On swollen eyes and discomfort
I’m listening to Britney Spears’s autobiography the day after my first colonoscopy (it came ten years early). I am looking at the images they shared of colon and I DON’T LIKE IT. I am fine, but I am also not. My eyes are puffy and red from an allergic reaction to a new eye cream. I can’t get images of shaking children in Palestine out of my mind. And I don’t want to move from the sofa, thinking so much about so much. Balancing the practical day to day with larger ideas for what a better tomorrow might look like. It is mind-numbing and terrifying and there are only so many videos of baby lemurs on the internet.
I pass a church on my way to work everyday. For about a year, I’ve seen people without homes sleeping in the four covered archways of the building—each offering a small break from the elements and enough space for a human tlie down with a sleeping bag. Recently all of the doorways have been fenced in, preventing rest or sleep or respite from rain and sun. Someone tagged the word “GOD” next to one of the short stairways that lead up to the fences. I am thinking a lot about how alleged holy spaces have lost their connection to what I thought they were supposed to be: refuges for the sick and the poor and the disenfranchised and the oppressed. I am thinking about how the holy has been invoked to commit actions far from divine. Someone recently tagged “666” on each of the stairways leading to the fence—I guess as a sort of fuck you to the inhumanity and hypocrisy of it all. Or maybe just a bored kid. Either way, I think it’s metal. No one has painted over it. And the irony of it all wakes me up every time I walk past.
I am enraged and terrified and grief-stricken by the genocide happening in Palestine. I have tried to stay vocal—from calling congress members to marching when my body allows it to having important conversations at work. As an American tax-payer, how can I remain silent when I am paying for this? As an American tax-payer I am helping to fund a war and genocide and imperialism. It’s nothing new, but the genocide in Palestine is streaming live, infiltrating all media with biases of corporate America mangling truths while people far away are massacred. The complacency and complicity of so many people near to me is mind-numbing. And I think on the genocides in Sudan and the Congo and across the world that so many Americans have no idea are happening. But we know that Starbucks has a new flavor and our taxes have gone up and that Kim K is wearing something to whatever. Not that I am a beacon of purity nor that I believe in a way to move purely through the world, but JFC. I can’t take it some days.
I recently was awarded a Franklin Furnace FUND grant for my performance work. This is something I’ve wanted for a while, but it does not feel good right now. I am asking myself a lot: what is the point of art right now? Ever? What is the purpose of an artist? The award is for me to fund a show based around my memes and the work I do online. I will be performing a show as part of the Exponential Festival 2024 where I will be offering a retrospective of my three years of a meme (or three) a day. I think about what it means to speak up, even if it’s just through memes and social media. The flack I’ve received for calling for a cease fire. The nasty comments from people entrenched in the brain rot of Zionism. It seems like I am doing something, but I’m still not sure if it means anything. Meaning is scarce these days.
Sometimes I think that the only way to have impact is to solve a whole problem myself. This is stupid. I am old enough to know better, but I still fall prey to the trap of individualism. I fall prey to the illusion that “famous artists” do it alone—without the help of generational wealth or a large team or good marketing or knowing so and so. I am proud of what I’ve done and do, and as helpless as it can feel to “make art” right now, it is feeling more and more like a weapon for resistance. I hate that I just said that, but I won’t delete it.
Is posting collages of weird shit calling out imperialism and corruption and demands for an end to a war meaningless? I don’t know. Maybe? Is critiquing classism and wealth hoarding and complicity wrong? I don’t think so. These ideas through my absurd lens are how I can reach thousands of people a day. I am not trying to be anything more than what I can be. I am trying to remain in this for the long haul. I am trying to stretch where I can.
Amidst my very vocal online presence (and pretty vocal presence in my IRL professional and friendly relationships), I am thinking about what it means to carry this desire for justice and morality into my life, daily. The son of a family that lives in my building—a 37 year old man who had just moved out—was killed recently. A makeshift memorial sits outside my apartment building with candles lit daily, photos added to the fence, and people coming to pay their respects. As a white Latine person who presents mostly as white, I recognize the distrust my physical presence adds to a room. I have scuttled past the memorial, smiling and trying to pay my respects peacefully without speaking. But I feel like a coward. I can post online about a free Palestine but I can’t ask my neighbors about the very real situation they are facing? I donated some money to the funeral costs, but if money is the only language of connection I have in situations like this, where is the humanity?
I have been discussing discomfort a lot in many different circles. The discomfort of hard conversations, the discomfort of unlearning and relearning, the discomfort of speaking up and dissenting, the discomfort of risking comfort. Discomfort is important. As artists, I think we must become very comfortable with discomfort. It is a subtle learning. It is learning when you are being pushed into expansion and learning when you are stretching too thin. There is balance in discomfort. As artists, we must find this balance. We must learn when speaking up and standing up is more important than maintaining the status quo. We must learn our role--and there are many roles we can take--in the long-game towards liberation. We must learn when to shut up and make space. We must learn when to take up more space so that we can let others in with us. We must learn to speak up against oppression, even when we have been complicit in that oppression. We must learn to unlearn and relearn and learn for the first time. We must not be afraid to change and adapt. We must not lose sight of our power and our reach and our impact.
I am old enough now to see that cycles repeat themselves and come back. I am young enough to still be frightened for what is to come. I wish for grace and longevity for all the truths I have yet to encounter, and I wish for a strong community to share a future with. A friend (someone I know online aha) recently offered an invitation to those close to him to have difficult conversations, especially right now, especially about what is happening in Palestine and around the world. I have been thinking about this a lot. How do we offer more entry points for conversation, opportunities for connection? Fear and silence rule conflict. What would happen if we were not afraid to speak? What would happen if we were not afraid to be wrong and to learn? Maybe the role of the artist right now is to create those spaces of reflection, not as a way to comfort and abet complicity, but as a way to move forward through discomfort towards something new?
I don’t have the answers. I mostly have the questions. And I hope you are staying curious too. Curious for what else there could be. Maybe that is naive, but I really don’t fucking care. May all fences that keep life from prevailing be removed, even if those fences are the dumb little things that keep you from making honest work.
Here are some people on Instagram I have been learning a lot from:
@byplestia
@ahmedeldin
@hamed.sinno
@jewishvoiceforpeace
@morgankindof
I’ll be talking about my work, the grant, and what is happening right now in the world on Nov 16. RSVP here.
Admin Reveal returns in Jan. Info and tickets here. If you have an interesting or unusual job and are free in Jan to discuss memes, message me. I’m thinking historian, lawyer, philosopher, curator, financial advisor(?), etc.