Danny

Excersizes

Amy - Excercize 1)
Choose one of the two mending methods
Brainstorm and reflect on the questions that relate to one of the approaches and use any media (images, text, video, sound etc.) to create your map.

My mending gesture - mending family pictures.

I have chosen for a combination of the literal and metaphorical mending. I want to create something personal, but about a subject that I'm comfortable with. The loss of my father and how I would like to give my view and hopes a place by physically mending pictures.

I want to do this by used the materials that I value so much.

Brainstorming

After our first lectures I questioned myself, what are things that I could mend?

Physically, perhaps my old stuffed animal that my grandmother gave me when I was born.Why not? I enjoy working with materials and love crafting things from props to cards.
But then I looked around my room and realized I don't have a lot of stuff in general.
I am not very materialistic except for the things that people made for me, things that they've put a lot of TLC into. And things that allow me to create, such as my laptop and paint.

I value the time and effort people put into creating something with their hands, it's quite intimate actually (not in a romantic way of course). They touched it, thought about it, perhaps worked on it for hours and it might have some flaws. But that's all part of the charm that it carries.
Now that I'm a bit older I understand the value a child's drawing has, the idea that this little person who you love so dearly made something especially for you because they care about you, seems more valuable than that 80 euro keyboard you bought last year.

Now what could I physically mend, that I value very much?

Physical mending

As I was looking through my room I also realized that I have quite some picture's of moments that were important to me hanging on my wall.
On one of those picture's my mom is smiling widely and taking a picture of me as I graduate. During my previous study I had a lot of unfortunate events happening outside of school which caused me to struggle for a while. I believe that by looking at this picture you can almost feel how happy and relieved we are.

But something is missing in a lot of these big pictures, or rather someone is missing in these pictures. One of these unfortunate events was the passing of my father.
He never played a very big role in my adolescence, but I always kept hoping he would come back for me. And I still wonder how life could have been if he was there.

How could I mend a relationship that cannot be mended?

Mental mending

- Mending family pictures
I was raised by my mother and I wonder what my life would have looked like if my father was there.

- Old stuffed animal my grandma gave me

Ideas

Teana - Excercize 1) Pick one of the two core readings

Core reading
Rizmi, Uzma. “Decolonization as Care.”

I had some difficulties with reading this text and feel a bit incompetent. Some sentences were a bit hard for me to understand.

a) Intrigued by
- "Once we allow our work to breathe, to reflect, to sense difference, it transforms structures around it or structures created through it."
I really like this sentence, I know that this essay is about awareness, body, race and identity but it feels like this sentences reaches further than that.

-"It allows for care to be an intrinsic part of the recognition of difference. All practitioners must first place themselves outside of the system that maintains their work in place."

I think that by placing yourself outside of your usual position your viewpoint grows and transforms. It's what we must continue to do, not only as a society but also as individuals. One of the most common phrases around is "You can never stop learning" but I also think that you can never stop growing as a person - mentally.

b) Do not understand

We already discussed this during a Zoom meeting but I had to refresh my memory about the definition of the word 'Praxis'. I know it's a hardware store in the Netherlands (haha) but what does this word mean in English?

I found this description:
"Practice, as distinguished from theory, of an art, science, etc."
Still a bit vague (to me) so I looked further and found this:
Praxis is defined as an accepted practice or custom, or an idea translated into action, or something in reality rather than something in theory.
This made sense.

c) Feel resonate in some way

"I had to make myself into something I was not"
I think that this resonates with a lot of people nowadays, despite improvement on behalf of gender representation and sexual orientation there is still a lot of work to be done because of lingering norms that might not have harmful intentions but are still harmful.
(It feels like there is a word for this)

Pictures

Mapping

I made a board on Pinterest, and realised that most of the art that spoke to me for this project was abstract and textured.

(Personal Pictures are removed)