Diane has an air of serenity about her that is contagious… when I first met her twenty six years ago and through all this while that I have known her, her core essence exudes a flawless sense of calm. Recently I met her at the launch of her first book, a travel memoir called Junkie Buddha. She read through a passage from the book. The room danced and began to melt as tears welled up silently. Continue reading Connections ~ Diane Esguerra’s Junkie Buddha
Category: Arts
HyperReal… Mas(k)culinities
What is real and what isn’t?
“Are you a man?” said Lady Macbeth to her husband, Macbeth. Using this as a title I hash tagged my Instagram #masculinity #mask_culinity; a banana skin on pink lace. I was playing tongue and cheek, using an age old cliche of banana/phallus as a provocation of values synonymous with English Renaissance! These terms are still used freely in playgrounds and classrooms and bedrooms. Gender specific roles as demanded by society become iconic masculinity or femininity. And this song and dance, performance on demand changes from culture to religion to class. Continue reading HyperReal… Mas(k)culinities
motiroti… living archives
Like chapters of a book unravelling its story… motiroti went through its incredibly rich life of creating collaborations and associations literally with hundreds of artists and millions across the globe. Its ethos based on a culture of sharing, continues.
As a young nineteen year old and secretly in love with senior NCA student in Lahore, I wanted to know his zodiac sign to understand him better inside and out. And he, he had no idea when he was born because his elders put a made up date on his birth certificate. According to his mother he was born the same summer, two days apart when her favourite white goat had her first-born. There was too much commotion so no one remembered! Continue reading motiroti… living archives
ART… an agent of change
Art is not what you see but what you make people see.
Edgar Degas
The creative process and the healing process arise from a single source. When you are an artist, you are a healer; a wordless trust of the same mystery is the foundation of your work and its integrity. Art has always worked for me in mysterious ways. Its a feeling, its an expression, its a desire to connect. Often these connections are new and bring about a change. And change by definition is an act of transformation. Once changed, things can not be reverted to what they were. I AM… memoirs of addiction recovery is exactly such a project. A journey and an experience where art is an agent of change. Continue reading ART… an agent of change
Connections ~ shake and shimmy
Thousand and One Nights theme wandered from Efteling and proliferated Olivier’s bedroom in no time. His dreams pulsed with qanun and oud. In his early teens, at a hotel lobby in Cario, dance of the belly uncoiled his kundalini. Olivier has been shaking and shimmying this awakened serpent ever since.