Textual pleasures

I was asked to write something for this blog. More, I think, because I travel a lot, than because I am an expert about art. Like a lot of people, I spend a lot of time looking at images and thinking about them, but I have no qualifications, either as a maker of art or as a connoisseur. So I will have to stick with my status as a traveler. I’m now on a plane, traveling from Conakry, on the West Coast of Africa, to Berlin, one of the capitals of late capitalism, if that’s what it is….

The images that haunt me from the exhibition are Youssef Nabil’s and Lalla Essaydi’s. When I was asked to write this, I visited the web page for the exhibit. I was immediately drawn to Nabil’s photos, and my reaction was instantaneous: ‘Cindy Sherman meets Proust.’ I wasn’t sure what I meant. As I read the biographies of the artists, I learned that Nabil grew up in Cairo during ‘the golden era of Hollywood on the Nile’, so I felt that the film-still quality of his photos was obviously not accidental. The hand-colored photos also call to mind old postcards. Like other souvenirs, postcards distill our sense of longing—for a place, for its smells and sights, for the people (or a particular person) living there. As Susan Stewart writes, the souvenir uses narrative to bring together longing and the desire to possess.

Place, desire, narrative. This is where Proust enters. Nabil’s photos are soaked with an aura of male sexual desire, to be sure. He has taken care to color himself in the hues of ripe fruit, rather than human skin. But the relationship between desire and travel is equally foregrounded. It’s strange the ways that different languages encode the relationship. In German, the lust attributed to travel is the itch to be elsewhere. In Portuguese, the depressive eroticism of saudade is the longing to be home. In Mande societies of West Africa, it is the play between ‘mother child-ness’ and ‘father child-ness’ that have driven generations of young men since Sundiata toward l’aventure, that particularly West African usage in French that both engages and challenges bourgeois notions of the romance inherent in travel.

This has been a long trip. New Haven to Johannesburg via Hartford, Atlanta, Dakar. Jo’burg to Dakar. Dakar to Conakry. Conakry to Berlin via Casablanca and Frankfurt. When I’m on a long trip like this I sometimes bring worn out items—socks with a hole in them, a tube of toothpaste that’s almost finished—and leave them behind, fully exhausted. I get strange satisfaction from the idea that my bags are getting infinitesimally lighter. All the more so when I travel to West Africa, where I’ve lived for many years—then, my bags are always half-full with gifts, letters, small packages. Some are from me, others from mutual friends who don’t want to let Western Union take a cut of their money, or don’t trust the postal system. In a way, this is the same dynamic as the postcard, only backward. The longing for narration, inscription, a concrete trace of human affection, is as much a part of what we leave behind as what we pick up in the airport gift shop. Essaydi’s photos, filled with writing, also evoke this urge. I love art that incorporates words. Especially Jean-Michel Basquiat and Jenny Holzer. As an academic, I’m biased towards texts. But from the angle of art reception, I also like the way that textual incorporation disturbs the one-way street of art appreciation and connoisseurship, which are, after all, just euphemisms for ownership. I would not like to have to write wall panels for such art, which has already provided its own caption. Le plaisir du texte, indeed.

—Michael McGovern, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Yale University

On people and passing, home and away

As I was planning the exhibition Far from Home I took great care to capture the themes of displacement, dislocation, relocation, and transformation from various perspectives. For instance, in some cases the person or subjects of the work are people that have relocated during their lifetimes; in others, the artists themselves have moved from one place to another, and this informs their work. In still other cases, my own reading of the work relates it to the topic, and is one of many possible interpretations, as is often possible with modern and contemporary art.

In my first blog entry, I ended by posing the question, what is ‘home”, and what makes it so? I write this later entry with this question in mind, because I recently became acutely aware of one facet that I had not considered while preparing the exhibition—at least, that I hadn’t consciously addressed. That is the role that a person or people, specifically family, can play in making a place ‘home’.

This facet came strikingly to the fore for me last month with the recent passing of my grandfather, age 92, in Toledo, Ohio. Toledo is very much one of our family’s homes, even for those of us who did not actually live there (most of the grandchildren). It was always home, in a sense, because Grandma and Grandpa were there and, in our minds, always had been. Following my grandfather’s death, I went to visit my grandmother for a week, though not in Toledo; she took some time away shortly after Grandpa died, and went to Florida’s Gulf Coast where my aunt and uncle have a second home. This, then, is where I went to visit her, and we spent many hours together, both speaking and in silence.

This physical displacement itself is not what called to mind the idea of displacement inherent the exhibition, however. Instead, it was the conversations I had with Gram there. During that time, Gram mentioned that she was grateful to have a place to get away following the harrowing loss, and couldn’t imagine going back without Grandpa there—in effect, it would no longer be home, so what was the point? After 67 years of marriage, the concept of 'home' had become inseparable from this person who was no longer there, sitting in his iconic (within our family, at least) olive green, mid-century modern leather chair and ottoman.

In retrospect, I wonder whether this was a gross oversight in my own planning of the exhibition, one borne of my unmarried status and itinerant life in which my family has always been far away from me. It sounds rather strange to me now, but only once in my adult life—a span of 3 years in Washington, DC, where I was surrounded by family as well as friends from several different stages of my life all within a few blocks or a few miles—has home ever been associated with people rather than with place or work.

For those five days in Florida last month, though, I did feel at home, because I was living with Gram, planning our days together, mostly what to have for breakfast and scavenging the beach for shells when her energy permitted and other such banalities. Otherwise we reclined in chairs by the waves excavating the past and speculating about our futures, and sharing daily activities together, as well as with my aunt, uncle, cousin-in-law, and her children—all this in a place that was wholly unfamiliar to me.

Even though this exhibition, its nuances and content are intimately familiar to me, in the last several weeks I find that I have started to revisit the Far from Home galleries more frequently given this profound shift in my own thinking, and I see things very differently. This transformation of my view of the exhibition makes me wonder what other people have seen in the show that I missed in the planning process, but may still lie beneath the surface. For example, I appreciate an aspect of Youssef Nabil’s work that he discussed during his lecture last night at UNC-Chapel Hill, where he related his self-portrait work to a longstanding preoccupation death, sleep, and peacefulness as closely allies, and the notion that being far from home one day will mean moving onto the hereafter, whatever that may be.

—Kinsey Katchka, curator of Far from Home

Subtle Nuances

The idea of difference in displacement is one that is hard to ignore. In a new place the first thing I pick up on is the small nuances that make it unique—different from “home.” My first real encounter with this was during my semester abroad in Montpellier, France in the spring of 2007. As my first journey abroad, everything was new and exciting. Noticing all the differences between American and French culture, I realized the relationship between the two to be “grayer” than expected—that is, differences were subtle, not so stark as black and white... I found my feelings of displacement from home were in the smallest of details. For instance, the French don’t readily hand out bags at the grocery check out, and when I asked for some, I received puzzled looks. Likewise, when I folded my hands in my lap at the dinner table, instead of keeping my forearms on the table, it wasn’t seen as proper etiquette, rather, I looked as if I was hiding something from my fellow diners. In each of these scenarios and countless others, I was labeling myself as a foreigner, a non-French, and possibly an American. But equally important in these scenarios, as my actions labeled me as “different,” I too labeled the French as distinctly different from me.

Labels become an important point in displacement, like imprints that write a certain script on your language and body without your knowledge or your intent. It’s hard to see these differences while in the mix of people you associate with “home,” but once you find yourself in the midst of displacement, these nuances become glaring differences. As a camouflage mechanism, I tried to disguise my “otherness,” but in the end, I couldn’t. I had already been imprinted with a mix of southern Californian and North Carolinian. Though I attempted to live a French life, I had inevitably taken some “home” with me abroad. And equally unavoidable, as I packed my bags six months later to leave, I was leaving behind a part of my new definition of home, one that now stretches across the Atlantic.

—Melissa Cormier, Art history student, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The Nature of Alienness

I have often wondered about this strange notion of the word displacement and space—what it means in the context of who I am as a person and as an artist. Obviously there is an interest and curiosity to know how artists express ideas about life when they move from place to place or, in my case, from continent to continent. What is interesting about the whole notion of displacement is its psychological dimension of perception and reality. It demands a dialogue with oneself and occasionally with those who are curious to know the nature of alienness.

For several years I carried a green card that identified me as an alien resident. I struggled with the notion of this word alien for a while, for I came with a passport that clearly identified me as an Ethiopian and ascertained my belonging to a place, a culture, and a people. By that it further recognized that which made up the nuances of who I was and suddenly I question and the green card questioned who I am.

Suddenly one is confronted with the question 'What does this mean?'. So one becomes in need of a comfort zone and engages in searching both within and without for things familiar—both material and cultural. This is natural and acceptable by all groups who have come to the U.S. by ship or the jet.

My foundation, then as well as now, is made up of an environment that nurtured my development as a person and as an artist. It has provided me with a capacity to learn, adopt and be a contributing citizen wherever I may be in time and space. As an artist I am fortunate to have a strong sense of who I am as an African, Ethiopian, and American, but most importantly I come from a place where man originated—the Land of Dinkinash.

In my work I have tried to address issues of displacement due to man made war or famine or migration caused by political persecution in Ethiopia and Africa and at large—works in a series called Journey to the Unknown, for an example. Far from Home is not only timely but long overdue as it addresses issues via creative responses by artists who have shared personal and global experiences that are equally universal. This is a wonderful beginning as the NCMA is making progress towards a newer and enviable position in its aggressive experientially rewarding programs of exhibitions and other alternative services to its members, patrons, and the citizen of North Carolina.

—Achamyeleh Debela, Artist, featured in Far from Home; Professor of Art, North Carolina Central University

The Challenge to Remap One’s Life

Some cultures encourage movement, some treasure stability. I come for a very immobile culture. I was born and raised in an Italian city. Left for certain periods, but never ceased to consider that my home. Moves were temporary, always with a sense of return in mind. This time my family and I moved for real. Sold the house, packed all our lives and relocated across the ocean.

Moving is being displaced. It is losing one’s sense of reference, familiar routes, and places. It is reducing the complexity of lived experience while at the same time acquiring a whole range of new inputs. It is taking up the challenge to remap one’s life.

Let me explain.

Home is a place constructed through multiple layers, relationship experiences. It is an emotionally charged landscape. A place constructed through one’s personal history. My first school, the playground where I used to play as a child, my high school, the buildings where my friends and family used to live and often still do, the clubs attended in different periods of youth and adult life, the university campus, the church where I got married, the different places where I worked, administrative buildings, favorite stores, doctors offices. At home, life is an itinerary unwinding through familiar points of reference. Sometimes the map expands, new places and people are added, some are forgotten…but they are there ready to be recovered if interest or necessity arises. Being at home is a feeling of being entangled in this comforting and multilayered web that connects people and places in many and sometimes surprising ways.

Far from home one looses all this. One needs to recreate the map. Start from scratch. Everything is so difficult...yet, so excruciatingly simple. Work-home-grocery store. Pharmacy. Children’s school. Hardly a web. Hardly a network. Hardly comforting. It takes time to understand where things are. And it takes effort to understand that things might not be there the way you expect them to be. Moving—and especially moving to a different country—is a change of mind set. Even if ‘daily life’ has a sense of normalcy by its very nature, it can be experienced in many different ways: and there is nothing normal once you remove yourself from the place where your idea of ‘normal’ was constructed. It is adapting to new foods, new smells, new systems of garbage disposal, new brands of detergent, new ways of washing and drying your clothes...Mundane things, but also more connected to our sense of home and belonging than our intellectual endeavors. Things that make you feel nostalgic and out of place, even when the move was the coronation of a dream. Even when one moves for the better.

Once in a Cameroonian village I was conversing with a friend while sharing a typical local meal: the scalding fufu was burning my fingers as I was trying to dip it in the rich palm oil sauce, while attempting to extract some meat from the bony smoked fish that constituted the highlight of the meal. Of course, as it often happens, food was the topic of our dinner conversation. Mary was indeed very curious to understand how we managed to survive and feed ourselves in Europe. “See, she said to me, my sister moved to Italy six months ago and she is telling me that over there there is hardly any food to eat”. While contemplating my meager fish deboning results, I decided this was something to ponder, while dreaming of prosciutto.

–Silvia Forni, Associate Curator, Department of World Cultures, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Ontario

Ledelle Moe: Where is home?

In response to this question of Where is home? I reflected on the different places I have lived, where I grew up, and where I am now. I remember as a young person in South Africa the impact that television had on our lives when it came into the living room. Before television a relative bubble existed between us (in the South African suburbs) and the outside world. I grew up on a lot of English literature, Natal being a British based province; the school system was predominantly influenced by the British education system. When television entered into our private lives, it brought with it a window into the lives of Americans.

Through these programs the American West and the lives of the rich and famous were played out. I believe, looking back on it, that these movies and stories had an impact on my perception of the idea of the “center” and the “periphery.” America became an ideal, next to the ideal of the Queen, the Royal family and British culture in general. As a teenager I aspired to the notion of a culture that embraced blue jeans and autonomy for all. From the context of an all girls’ school where everyone was required to wear the same uniform, these notions of the relaxed American ideal became hugely informative to how I later moved and came to live in the States.

I can only see this now in hindsight. Thirteen years of living and working in the States, and returning home each year for a couple months has allowed the vantage point of being in both places but not feeling like I belong to either. I have become a visitor in South Africa and an immigrant here. These geographic locations and dislocations have made me realize that a sense of belonging can be found more often than not, on a train, in an aero plane and in the spaces in between each ideal place. I think these spaces in between have helped me realize that it is neither one nor the other but both that now makes up whom I am. Even back in the early 80s when we first bought a television (with strict rules to only watch it twice a week, and keep our family dinners and conversation going), American culture and ideals began to weave themselves consciously and subconsciously into my understanding of what it means to be “a part of the world.”

Through my undergraduate studies in South Africa, I was afforded the opportunity to travel to Paris. Friends and I packed our bags and left South Africa for the first time in 1992. Landing in Paris was like a dream come true. We traveled to London, Germany, Italy, seeing Damien Hirst’s shark in formaldehyde and Bruce Nauman’s work for the first time. What we thought art was was flipped on its head and the expansiveness of vocabulary and diversity of work was amazing.

We returned back to South Africa with a new sense of experimentation and desire for alternative voices, and initiated what later became the FLAT Gallery. In this space we had shows that we hoped crossed boundaries of race, class and institutional preconceptions. The FLAT ran for a couple years and provided me with a clear understanding that art can transcend many boundaries that would otherwise exist.

Traveling on a scholarship from South Africa again in 1994 I left Durban to visit the States for a couple weeks. That trip was meant to last a short while and has since taken me on a journey that I am still on today. I have now lived and worked in the States for 13 years, returning back to South Africa annually during the academic summer. As a teacher at the Maryland Institute College of Art I can return home during the summer vacation time. I remain strongly tied to where I was born - to the smells and deep recognition that comes from having grown up in a place. I was born in Durban, a coastal city that overlooks the Indian Ocean. Returning home means going back to the same address I have had for 37 years. The house itself is a place so layered with memories that it always reminds me that, for me, it is only with this base that I could roam so far, and also with the unconditional support of people who believe in art and support it. I now live in Baltimore, a harbor city that has areas that look a lot like Durban’s Harbor. I hope one day to travel from this Baltimore harbor to Durban’s harbor – over the body of water, allowing more time to explore that space and place in between both worlds.

—Ledelle Moe, artist in Far from Home

Where is home?

Whenever you meet someone, it’s inevitable: one person eventually asks the question, “Where are you from” or sometimes even, “Where’s home?” This may come up either when one is home, or when traveling for work, school, or leisure.

Having relocated to Raleigh, N.C. just over a year ago, this has been cause for much reflection for me. I don’t quite feel like I can honestly say simply “Raleigh” yet. Instead, my reply is more often “I live in Raleigh.” That’s the simple answer (and it is true), but it evades the implication of origins and belonging.

The more complete answer is also more complicated, so I’ll chart it out:

City/State (or Country)	Reason for moving
Columbus, Indiana	Born and raised
Boston, Massachusetts	School
Aix-en-Provence, France	School
Washington, D.C.	Work
Bloomington, Indiana	School
Dakar, Senegal and Paris, France	Transition between school and work (research)
Bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana	Transition between school and work (writing)
Washington, D.C.	Work
Detroit, Michigan	Work (with family influence)
Raleigh, North Carolina	Work

These are places I’ve actually had an address. If I incorporated shorter term travel for vacation and research, just the last year would also include Austria, Denmark, Egypt, Germany, Italy, Mali (international) and Gainesville & Miami, FL; Indianapolis, IN; Louisville, KY; New York, NY, Columbus & Toledo, OH; San Francisco, CA; Washington, DC (domestic).

So the question “where do you live” and “where are you from”—and again “where’s home”—have varied greatly over time. As far as where ‘home’ is, I honestly can’t answer one particular place. If I had to choose, I would answer Indiana, DC, Dakar, and France, though the last only because I had a profound sense of belonging there when I lived in Aix-en-Provence for a year during college (I haven’t returned since—does that matter?). I also lived with a family in northwestern France during high school, and have returned there to visit for over 20 years.

As suggested in the exhibition Far from Home, people relocate for many different reasons: educational opportunity, employment, leisure/vacation, political freedom For me, it has been a matter primarily of education and professional development. Perhaps this is the place for a confession: though Far from Home is first and foremost about the artists and artwork, it is distinctly autobiographical on my part as well.

So let me ask a question to all of you in the blogisphere:
For you, where is home, and what makes it so?

—Kinsey Katchka, curator of Far from Home

Far from Home
North Carolina Museum of Art
February 17-July 13, 2008

Far from Home explores the various ways that displacement is manifested in creative expression, suggesting very personal transformations alongside wider group dynamics of belonging and exclusion. Whether focused on the individual or larger community, works stand in dialogue with the expansion of global networks as people relocate and circumscribe their experiences in new places while maintaining connections to homelands and heritage, however tenuous.

During the exhibtion, several contributors will post on this blog to further the discussion beyond the museum walls and reach people who may be far from home.

Future contributors include:
Kinsey Katchka, Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, North Carolina Museum of Art
Ledelle Moe, Artist, featured in Far from Home; Interdisciplinary sculpture faculty, Maryland Institute College of Art
Bisi Silva, Director, Contemporary Art Centre, Lagos, Nigeria
Achamyelah Debela, Artist , featured in Far from Home; Professor of Art, North Carolina Central University
Melissa Cormier, Art history student, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
El Anatsui, Artist
Jane Benson, Artist , featured in Far from Home
Lisa Binder, Assistant Curator, Museum for African Art
Christina Burke, Curator of Native American & Non-Western Art, Philbrook Museum of Art
Silvia Forni, Curator of African Art, Royal Ontario Museum
Adrián Halpern, Immigration attorney
Aida Muluneh, Photographer & filmmaker
Youssef Nabil, Artist , featured in Far from Home
Brigitte NaHoN, Artist, featured in Far from Home
Charmaine Picard, Associate editor (US), The Art Newspaper
Mody Sounfountera, Travel agent & tour guide in Bamako, Mali
Jeffrey Witte, Founder & Director, www.amend.org