All posts filed under: create

Georgia O’Keeffe at Tate Modern

The most scenic route to the Tate Modern is over the London Millennium Footbridge. The narrow bridge curves like a spine and wobbles over the Thames River. Leaving St. Paul’s Cathedral’s classical baroque dome behind, you walk towards the industrial block that is one of the largest modern art museums in the world. On the other side of the river, a declaration in large, block letters peers from the outer wall of the Tate and draws you into the museum: “ART CHANGES WE CHANGE.” I wondered about this announcement as I walked closer to the brown building that used to be a power station before its conversion into a museum. I was on my way to see the Georgia O’Keefe (1887 – 1986) retrospective. Did it mean to say that as art changes, it changes us? Or do we change independently? Would we not change if it wasn’t for art? Was this a statement about the power of art? Of change? Of cause-and-effect? Of the inevitability of time’s imprint? I thought, maybe the witty phrase wasn’t plastered on …

How to Possess Your Travels

Most people can’t help buy souvenirs and take photographs while on vacation. These two activities provide the simplest way remember the journey taken and take a piece of it home. Yet do they really enhance our experience? In an earlier post, I wrote how the impulse to document our lives with photos increases when we travel to beautiful places. The connection between buying souvenirs and taking photographs became clear to me as I sailed to the Manchones Reef on a small dive boat in Isla Mujeres, Mexico off the coast of Cancun. Not long ago, it was a tiny fisherman’s island. As Cancun turned into the decaying resort-town it is today, the island’s sand streets also gave way to paved roads and shabby hotels. Nevertheless, Isla Mujeres still remains a haven of calm in comparison to the degenerated concrete that is Cancun. So I jumped on the ferry and sailed straight to the island as soon as my flight landed. The plan was to get over my jetlag while relaxing on the beach. The only thing I wanted to “do” while over …

On the Obsession of Travel Photography

A few weeks ago, I ate dinner with Barbara—a woman also staying at Hostel La Candelaria in Valladolid in Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula. Valladolid is frequented by travelers and backpackers alike for its proximity to Chichen Itza, Ek Balam, and breathtaking cenotes–natural sinkholes–scattered about the Yucatan state. Barbara showed me Google photos of Rio Lagartos, a coastal town north of Valladolid where pink flamingos roam free. Even though she failed to recruit any other hostel dwellers to join her day-trip, she was determined to take the two-hour bus ride to the lagoon and photograph the flamingos. “I will go there and take photos of pink flamingos. And they’d better be there or else I will Photoshop them into the picture!” she said. I couldn’t be sure whether her priority was to actually see the flamingos or possess first-hand photos of them. I had previously written about the transformative effects of being filmed on the experience of diving. Barbara’s excitement to possess images of pink flamingos prompted a renewed contemplation over a subject that has long agitated me. As …

Meksiko, Francis Alÿs, ve Kardeşlik

Meksiko’daki Rufino Tamayo müzesinde sergilenen sanatçı Francis Alÿs’in “Relato de Una Negociación” adlı sergisinin beni bu kadar etkileyebileceğini hiç düşünemezdim. Aslında herkesin övgüyle söz ettiği Antropoloji müzesine gitme gayesiyle çıkmıştım dışarı. Antropoloji müzesi Pazar günleri halka açık olduğundan oldukça kalabalıktı.   Bilet gişesinin önündeki bir sanatsal protesto gözüme ilişti.  Sonradan tarih hocası olduğunu öğrendiğim Angelica, elime bir broşür iliştirirken, hükümetin ayrımcı öğretmen atama politikasını protesto eden 43 öğrencinin neredeyse bir yıldır “kayıp” olduğunu anlattı. Göstericiler, devletten bu kişilerin ölü ya da diri nerede olduğunu açıklamaları için hesap sormaktaydılar. “Bu müze benim de dahil olduğum INAH araştırma kurulumuna ait olduğu için burada protesto yapmamıza hala izin veriyorlar ama kimbilir yakında buna da karışırlar,” dedi. “Kilise varlıklı kesimle bir oldu, laik eğitim sistemimizi özelleştirmeye çalışıyor. Okullarda çocuklar yine rahiplerin eline kalacak, zaten sağlık sistemini de özelleştirdiler…” Yarım saat sohbet ettik. Türkiye’yi sordu. Yeni seçimlerden çıktığımızı, geleceğin belirsiz olduğunu söyledim. Tesadüf bu ya, aynı gün, 7 Haziran günü Meksika’da da yerel seçimler olmuştu. Ama ülkenin yarısı bile oy vermeye gitmemişti. Canım hiç antropoloji müzesi gezmek istemiyordu, rota değiştirip yolda …

A Smartphone Addiction Saga

Do you ever feel like you are less focused than you once used to be? Is your attention span shrinking? What do you do in those seemingly “dead” minutes while waiting for the bus or a friend to show up before a date? How do you spend those 15 minutes between awaking and actually getting out bed, those moments spent standing by the stove waiting for the soup to heat? My hand automatically reaches to my iPhone and wherever Facebook ushers me. There comes a sudden curiosity to Google “cooking with fresh turmeric” when I don’t even have turmeric—or hold that thought! Let me look up how to spell infinitesimal, because why not do that right now, in the middle of the street, as wait for a green light? Lately I notice that my concentration scattered. I check my email in the middle of writing an essay, answer Facebook messages half way into a book, and before I know it, I am reading about the latest adventures of ISIS or watching a TED video on …

When the Muses Block your Creativity

A few weeks ago, a Muse hit me on the head—not with a magical wand but with a book. It was on one of Tel Aviv’s few gloomy days. A grey wind blew outside my window, making the thought of any venture outside even more depressing than staying in. A writer’s block had occupied all corners of my keyboard. I must get out of the house, I told myself and hopped on my bike. I rode through Allenby, dodging low clouds and loud busses to arrive at Halper’s Books – one of Tel Aviv’s hidden gems for used books in English. I didn’t have a book in mind. One should approach used bookstores like an antiques store; you never know what you will find. At this point you are probably expecting me to reveal that I discovered a special edition of The Wasteland or Anne Karenina, soiled by coffee stains and breadcrumbs left from their previous owners. No. I bought almost-new copies of The Road (saw the movie but never read the book) and Alain …

“Fever to the Form”: Can Art help make sense of life?

I frequently find myself mulling over a song for hours and days, playing it on repeat until I can no longer hear it anymore. In most cases, the compulsion ends within a day or two and I can go back to my life again. But other times, madness takes over.Not too long ago, my obsession with Marcia’s song “A PELE QUE HÁ EM MIM” made me translate the entire song from Portuguese. (No, I don’t speak Portuguese). The song in question today happens to be in English so I didn’t embark on adventures in translation of languages unknown to me. Instead, Nick Mulvey’s “Fever to the Form” made me think about too many questions I could handle in 3 minutes 44 seconds. The obvious one was: What does “Fever to the Form” even mean? But let’s leave that aside for a moment and go back to Mexico. How art can help make sense of life One of my fondest memories of San Miguel de Allende, the Mexican town of artists, is from an Italian potluck dinner around …

On Dreams and Husbands

THE LAND OF DREAMS | There was a huge, open-air camp. Singing plants and illuminated chilis sprouted from magicians’ hats and everyone offered dreams for barter. Some wished to trade dreams of travel with dreams of love; others offered dreams of laughter in exchange for sad dreams to release a long-needed cry. A man walked about looking for the bits and pieces of his dream, which was shattered by someone who smashed into it: He collected the shreds of his dream and pasted them together to make with them a banner of colors. The water bearer of dreams carried the water in a vessel on his back and dispensed it in tall cups to whoever got thirsty while sleeping. A woman wearing a white tunic stood on a tower and combed her tresses that reached her toes. The comb shed dreams with all their characters: the dreams were born from the hair and glided out into the air. Excerpt from _El Libro de Los Abrazos_ by Eduardo Galeano. Trans. Nathalie Alyon “But how is Nathalie going to find a husband …

Adventures with Portuguese: “A PELE QUE HÁ EM MIM”

“I did nothing yesterday,” I said to Kris, emphasizing “nothing.” Kris was my new friend in San Miguel de Allende and we were lounging on the grass at La Gruta hot springs. It was the second week of my writing workshop and I was feeling anxious for not having written five novels already in 14 days. “Me neither,” Kris said dipping her chips in the guacamole. Our beers were barely chilled but I couldn’t care less. Sunbathing with good company in Mexico not writing was better than staring cross-eyed at my facebook newsfeed not writing. The truth is I was lying—I had done something the day before. “Well, I did translate a song from Portuguese to English,” I said. Kris laughed: “Of course, you did!” “I don’t speak Portuguese.” “Of course, you don’t.” She laughed some more. After listening “A PELE QUE HÁ EM MIM” on repeat for two days, I copy pasted the lyrics into Google translate. It was awful; made no sense whatsoever. But I was obsessed and no matter what, I had to understand …

Traveling Alone in Distant Lands. Afraid?

I can think up many a reasons for packing up my apartment and traveling to the other side of the world by myself. I want to learn new languages, understand other nations, see the rainforest, and climb strange mountains… But the real motivation for leaving home is to learn one thing: to be alone. I’ve always had this romantic notion that to be a true artist—whatever that truly means—one must have a personality that thrives on solitude. I imagine a painter locked up in a basement for days, weeks, months, working on her masterpiece. Or picture Virginia Wolf shooing away servers in her country retreat in Sussex, in self-imposed imprisonment, to think, to write, to be alone. After John Steinbeck finished college he was broke and needed to find a way to support himself that afforded him the time to write. The 24-year old aspiring writer accepted a job at a large estate in Lake Tahoe as its sole caretaker. “It required that I be snowed in for eight months every year. My nearest neighbor was four …