There has been a significant gap in posts on this site. Quick update, I started blogging on Tumblr as part of my Foundation Diploma in Art and Design and this site did not really get a look-in. Then pandemic (still pandemic), and as of a couple of weeks ago I’m studying for MA in Fine art at Middlesex University. I’m expecting to be more active on here now – Critical Debates seminars require regular posts and as I make work, conduct research and learn stuff it’s all got to go somewhere.
Writing is a very slow process for me – I do write a lot for my own consumption in my sketchbooks and journals, but those are entirely for me, so pretty much any old gibberish will do. Having to write to communicate ideas, analysis and argument is altogether different. I attended an academic writing workshop yesterday where we performed an exercise in “free writing”. The text below is my output from that exercise.
Cultural appropriation… I want to be socially engaged in my art and as a 56 year old, white male, what are the issues with which I can validly engage? By which I mean, make work that has a positive contribution, sheds light, adds to the discourse, or just entertains on matters that are at the forefront of cultural debates. I have never been in a position where my skin colour, ethnicity, gender or living with a disability has been a barrier to me doing what I want to do. I’ve been educated and worked through a time of relative prosperity so that I do not need to think about where my next pay cheque is coming from, or how to feed myself and my family and keep a roof over my head. My personal issues are all first world problems and so I really do not want to start there. I feel thrust into this among so many people who have something interesting to say for which they can draw on lived experience, but what do I have? I’m not putting this out there for anyone to answer but myself. It’s just a reflection on what I’m absorbed with… nothing to see here.
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