Thursday, August 6, 2015

The Milieu In The Middle.

I want to talk more about dichotomy. I want to try and understand the differences of personal identity and stories that separate us; and I want to find the commonalities of narrative and place that makes us the same, no matter how big the gulf can seem.
At the risk of sounding like a wanker I'm going to try and investigate these ideas through my my own experience of the "Artistic Process."

God I hate myself.

When I write, friends, It's like the great, gasping heaves of a hefty and aging emphysema patient, like a beached and dying whale. Writing to me is the tantalising breathe of clean air between the waves of feeling like I might die. Not because writing is pure, or real or inherently good. That's bullshit.
Beauty can sometimes be the Truth but the Truth is not very often beautiful.
Writing just makes me feel like the darkness, the sadness, and the frustration actually serve a purpose. Not a purpose external to me, understand, the opposite. Writing cleans out the plumbing.
After I've plumbed the Depths of what it means to be me, expressed my Baseness and Abhorrence and Bad-Feeling, there comes a time when I'm ready to see what's on the other side.
And surprise, surprise, Friends, the other side is good. The other side is inspired and pure and golden, and every bit as real as the other.
So I write when I feel good, even if I'm writing about feeling bad, and vice versa.
These are the dichotomies of my nature. Good and bad, light and dark, whatever. All that.
I've learnt that I can't actually express myself, my story, with any claim to Truth without accepting the fact that I'm actually a mess of mismatched and broken parts.
But I'm still whole.

Death and rebirth, love and hate, sadness and joy, anger and calm. These are dichotomies.
Black and White.
Simple.
But...

I feel like knowing these opposites exist can either separate us as Human Beings; or they can grant us the understanding to better perceive the million shades of grey in-between.
Life is not simple.
Never as simple as Black and White anyway.
Putting two things together like that, so simplistically, highlights their differences, sure, but I believe that with a little Intuition, some Old Fashioned Good-Feeling and the spit of Creativity, it can do the opposite.

Difference can bring people together.

Tonight I went to my first official Bendigo Writers Festival function, an exhibition opening for Co.lab Arts. I saw this exhibition last year and fell in love with the idea. Hugh Waller, the man who kicked the idea off 4 years at the first Fringe, seemed a passionate and charming fellow. Colab. is an interdisciplinary collaboration between artists that can swing both ways. Visual Artists compose and share works to which Poets can respond, or vice versa. The result is a simple and beautiful symbiosis that speaks volumes about the human ability to empathise. Melinda Rodnight, a Visual Artist from Castlemaine and a contributor to the Colab, exhibition, alongside her poetic counterpart, Lisa D'onofrio spoke of the experience of shared creation as "...an intuitive experience."
"Lisa and I never spoke about themes in my work, or big ideas" she said.
"The whole thing was about letting the artwork speak for itself and inviting the viewer into a conversation about the nature of the work."
Melinda's image, titled "Journey" spoke to me about the Bendigo bush. I'm from the Blue Mountains in N.S.W and it's a lot wetter there. Bendigo is dry. The earth here is red and hard, the bush sparse and torn. Even after 160 years after the wholesale removal of timber from the Goldfields, the scrub around here is pretty scrubby. The harsh and hot contrasts of reds and blacks spoke of heat and drought and hardship; but there was a warmth and a story in this image too. Broken in to four panels, the image presented a kind of visual narrative, no less tangible for it's evocation of nameless places, rather than people.
Lisa words were all the more impressive as accompaniment to the image for the lack of any communication between the two artists. Picking up on the stark distance and the emphasis on struggle and space, Lisas poem put me in the mind of Neitzche and Camus. The struggle through life, almost definitely meaningless, takes on meaning through itself. This is the journey. To learn. To grow.
To find Life in the Desert.
If you haven't picked it already, Reader, I'm a big fan of the Existentialists. Life sucks, make it better.

The introductions to the evening were an interesting affair. The Mayor, Peter Cox, was there. He made mention of two very potent facts, if we're still discussing the nature and narrative of a Place. He performed a heartfelt Acknowledgement of Traditional Ownership, which was roundly applauded; and he happily informed us that the much disputed Bendigo Mosque had been approved for construction. On both counts the room was full of smiling, happy and sincere faces. White faces. Not a shade of brown or a hijab in the room. I mention this not out of spite or vilification, Dear Reader, but to discuss a point that Peter Cox himself raised. Bendigo has a history rooted in the Goldfields that built the State of Victoria and provided Bendigo with a long and proud history of independence and nation building. Those selfsame Goldfields, however, were also hotbeds of racial tension in their day, loaded with memories of inequality, wage disparity and White Australia. No sooner could I make this connection, however, than the Mayor was hailing the "New Spirit" of Bendigo. A spirit of Culture and The Arts which had cemented Bendigo as a hub for the region. This is a point I could not dispute. I lived in Bendigo for 6 months a while back and I love the place.
The Gallery here is phenomenal. Culturally and stylistically diverse, it was one of the places that taught me a greater appreciation for Visual Art. The Golden Dragon Museum holds a proud position near the centre of town and celebrates the long history of a culture once so divisive in this country; and it Belongs there. Its tiled walls, Lion statues and Paifang fit the Victorian cityscape perfectly. Somehow they all seem both modest and grand.
There are book stores here too. Good ones. And tattoo shops. Pizza places and art galleries, pubs and cafes, laser hair removal clinics and some of the best antique stores you'll ever see.
Bendigo to me is a conglomerate of things. It is history and present, past and future, stasis and change. It's a place where these things seem to co-exist without truly blending.
At least, you could choose to see  these things as separate, rigid, and irreconcilable ideas; or you could see the milieu in the middle. The million shades of grey between those opposing ideas that make a city like this live and breathe.
Bendigo is alive with it's history and it's looking toward the future, building it's culture. That's a narrative. Bendigo has a story and I think it's a good one.
I was lucky enough to meet Cecile Shanahan, the Communication Officer for the Festival, at the Colab. launch and I collared her for a quick chat. A semi-recent arrival to Bendigo, she seemed to share my enthusiasm for the it's story.
"This city" she said "is experiencing growth and opportunity, and a cultural change that is ecclectic and booming."
"The festival this year" she said "is about opening the city up. It's not just for readers and writers. It's about sharing ideas and stories,  inviting everyone to come and engage with ways to live "The Good Life."
Amen Cecile. Amen.

1 comment:

  1. Again, thanks for sharing, Josh. Your meandering reflections allowed me a vicarious wander through Bendigo and the Co.lab opening, which I missed. I'm stuck in bed, sick, tonight, but your words are uplifting and make me feel less like I'm missing out.

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