Message in a Dream

As I walk through a bazaar on a beach
where vendors sell fruits, dried fish, fragrant oils,
calabashes, hemp dresses, natural juices,
a woman walks out of the waves:
"I must read your palms, O woman of magic."
She pulls me down into the sand,
sits behind me, my back against her chest.
She puts my palms like cups into the cups
of her palms. We sway like sea-grape branches.
Vendors gather like apostles around us.
Lightning rises out of my palms
hits the water and the waves spit fire.
"You are too passionate," she whispers.
"You will kill things along the way."
I wake to the sound of the city's sirens
and my curtains dancing like wind parting
in the wake of a woman's leaving.


Tanya Shirley
from The Merchant of Feathers
Peepal Tree Press

life doesn't last,

art doesn't last,

it doesn't matter.

Eva Hesse.

Tactics for a Decolonial Art Practice

Came across these Tactics for Decolonial Art Practice by John Jota Leaños on this call for submissions. 

Jean Rhys

Jean Rhys had to leave her home to truly see it
by Gabrielle Bellot

http://lithub.com/jean-rhys-had-to-leave-her-home-to-truly-see-it/

Isaac Julien: Other Destinies at the Royal Ontario Museum

Listening to Isaac Julien talk about his work! so good!

In front of Western Union: Small Boats (2007)

Talking about True North (2004)

Great quote to hang onto when reading difficult texts!

"Theory comes in and out of focus."

In class explanation by Dr Dot Tuer, Post-Colonial Issues in Visual Culture at OCADu, January 23, 2017. 

Anish Kapoor at Arte Continua in Havana

Old drawings from the archives. 

"The attempt to connect landscape and humankind is an attempt to create an autochthonous culture and thus found both a nation and a sense of community, of being a people." (Heller 403).

Heller, Ben A. "Landscape, Femininity, and the Caribbean Discourse." MLN 111.2 (1996): 391-416. Project Muste [John Hopkins UP]. Web. 28 Aug. 2016.

A seven-part series on the history of the Caribbean narrated by Stuart Hall