been all that I could see); and with the house the town, from morning to night and in all weathers, the Square where I was sent before luncheon, the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took when it was fine. And just as the Japanese amuse themselves by filling a porcelain bowl with water and steeping in it little crumbs of paper which until then are without character or form, but, the moment they become wet, stretch themselves and bend, take on color and distinctive shape, become flowers or houses or people, permanent and recognizable, so in that moment all the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann's park, and the water-lilies on the Vivonne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and of its surroundings, taking their proper shapes and growing solid, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea. https://georgiakareola.cc/Reading-3 Sun, 20 Jun 2021 10:46:40 +0000 Georgia Kareola https://georgiakareola.cc/Reading-3 READING 3 ︎︎︎&nbsp;Marcel Proust, Selection 3 from À la recherche du temps perdu Prof. Olivia Theyskens, born April 15, 1976, is a fictitious American literary critic and Sterling Dean of Literature at the fictitious Cargo University. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; She has published innumerable fictitious reviews and articles, as well authored two fictitious volumes of short stories. She is perhaps best known for the fictitious story The Tin Ribbon. This will be her third fictitious workshop for The Writer’s Retreat. <img width="2162" height="3000" width_o="2162" height_o="3000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e68f8fef3cd030e4019b9b9629e6909fb15125acc87aeedb4e2fa8c3a263713a/Professor-Georgette-Theyskens.jpg" data-mid="111818576" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e68f8fef3cd030e4019b9b9629e6909fb15125acc87aeedb4e2fa8c3a263713a/Professor-Georgette-Theyskens.jpg" /> I would go on with it in the garden, under the chestnut-tree, in a little sentry-box of canvas and matting, in the farthest recesses of which I used to sit and feel that I was hidden from the eyes of anyone who might be coming to call upon the family. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; And then my thoughts, did not they form a similar sort of hiding-hole, in the depths of which I felt that I could bury myself and remain invisible even when I was looking at what went on outside? When I saw any external object, my consciousness that I was seeing it would remain between me and it, enclosing it in a slender, incorporeal outline which prevented me from ever coming directly in contact with the material form; for it would volatilize itself in some way before I could touch it, just as an incandescent body which is moved towards something wet never actually touches moisture, since it is always preceded, itself, by a zone of evaporation. Upon the sort of screen, patterned with different states and impressions, which my consciousness would quietly unfold while I was reading, and which ranged from the most deeply hidden aspirations of my heart to the wholly external view of the horizon spread out before my eyes at the foot of the garden, what was from the first the most permanent and the most intimate part of me, the lever whose incessant movements controlled all the rest, was my belief in the philosophic richness and beauty of the book I was reading, and my desire to appropriate these to myself, whatever the book might be. For even if I had purchased it at Combray, having seen it outside Borange's, whose grocery lay too far from our house for Françoise to be able to deal there, as she did with Camus, but who enjoyed better custom as a stationer and bookseller; even if I had seen it, tied with string to keep it in its place in the mosaic of monthly parts and pamphlets which adorned either side of his doorway, a doorway more mysterious, more teeming with suggestion than that of a cathedral, I should have noticed and bought it there simply because I had recognized it as a book which had been well spoken of, in my hearing, by the school-master or the school-friend who, at that particular time, seemed to me to be entrusted with the secret of Truth and Beauty, things half-felt by me, half-incomprehensible, the full understanding of which was the vague but permanent object of my thoughts. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Next to this central belief, which, while I was reading, would be constantly a motion from my inner self to the outer world, towards the discovery of Truth, came the emotions aroused in me by the action in which I would be taking part, for these afternoons were crammed with more dramatic and sensational events than occur, often, in a whole lifetime. These were the events which took place in the book I was reading. It is true that the people concerned in them were not what Françoise would have called 'real people.' But none of the feelings which the joys or misfortunes of a 'real' person awaken in us can be awakened except through a mental picture of those joys or misfortunes; and the ingenuity of the first novelist lay in his understanding that, as the picture was the one essential element in the complicated structure of our emotions, so that simplification of it which consisted in the suppression, pure and simple, of 'real' people would be a decided improvement. A 'real' person, profoundly as we may sympathize with him, is in a great measure perceptible only through our senses, that is to say, he remains opaque, offers a dead weight which our sensibilities have not the strength to lift. If some misfortune comes to him, it is only in one small section of the complete idea we have of him that we are capable of feeling any emotion; indeed it is only in one small section of the complete idea he has of himself that he is capable of feeling any emotion either. The novelist's happy discovery was to think of substituting for those opaque sections, impenetrable by the human spirit, their equivalent in immaterial sections, things, that is, which the spirit can assimilate to itself. After which it matters not that the actions, the feelings of this new order of creatures appear to us in the guise of truth, since we have made them our own, since it is in ourselves that they are happening, that they are holding in thrall, while we turn over, feverishly, the pages of the book, our quickened breath and staring eyes. And once the novelist has brought us to that state, in which, as in all purely mental states, every emotion is multiplied ten-fold, into which his book comes to disturb us as might a dream, but a dream more lucid, and of a more lasting impression than those which come to us in sleep; why, then, for the space of an hour he sets free within us all the joys and sorrows in the world, a few of which, only, we should have to spend years of our actual life in getting to know, and the keenest, the most intense of which would never have been revealed to us because the slow course of their development stops our perception of them. It is the same in life; the heart changes, and that is our worst misfortune; but we learn of it only from reading or by imagination; for in reality its alteration, like that of certain natural phenomena, is so gradual that, even if we are able to distinguish, successively, each of its different states, we are still spared the actual sensation of change. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Next to, but distinctly less intimate a part of myself than this human element, would come the view, more or less projected before my eyes, of the country in which the action of the story was taking place, which made a far stronger impression on my mind than the other, the actual landscape which would meet my eyes when I raised them from my book. In this way, for two consecutive summers I used to sit in the heat of our Combray garden, sick with a longing inspired by the book I was then reading for a land of mountains and rivers, where I could see an endless vista of sawmills, where beneath the limpid currents fragments of wood lay mouldering in beds of watercress; and nearby, rambling and clustering along low walls, purple flowers and red. And since there was always lurking in my mind the dream of a woman who would enrich me with her love, that dream in those two summers used to be quickened with the freshness and coolness of running water; and whoever she might be, the woman whose image I called to mind, purple flowers and red would at once spring up on either side of her like complementary colors.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; This was not only because an image of which we dream remains for ever distinguished, is adorned and enriched by the association of colors not its own which may happen to surround it in our mental picture; for the scenes in the books I read were to me not merely scenery more vividly portrayed by my imagination than any which Combray could spread before my eyes but otherwise of the same kind. Because of the selection that the author had made of them, because of the spirit of faith in which my mind would exceed and anticipate his printed word, as it might be interpreting a revelation, these scenes used to give me the impression—one which I hardly ever derived from any place in which I might happen to be, and never from our garden, that undistinguished product of the strictly conventional fantasy of the gardener whom my grandmother so despised—of their being actually part of Nature herself, and worthy to be studied and explored. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Had my parents allowed me, when I read a book, to pay a visit to the country it described, I should have felt that I was making an enormous advance towards the ultimate conquest of truth. For even if we have the sensation of being always enveloped in, surrounded by our own soul, still it does not seem a fixed and immovable prison; rather do we seem to be borne away with it, and perpetually struggling to pass beyond it, to break out into the world, with a perpetual discouragement as we hear endlessly, all around us, that unvarying sound which is no echo from without, but the resonance of a vibration from within. We try to discover in things, endeared to us on that account, the spiritual glamour which we ourselves have cast upon them; we are disillusioned, and learn that they are in themselves barren and devoid of the charm which they owed, in our minds, to the association of certain ideas; sometimes we mobilize all our spiritual forces in a glittering array so as to influence and subjugate other human beings who, as we very well know, are situated outside ourselves, where we can never reach them. And so, if I always imagined the woman I loved as in a setting of whatever places I most longed, at the time, to visit; if in my secret longings it was she who attracted me to them, who opened to me the gate of an unknown world, that was not by the mere hazard of a simple association of thoughts; no, it was because my dreams of travel and of love were only moments—which I isolate artificially to-day as though I were cutting sections, at different heights, in a jet of water, rainbow-flashing but seemingly without flow or motion—were only drops in a single, undeviating, irresistible outrush of all the forces of my life. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; And then, as I continue to trace the outward course of these impressions from their close-packed intimate source in my consciousness, and before I come to the horizon of reality which envelops them, I discover pleasures of another kind, those of being comfortably seated, of tasting the good scent on the air, of not being disturbed by any visitor; and, when an hour chimed from the steeple of Saint-Hilaire, of watching what was already spent of the afternoon fall drop by drop until I heard the last stroke which enabled me to add up the total sum, after which the silence that followed seemed to herald the beginning, in the blue sky above me, of that long part of the day still allowed me for reading, until the good dinner which Françoise was even now preparing should come to strengthen and refresh me after the strenuous pursuit of its hero through the pages of my book. And, as each hour struck, it would seem to me that a few seconds only had passed since the hour before; the latest would inscribe itself, close to its predecessor, on the sky's surface, and I would be unable to believe that sixty minutes could be squeezed into the tiny arc of blue which was comprised between their two golden figures. Sometimes it would even happen that this precocious hour would sound two strokes more than the last; there must then have been an hour which I had not heard strike; something which had taken place had not taken place for me; the fascination of my book, a magic as potent as the deepest slumber, had stopped my enchanted ears and had obliterated the sound of that golden bell from the azure surface of the enveloping silence. Sweet Sunday afternoons beneath the chestnut-tree in our Combray garden, from which I was careful to eliminate every commonplace incident of my actual life, replacing them by a career of strange adventures and ambitions in a land watered by living streams, you still recall those adventures and ambitions to my mind when I think of you, and you embody and preserve them by virtue of having little by little drawn round and enclosed them (while I went on with my book and the heat of the day declined) in the gradual crystallization, slowly altering in form and dappled with a pattern of chestnut-leaves, of your silent, sonorous, fragrant, limpid hours.