wew, so i did manage to figure out how the print the repeat pattern which felt like a great success to me. i made a lengthy and rather boring tutorial about it, but if you're really trying to figure out the process i would say it's helpful, it's also up just so i don't have to go through the whole process of rediscovering how to do it again. rediscovery is only exciting the first few times, after that it just gets tiresome.
a lot has gone on in the world around us lately, with the murder of George Floyd by the police (& many others), and blacklivesmovement taking a forefront in social media which it rightly should - i think those of us who are privileged enough to learn about racism through education instead of experience, often when something is out of sight it's out of mind, yet it is our collective social responsibility to do our part for the communities around us/ the causes we feel for. for me it made me more conscious about what i was not doing, and how i was not actively engaged in being aware of the needs in my immediate community, and how i could make a difference. and that is something i want to be more conscious of. it made me think about teaching also, and shouldn't values of empathy, care, kindness be the forefront of our curriculum. this may be a stereotype, but in asian culture, i think there's a lot of things we take for granted that people should know about, and don't address issues head-on. i think race is one of them that we can make more prevalent in our education system, in acknowledging that while we have strived in our history to promote racial tolerance, we can still do better, and we need to do better than tolerance. a lot of microaggressions go unaddressed in schools, and perhaps in the past we lacked better language for it, but i don't think we should have any excuses to let any issues with regards to inequality slip us by, or be more important than the curriculum we are teaching. so what if our students grow up to have "good" jobs but lack understanding about privilege, and power, and empathy? it will only perpetuate injustice, especially if they are in positions of power. i think there are many resources out there, and we each need to do the work to educate ourselves, and engage in conversations with those around us too. i think it starts there. a final thought is that i do think that the media is very dominated by the west, and there's a lot going on in the world that isn't just in the west too that do not get enough attention. we have to be active and discerning about the things we watch on tv, or the things that pop up on social media, and never let the easy access to information make us lazy that we stop thinking critically.
ok that's my incoherent spiel. i was gonna write about some other stuff but now i don't really remember what. i've had a couple conversations with shauna, an old friend, who now runs a plaform @cherished_official on instagram, and she has a telegram channel too. we have been talking about art, how we both got into it, and also what we are doing in the arts at the moment. She runs a platform and organises events that gather artists and art practitioners both from singapore and also in perth where she is currently based. she's been having various individuals on her instagram to talk about their practice. i've missed interacting with other artists, and it's been really refreshing talking to her. i think the way she approaches art is really beautiful, in that she hopes that anyone and everyone can approach in arts in a way that is comfortable to them, coming as who they are, into a space be it digital or physical that they can feel integrated into. she reaches out more to those who perhaps may not yet have much engagement in the arts, inviting them into spaces where they can experience the arts for themselves. the way she talked about her platform reminds me of how the arts moved me when i was younger, and why i engage in it still. for me, it's about connecting with both the world around us, as well as people around us - be it strangers, friends, family, and to experience a kind of stillness and awe that words may not be able to express. that's definitely not the only thing that art can do - art can also look like activism, or make political statements, or be satirical too, and serve many other functions. but my memory of being very moved, was standing before this huge piece of a beach, with many tiny people dotted on the sand, with the sea before them. and i felt that the artist perfectly captured the moment of feeling tiny amidst nature exactly the way i felt it. and that made me feel something in common with a total stranger from the other side of the world, someone whom i had never met or known, yet his work touched me.
anw, i guess that's it for today. writing's hard man.
