Readings ~ Community Casting
Not a Weekly Wrapup
I intended for these to be a weekly wrapup, but I’ve found myself faced with the fact that in order to do that I’d have to have:
- ample time to actually reflect
- the willpower to set aside that time
And I have neither of these at this moment. I get most of my writing done while waiting for things or very late at night, so when my nights are taken up with making things and I’m no longer traveling anywhere, my writing definitely falls to the wayside.
So instead, here’s a quick recap on some quick reads:
Read for Outside the Box:
- Howlround: This is How We Cripped It
- The Ableist Effects of Creating Post-Pandemic Theatre During a Pandemic
- NY Times: Black Artists Expatriates
The idea of “cripping” versus “hiring or casting for diversity” reminds me of the “colorblind” conversations that have historically (and still) surrounded race in the United States. We gain nothing by ignoring the facts of a person’s situation, instead the most radical thing we can do is acknowledge, accept, and embrace those facts that diverge from our expectations of the norm.
Honestly I think I’m feeling reading fatigue when it comes to articles about our responses to COVID, if only because they don’t necessarily make me feel hopeful.
I do appreciate the idea taken from the Ableist Effects of Creating Post-Pandemic, which is to make visible all of the abilities required for an audience to view or participate in an event. This at least gives us the chance to reflect on the actual needs from an event, and the needs that appear over and over across an industry.
Regarding Black Artists Expatriates
Their moves are at once personal and driven by a desire to connect; and if these artists do not expect to feel wholly at home anywhere in the world, neither do they assume America is the only, or the best, place to exercise their collaborative gifts.
Agnes Denes: Wheatfield - A Confrontation: Battery Park Landfill
- The powerful act of reclaiming something valuable monetarily to make work in a different value system
- Absurdity turned normal, turned extinct. You change someone’s reality, just for a minute.
- Working to make visible in a community that which they struggle to represent
- What does JR risk, by doing this work? Does he put the communities he visits in risk, by doing his work there?
Other things that have caught my attention recently:
- Tiger Dingsun, on poetry and graphic design courtesy of Adnan Aga
- A lost Zine called daikon* that I want to return to
- QueerAsianFuturism which I think has been sunsetted, but may continue in Shengli’s other work
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