An exhibition with Eastside Projects, Birmingham, September 2017 - ongoing
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With Teresa Cisneros, Lucy Lopez, Christian Nyampeta, Rosalie Schweiker, Gavin Wade, Rehana Zaman
Birmingham Ormiston Academy
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Public meeting No. 3: Unspoken policies of education
Birmingham Ormiston Academy
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A residency with Grafikens Hus, Södertälje - November 2017
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ArkDes bibliotek
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The Library as Myth
The Library as Order
The Library as Space
The Library as Power
The Library as Shadow
The Library as Shape
The Library as Chance
The Library as Workshop
The Library as Mind
The Library as Island
The Library as Survival
The Library as Oblivion
The Library as Imagination
The Library as Identity
The Library as Home
Alberto Manguel, Contents from The Library at Night
(2006)
Järna bibliotek
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The Stories We Tell
Changing the story isn't enough in itself, but it has often been foundational to real changes. Making an injury visible and public is often the first step to remedying it, and political change often follows culture, and what was long tolerated is seen to be intolerable, or what was overlooked becomes obvious. Which means that every conflict is in part a battle over the story we tell, or who tells and who is heard.
Rebecca Solnit, from Hope in the Dark (2015)
Riksdags bibliotek
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...under capitalism, the term everybody is a political euphemism used by capitalists (and those who believe them) to deflect responsibility for systemic processes onto consumers who cannot control them. But beneath the gloss, there is a deep hatred of 'the everybody' (the faceless masses, other people's kids, other people's nations, other people's religions) combined with a sense of collective ownership of other people's achievements (multiculturalism). Everybody exists to sacrifice for the few.
Holly Lewis, from The Politics of Everybody (2016)
Östermalms bibliotek
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Too many birds in one tree
Too many birds in one tree
And the sky is full of black and screaming leaves
The sky is full of black and screaming
And one more bird
Then one more bird
And one last bird
And another
One last black bird without a place to land
One last black bird without a place to be
Turns around in hopes to find the place it last knew rest
Oh black bird, over black rain burn
This is not where you last knew rest
You fly all night to sleep on stone
The heartless rest that in the morn, we'll be gone
You fly all night to sleep on stone, to return to the tree with too many birds
Too many birds
Too many birds
If...
If you...
If you could...
If you could only...
If you could only stop...
If you could only stop your...
If you could only stop your heart...
If you could only stop your heart beat...
If you could only stop your heart beat for...
If you could only stop your heart beat for one heart...
If you could only stop your heart beat for one heart beat.
Bill Callahan, from Sometimes I Wish I Were an Eagle (2009)
Tranströmerbiblioteket i Söderhallarna
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That feeling of nearness to the shapeless ghost, Ambiguity, is what I want most, what I want to put inside a book, what I want the reader to sense. And because it is at once a thing and a nothing, the reader will have to find it, not only in what I have written, but also in what I have not written.
Siri Hustvedt, from Search for a Definition (2009)
Konstakadamiens bibliotek
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This is a Printing Office
Crossroads of Civilization
Refuge of all the arts against the ravages of time
Armoury of fearless truth against whispering rumour
Incessant trumpet of trade
From this place words may fly abroad
Not to perish on waves of sound
Not to vary with the writer's hand
But fixed in time having been verified in proof
Friend, you stand on sacred ground
This is a Printing Office
Beatrice Warde, This is a Printing Office (1932)
Kungliga Biblioteket
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We tend to associate intimacy with closeness and a certain sum of shared experiences. Yet every day total strangers, who will never say a single word to one another can share an intimacy. An intimacy contained in the exchange of a glance, a nod of the head, a smile, a shrug of the shoulder. A closeness which last for a second or for the duration of a song being sung and listened to together. An agreement about life. An agreement without clauses.
John Berger, from Some Notes on Song (2015)
Tidnings- och tidskriftsbiblioteket, Stockholm
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I want to write a novel about silence [...] the things people don't say.
Virginia Woolf, from The Voyage Out (1915)
Stadsbibliotek Stockholm
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Thought
Of obedience, faith, adhesiveness;
As I stand aloof and look there is to me something profoundly affecting in large masses of men following the lead of those who do not believe in men.
Thought
Of Equality - as if it harm'd me, giving other the same chances and rights as myself - as if it were not indispensable to my own rights that others possess the same.
Walt Whitman, from By the Roadside (1860)
Kista Bibliotek
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For the erotic is not a question only of what we do; it is a question of how acutely and fully we can feel in the doing. Once we know the extent to which we are capable of feeling that sense of satisfaction and completion, we can then observe which of our various life endeavours bring us closest to that fullness.
[...]
The principle horror of any system which defines the good in terms of profit rather than in terms of human need, or which defines human need to the exclusion of the psychic and emotional components of that need - the principle horror of such a system is that it robs our work of its erotic value, its erotic power and life appeal and fulfilment. Such a system reduces work to a travesty of necessities, a duty by which we earn bread or oblivion for ourselves and those we love.
Audre Lorde, from The Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power (1978)
Nordiska museets Bibliotek
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Rat Song
When you hear me singing
you get the rifle down
and the flashlight, aiming for my brain,
but you always miss
and when you set out the poison
I piss on it
to warn the others.
You think: That one’s too clever,
she’s dangerous, because
I don’t stick around to be slaughtered
and you think I’m ugly too
despite my fur and pretty teeth
and my six nipples and snake tail.
All I want is love, you stupid
humanist. See if you can.
Right, I’m a parasite, I live off your
leavings, gristle and rancid fat,
I take without asking
and make nests in your cupboards
out of your suits and underwear.
You’d do the same if you could,
if you could afford to share
my crystal hatreds.
It’s your throat I want, my mate
trapped in your throat.
Though you try to drown him
with your greasy person voice,
he is hiding / between your syllables
I can hear him singing.
Margaret Atwood, from Selected Poems 1965-1975
Stadsbibliotek Södertälje
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Affinity
We feel an affinity with a certain thinker because we agree with him; or because he shows us what we are already thinking; or because he shows us in a more articulate form what we were already thinking; or because he shows us what we were on the point of thinking; or what we would sooner or later have thought; or what we would have thought much later if we hadn't read it now; or what we would have been likely to think but never would have thought if we hadn't read it now; or what we would have liked to think but never would have thought if we hadn't read it now.
Lydia Davis, from Almost No Memory (1997)