Dear Diary #16
About My Project
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚˚ʚ♡ɞ˚˚ʚ♡ɞ˚˚ʚ♡ɞ˚˚ʚ♡ɞ˚˚ʚ♡ɞ˚˚ʚ♡ɞ˚˚ʚ♡ɞ˚˚ʚ♡ɞ˚˚ʚ♡ɞ˚
This is the first project whose ideation didn’t start as pure stream of consciousness, and that feels like a missing ingredient in the tedious process that is building anything from scratch. I have two budgets and a lot of sticky notes but I still lack clarity within myself as to what I am actually doing, and how am I supposed to have an elevator pitch if I don’t know what the fuck is going on with my own idea? We’ll be going nowhere fast.
A thought I have held for a long time, but especially the past five years, is that culture at large has taken a turn for the mediocre and riskless. In my understanding of the world, this is a complete antithesis to everything that makes media and art valuable and powerful. My more mature mind reminds me that it does help someone to manufacture a grey culture. There are many leaders who see the average person, and especially the average creative person, as a major threat to be squandered. And who understands soft power than those in the West who all take after the United State’s tradition. The tradition I speak of is that of dosing poison along with honey. Like this:
If we only give those who are no threat to this sustained violent order that works for us (And no one else) the emotional high of political and cultural affirmation, then we have an artist and media class that much amiable and amendable to the idea and action of completely abandoning themselves, leaving a void that we, the one who this system works for and no one else, can fill that vacuum with our desires. Control, power, domination.
And that is how we end up with the state of creative communities in most major cities. Cutthroat with levels of gatekeeping that can’t benefit anyone, including the gatekeepers themselves. We’re all poor (or middle-class and feeling it) and homeless and fighting for scraps at the bottom of this bucket full of crabs. No one is allowed out of hell in an individualist understanding; If I am in it, We are in it.
We could be in something else, but there is a lack of institutional affirmation that motivates any sustained creativity toward the uncomfortable or strange.
That’s why I thought I ought to begin the lifelong journey of building the school I could never go to.
I have had an interest in storytelling from primary school and digital media/journalism from a teenager.
But why did I?
I had somewhat of an interest in investigation. I always knew there was more to be known, and as a child, that didn’t overwhelm me. Now, I know it is just as important to discern (curate) what information you ingest and/or share as it is to know anything at all.
That’s the importance of an institution.
Until now, my youth has led me to a burn it all down mentality. I still hold this, unfortunately for those who fear my rage, but I see new value in the institution. If a tree falls in the forest and no one heard it, it basically didn’t happen. That’s why we need the loudmouths, the dispatchers, the data-hoarders, the archivists. I want to be the one to hear it. I want to be the one to hear everything, and then decide whose stories get shared.
Why Me? Why Us?
I can understand that a young interest in journalism does not an expert make, but if you have performed higher education, you know a lot of those “smart” people are wearing costumes. One of the smartest people I ever met was a taxi driver in Halifax. I’d hire him at the school if I could find him. I have been supporting research surrounding the validity of lived experience as a form of expertise internationally since 2023. My beliefs rest in acknowledging witnessing as a form of knowledge, emotional memory as ethnography, and program accessibility as imperative to societal growth.
To take it even farther back, I was cultured to be a culture worker. I was raised by a mother who cared about art more than food, for better or for worse. What can I say she’s a New Yorker. Both of my parents are. And they raised me in the Metro area of the city who has arguable effected global culture most in the past three decades: Atlanta, Georgia. I was schooled in Gwinnett County, a place known to have something in the water, given the amount of “talent” (so they call it) that comes out of the area. Think Donald Glover (for better, or for worse). I am the granddaughter of a former coke dealer, which just makes me cooler than everyone else. Those are my less “formal” credentials.
If form is something your belief requires (fair!), I got my start in the arts as a pre-teen, getting assigned the duty of bassist when I thought so surely I was a cellist. I would have been, if it wasn’t for these broad hands. I went on to be classically trained in Classical, Contemporary, and Jazz music. I guess this still isn’t formal, but I built my essay writing into one of my strongest intellectual muscles by making it one of my first jobs: people have graduated from Brookwood High School because of my stoned ass, it’s crazy.
Why Now?
ART SHAPES SOCIETY.
Yes, there is no doubt a back and forth, but why let these oligarchs run us over when they have literally been at our creative mercy for all of history??? WHY???
Have you looked around?
Remember how any business operates: if there’s no labor output, there’s no money.
It’s time for artists to take our power back.
Okay, yeah, but How?
Reader, I, too, tire of the words “community” and “self-care”, so let’s think of some new words, yes?
You do need community, and that could mean third spaces or it could mean a discord of other queer botanists across the world. Redefine socialization so that it fits what you’re ready for, and what supports your practice. Just because the World said we all have to go outside to find joy doesn’t mean it’s true. (Outside is scary right now!) If being out in the world is what sparks you, the important part isn’t simply proliferating your image in the flesh. Learn how to take note of where you’re wanted and why those spaces want you there, so you can pivot appropriately. Being strategic doesn’t have to be cold.
Fleshing out these new ideas of how we socialize, particularly in creative spaces/on creative projects, is imperative to filling the power vacuum that has only been growing the past ten years. If we don’t dream up something else, people will keep being murdered in the streets. This isn’t art school, this is dire.
Ruling oligarchs are aware that media is the ultimate avenue to control, that’s why so many billionaires own or are major players in various media initiatives and conglomerates. It’s about time we respond to this surge before they’ve found a way to annihilate and colonize all freely accessible information.
How to Write When You’d Rather Scream is that response. More to come as we approach March, and wish me luck, the hours I spent on the NYFA Fiscal Sponsorship are sure to pay off, no matter the outcome.
Stay warm and sexy, okay?
┊ ✩ ┊ ✧ ┊ ┊
┊ ┊★ ┊ ✩⋆
┊ ┊ ⊹˚
✩⋆ ✮ — PH