#1 New Year Momentum
Dear friends and colleagues, dear faraway nearby,
We made it to 2020! As this is the first letter to land in your inbox this year, I'm still greeting you with a heartfelt Happy New Year despite that January is almost over. I wish you for the year ahead that the seeds you've planted finally bloom. January is usually the month everyone talks about becoming a better version and where imagination and reality are in a weird relationship. There is something very human in aspiring for progress but I'm also often wondering what the real purpose behind self-improvement is. Here are a few thought snippets that are still evolving around the topic of "New year - new me"--old subscriber know by now, that I love to share every month a bit of a different variety of thoughts through different formats, all the new subscribers hello and nice to have you:
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Committing to good decisions
The beginning of the new year is usually a good time to evaluate the structure of our everyday. Annie Dillard wrote beautifully in her book "The Writing Life":
"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living. Each day is the same, so you remember the series afterward as a blurred and powerful pattern."
As I read this lines, I've been trying to change a few things and intentionally commit to take a few better decisions this year:
I've spent 2019 a lot of time at my desk. This year I want to commit to walk 10000 steps daily in addition to my regular work out. In order to hold myself accountable, I got myself an app that tracks my steps and merits rewards for milestones (yes, I do like to collect gold stars, it's a simple way to motivate me).
I've been working on a large-scale writing project for a long time now and am finally seeing the finish line, and it turns out that this last steps are hard. Procrastination is easy when you don't have a real deadline. So, first thing I changed is, to give myself a few time frames, and then, in order to measure daily commitment, I now work with a daily word count and, as not all writing days are the same, I started to experiment with the Pomodoro-technique to have a sense of time. Pomodoro has been working amazingly so far!
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Cycles vs. Momentum
2020 initiates a new decade and people seem to have the highest expectations of what is about to happen, or the contrary, think about the looming apocalypse that lies ahead of us. We have a weird relationship with time and accomplishment. Our economic model thrives on scalability and the promise of indefinite growth. We talk about keeping momentum when we mean to stick to the linear pace of growth. The mindset around momentum is always turned towards the future.
When we talk about cycles on the other hand, we try to assess recurring patterns within time frames. We connect the present moment to past periods and track similarities and differences. We often talk about the cyclical nature of historical events, and to be honest, we currently just have to turn the news on to get the impression that we are right now living through many topics that should not have to be discussed any longer. And I'm aware and sad that I'm writing this letter on the day the UK formally leaves the EU...
The perception of how we relate to time is something highly personal and is deeply connected to the development of our society. Ann Friedman talked with Aminatou Sow on their podcast about time and memory. And Friedman linked in her newsletter to few very interesting examples of how people visualize time: there is this twitter thread where people talk how they visualize the passage of time, an essay about calendar synaesthesia, and this wonderful passage from Olga Tokarczuk’s 2018 novel Flights:
Once we're on the bus, she sets out her theory of time. She says that sedentary peoples, farmers, prefer the pleasures of circular time, in which every object and event must return to its own beginning, curl back up into an embryo and repeat the process of maturation and death. But nomads and merchants, as they set off on journeys, had to think up a different type of time for themselves, one that would better respond to the needs of their travels. That time is linear time, more practical because it was able to measure progress toward a goal or destination, rises in percentages. Every moment is unique, no moment can ever be repeated.
The writer Austin Kleon wrote about the specificity of creative time:
The creative life is not linear. It’s not a straight line from point A to point B. It’s more like a loop, or a spiral, in which you keep coming back to a new starting point after every project. No matter how successful you get, no matter what level of achievement you reach, you will never really “arrive.”
I love his concept of re-imagining time through other concepts. My creative time is currently measured in tomatoes :-)
Image: Page from Austin Kleon, Keep Going
Writing
I had the pleasure to interview Tehmina Goskar, curator and Director of the Curatorial Research Centre, a company she founded in 2018. In the interview she shares personal reflections on what success in the arts looks like. Read her thoughts on fame, financial stability and much more. Read it here>
In case you were not aware, Switzerland, the country where I am currently based in is having a referendum on February 9th in order to extend the anti-discrimination laws. This new extension includes discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and is the attempt to finally criminalize homophobia (most European countries have already these laws in place). However, the new extension excludes Trans- or non-binary people as the law does not include sexual identity. Same-sex marriage remains not legal in Switzerland (there is an option for registered partnerships). In this context, I had the pleasure to visit the opening of the exhibition of Alex Demarmels who researched and portrait the victims of hate crimes against gay men. The article is in German>
I wrote a feature about the new ICOM museum definition that is way too political for Switzerland (remember I am team museums are not neutral). The country prides itself for being inherently neutral and you can't imagine how complicated it has been to get interviews and to talk about museum missions, colonial restitution of objects and remains and different other topics. Article in German>
On the horizon
If you're visiting Art Karlsruhe between February 12-16 let me know, I'll be working there this year again.
I'm really excited to be in the Jury of this year's Artmuc fair.
And in April I'll be curating an exhibition between Munich and Latvia.
I'm giving you soon more details and dates.
Here a reminder that it's unhealthy to obsess about reaching success while we're young. Success is rarely a very linear road. 20 Art-World Superstars Who Only Found Success Long After Others Would Have Given Up.
Here is Hyperallergic's list of The 20 Most Powerless People in the Art World: 2019 Edition
I love the playfulness of this experiment of Gretchen Rubin to visit the Met Museum every day in 2020.
I really like these musings of writer and artist Austin Kleon on lineage vs. legacy
Cecilia Alemani, Curator of New York’s High Line Art, Will Be Artistic Director of the 2021 Venice Biennale
After Being Ignored by MoMA PS1, Michael Rakowitz Paused His Video in Its Gulf Wars Exhibition
Time’s Up launches a database of diverse film and TV critics and journalists
Creatives share their routines when dealing with burnout, shock and overwhelm
Artists Rebuild Refugees’ Emotional Memories of “Home” Inside Suitcases
In Germany, a Jewish Millennial Argues That the Past Isn’t Past
What are things you want to commit to this year? What are your thoughts around the January buzz and how do you try to build momentum throughout the year? As always, I really love to hear from you and really appreciate that you take time to read these monthly letters. Drop me a line by replying to this letter or get in touch via anabelroro@gmail.com. You can find me on Twitter or Instagram.
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If you're currently thinking about things you want to program for 2020, drop me a line and let's discuss.
Until next time, remember we have a leap day in February, a whole extra day to measure differently :-)
Anabel