#1 Routine is the death of relational thinking
Dear friends and colleagues, dear faraway nearby,
Welcome to the first letter of 2021--we made it, whatever that means in our individual lives. A friend of mine has been rephrasing the question of "How are you?" in a beautiful way: “wondering where you’ve landed after [this fun/ challenging/ sad thing]”. So dear faraway nearby friend - Where did you land after the ride that was 2020?
I think I love that phrasing so much because it connects time with place, something we don't often think about. Our society is very keen to talk about progress and has a very linear perception of time, but time (and our memory) is very much connected to place: to the cyclical nature of seasons, to the site-specific conditions of the areas we're living in and to the season we're in our lives right now. Time needs relational context in order to become meaningful.
January is usually the month where people become obsessed with the notion of time and planning: we set up new years resolutions, start to imagine an immaculate future self and start to think about habits, it's often a process that deconnects time and its context. I've been thinking a lot about the episode with Tyson Yunkaporta on the Routines and Ruts Podcast:
" [...] There is no separation between time and place in many languages I know, it is the same word, imagine if you didn't have a different word for time and space. So if you re-imagine what your daily routine would be like, you'd find it's not chaos it's very ordered and following that a creation pattern, following very much what the landscape is doing in that moment or at least strongly influenced by it.
I would posit that routine is the death of relational cognition or contextual cognition. There have been scientific studies done on this on child rearing practices in the way it affects cognition as to whether a person retains a high context cognition or a low context cognition. So, indigenous [...] people around the world when shown an image of a man walking his dog in the forest, won't see it like that. They'll say there's a forest and it's this time of day and this is the season and here is what's going on and this is the dominant species in that forest and there is a dude and a dog.
Now, that is high contextual cognition because it's a more relational way of thinking, so you're thinking is defined by your network of relations in the world, and I don't just mean relatives but you or your relationship to all entities--so human and nonhuman--everything around you like that.
Now, the cognitive studies have shown that a baby that is raised on a clock based schedule, that this is the time that you have your feed, this is the time you have your bottle, and this is the time when I go to the toilet, rather than according to their biological needs or the context around them; they will become sort of decontextualized reasoners. You know, they'll see that picture and just go: that's a man walking his dog, and they might add in the forest. It's basically something that's been created by civilizations, in particular industrial civilizations, to create a kind of worker who's capable of focusing on the task right in front of them and nothing else in their life or no other stage of the manufacturing process, now they're able to follow orders unquestioningly.
[...]
I don't see creativity as being anything particularly special, I mean that's just creation and we're in it and of it. [...] The same civilization that separated context from people's reasoning so that they could be better workers and more obedient soldiers etc. you've had to kill creativity in people; along with a lot of other false divisions that happened. [...]. Back in the start they invented the word nature and society as two separate things, they were one thing before. And exactly the same, is being able to kill the creativity in human beings which is part of just what it is to be human. We've been doing it for million years, there are carved shells from homo erectus that are million years old [...] We've all been this intensively creative beings, it's part of our role as a custodial species, it's part of what we do as a species and where every single one of us was born bloody good at it cause that's what we do: [...] we're beings that make meaning and we make meaning through creative practice which is not separate from science, which is not separate from work, which is not separate from life." --Tyson Yunkaporta
I think we've all noticed the changes 2020 required through the pandemic and that is still demanding from us. Our understanding of productivity, success & failure and even simple daily routines had to adjust to the realities we are living through. I'm still really baffled by people and companies who propagate life hacks and "hustle culture" in order to increase productivity and pace right now. While we all crave for stability, we might want to look beyond the concept of routines (that are so popular within the business self-help community), and not just focus on constant repetition without context. It might be time to go wider and look into patterns and their relationships:
If our routines no longer work for us, what context are we not considering?
In order to create (innovate etc.) we need to be in relation and that has been difficult during the past year, so how can we foster our need to connect during these times?
How do we react to change?
What supports our ability to adjust?
How do we reflect upon our personal data like achievements, failures, action steps, and what do we do with this information? Or to ask it even sharper, how can we track this data without feeling that they are becoming mirrors of failure, and instead use the data to support us to connect with the context we are living in?
***
In an effort to relate to this month, I want to mention the inauguration of the president of the United States, Joe Biden, and the Vice-President Kamala Harris. I've followed the inauguration ceremony and it was beautiful to see the role the arts played and to get a sense of how we're all affective beings. I'm leaving you with the first paragraphs of Amanda Gorman's poem, that she read during the inauguration as the youngest inaugural poet. I made a little print out of the whole poem for you. Copyright and all the rights of the words belong to Amanda Gorman, may her words serve you well. (Download here)
Amanda Gorman: The Hill We Climb
"When day comes, we ask ourselves where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry, a sea we must wade.
We’ve braved the belly of the beast.
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace,
and the norms and notions of what “just” is isn’t always justice.
And yet, the dawn is ours before we knew it.
Somehow we do it.
Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken,
but simply unfinished.
We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended
from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president,
only to find herself reciting for one.
And yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine,
but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect.
We are striving to forge our union with purpose.
To compose a country committed
to all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man.
And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us,
but what stands before us.
We close the divide because we know,
to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside.
We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another.
We seek harm to none and harmony for all.
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:
That even as we grieved, we grew.
That even as we hurt, we hoped.
That even as we tired, we tried.
That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious.
Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.
[...]
Things I've been working on:
Part I of the longform piece I've been working on for the past months has been finally published. It looks into racism, remembrance culture and museums with a focus on Switzerland. It was really hard to find museum workers, in particular those in leadership positions, to talk about the matter, in particular as Switzerland is a country that prides itself for being politically neutral. Warum Museen viel mehr über Rassismus reden müssen [German].
I had the pleasure to work on the exhibition "Broken Gold" of the artist Fahar Al-Salih at Yvonne Hohner Contemporary in Karlsruhe (Germany). The exhibition is based on his series Bagdad Blues showing photographs, sculptures and paintings of Bagdad but also Dubai. The works talk about the interconnectedness of traumatic events, about individual sorrow, and they go even beyond, and are able to carefully show the resilience of people in these areas, ask questions about where people find hope (often connected in the hope for change, the relief of a mundane moment and the survival instincts of a better future for the next generation) and they hold a very necessary space for the tension between individual memory and governmental "truths". We're publishing a comprehensive bilingual catalogue (D/E) later this year, for the digital opening of the exhibition I had the pleasure to record this artist conversation with the artist [in German]
This January I was able to open a second exhibition with the artist Pina Rath at Michaela Helfrich Galerie in Berlin. The exhibition "Ball and chain" shows portrait paintings that the artist finished during the pandemic and a bit before. She refuses to label herself as a portrait painter as she says, that she doesn't depict the person in the image but that she is interested in certain aspects instead: human aspects that relate to the fragility of this human but that are not just unique to this person. We can all relate to the key feelings the artists depicts: desire and loneliness. Her paintings are glorious reflections about the darker human sides we usually try to hide: the moments where we desperately want to validate our enoughness, want to belong, and yet, we won't find that approval outside of ourselves. A catalogue will be published later this spring, and we recorded this artist conversation where we talk about mental health (the artist has a long history with mental episodes that she shares candidly in the conversation), our obsession with understanding artistic work as a linear progression and female stereotypes. Find the conversation here [in German].
Reading
One of my favorite year-end musings comes from Matthias Jakobsen (alias Think clearly) for the past 10 years he has been publishing at the end of every year his personal annual reports, recollecting his personal meaningful events, musing on the year on more. He describes the process as following:
"There are things in life where we may not be able to know the destination. We may think we know what we want but we can't really verify if it's real or just something we've been taught by society to desire. Is it really that important to lose weight or get that next promotion? The goal oriented approach can't solve this.
One of the things I get from writing my personal Annual Report is a reminder that there is another approach. Because I don't have a specific goal with writing it. It's not a step in a master plan, which is supposed to lead me somewhere in particular. Instead, I'm writing it exactly because I don't know where it might lead me, but I enjoy making it and sharing it, and I believe that I might find something interesting if I keep doing it.
It isn't random. But it's completely opposite of starting with the destination and mapping out the steps. It's starting with the steps and practicing those steps deliberately and repeatedly, while remaining open to where it actually takes me."
Read his 2020 annual report here>
There are so many valuable answers in this thread on Mason Currey's newsletter about "Advice for a fearful freelancer"
Legacy Russell, Ain’t I a Womxn?: What Glitch Feminism Can Teach Us Now
The Best Things About the Worst Year Ever
The 20 Most Powerless People in the Art World: 2020 Edition
Art and Creative Acts That Were Censored in 2020
Your Year In Maps Readers around the world visualize their experiences of the trauma, tumult and transformation brought on by Covid-19.
Video
If you click on one of the links I share here, make it this one. Yesterday Carolin Emcke and Michael Rothberg had this thought-provoking conversation based on his book "Multidirectional memory: remembering the Holocaust in the age of decolonization". Both hold space for questions around the interconnectedness of traumatic historic events and violence, multidirectional memory, the politics of remembrance, and the tension of institutional voices and individual experiences. Watch it here [despite the German title the conversation is in English]
How do you relate to the season you are in right now? What have you been learning about adjustment in the past months? Drop me a line by replying to this letter or get in touch directly via anabelroro@gmail.com. You can also find me on Twitter or Instagram.
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In solidarity,
Anabel