Gratitudes

 

Firstly, I am grateful to be here 

and would  like to express my gratitude

To  Nora for reaching out and trusting 

To the entire organisational team for making this possible

To all of you who’ve made time in your agendas to respond present 

And of course to all the invisible and visible beings who accompany our every moments

 

Introduction

 

WHO CONTROLS THE CLOCK? TOWARDS WHICH ENDS 

CAN YOU IMAGINE AN AFTER WORLD? 

AFTER THE CAPITAL

IN YOUR HEAD, REPLY YES OR NO 

NOW, CAN YOU SUBSCRIBE TO THE POSSIBILITY THAT IT IS ALREADY HAPPENING? 

AND, DO YOU FEEL YOURSELF AS PLAYING AN ACTIVE ROLE IN THAT HAPPENING? 

WHATEVER THAT ROLE IS.

 

There is an old saying I’m sure we all know that goes like this:  

« we must first touch rock bottom before we get back up » or

« after the storm comes the calm », 

A tale of the ends and beginnings, one that is foundational to our societies.

The essential structure remains the same:

A civilization reaches high technical advancement,

Then, succumbs to pride, defies the higher entities and order, resulting in self destruction,

Finally, from the ashes, an afterworld arises.

 

Hopefully, we see what’s troublesome here

How misleading this apparently innocent tale becomes within the context of a worldwide techno capitalist racist and exploitative regime. How it could be distorted to justify terror giving it a somewhat prophetic meaning.

It also leads us to think that all we have to do is wait and look. The program will overrule itself, eventually, it will burn down, and only after that, something new, organic, will rise by itself without having to intervene.

The danger here lies in thinking that we’re fundamentally separate from  the very thing we are talking about.

But, truth is: 

The ‘system’ doesn’t fall without taking everything that makes us, including us all

and indeed, the countless forms of life inhabiting this world. And it  takes time – as in, trillions of years – to recreate what we have today.

Freedom as responsibility and collective service

 

My name is Loucka Fiagan and I have Togolese origins. I’m currently settled in Brussels and aspiring to be a full time Human Being. Not as  easy as it sounds. 

Speaking of time, I don’t have much: best to go straight to the point. 

Here’s what I would briefly like to address today. 

 

QUESTION: 

What does freedom mean in our current systems

where desire must be consumed instantly 

where I must become the food that somebody else consumes,

where what we consume are ‘representations of’,

but not the real freedom as a feeling?

How can we redefine freedom?

 

Imagine what freedom would be in a non capitalist world where we’d actually have time and resources to pursue what we truly are.

First we acknowledge the existence of a before and after the Capital, places where individual freedom is inseparable from serving collective responsibility.

This suggests we’re always taking part in something bigger. None of our identities, works, thoughts, feelings, exist in vacuum.

This something is not a concept, it’s a living being. 

 

‘Hey, how are you

So so

So what have you been up to?

Too much of nothing, on edge 

I get it, same same  so how is it going with the opening ceremony speech?

Tired, siderated, confused, enraged, guilty and burnt out from witnessing more of the insanity, death, explosions, exposures. It’s like we’re facing a kind of failure that’s getting morbidly cynical, it’s visceral, like reality now is just a very bad movie without filters’

 

Capitalism instores itself as the only way, 

There was no before and there can be no after.

 

It won’t end by just waiting.

We’re talking about a system that only emerged 150 years ago. 

 

Acting within our unconscious, changing our thoughts and perceptions.

 

Capitalism is a  drug, when it hits you it’s like waking to realise, I do not own my body, time, relationships, desire, imaginary, future, past, freedom that’s  to be, to want, to fuck, to eat, to kick, to grief  to feel any type of connection in the present and somehow that’s normal, and if I question this, my survival is at risk.

So,

How did a modern «  political » system become the most prominent ideology in known history?

 

Anxiety,

I’m too tired to even fall asleep

No time to grieve, 

I don’t know who I am, 

who we are

what’s our purpose here 

I’ve been waiting too long in the line

Praying to die 

watching the sun every night perform the same ritual

My time is a fugitive 

running away from me 

I must defend the little possessions I can hustle 

They say it’s only going to get worst 

They tell me who i must fight, fear and compete against, the other that’s not me 

Sure, it is normal to feel unsatisfied 

but is it to use this feeling as an excuse to justify more harm than we now can feel;

Somewhere, sometime, the voice of a youth counterculture wasn’t just to  impose one other vision against the rest as a statement without stating anything;

How did we become so adequate even in our inadequate expressions?

Everyone is tense in the room, unable to speak think free, to fart 

Are we becoming our own police? 

 

YET,

 

I feel a general  tiredness of seeing the same patterns 

I am like many, 

hungry for something more that  I can’t name

having patiently waited for absurd time lengths just  to stay, leave

to move freely in a country where it’s made clear you’re not wanted

 

But, I find myself having no other choice than to continue the stubborn journey of my elders towards this freedom as a way of being, grateful for what’s already been done

whilst still remembering what all tends to make us forget, 

that it takes TIME

to truly dedicating with our imaginative selves 

making  our imaginations shape  real things that serve real goals

 

it takes TIME

especially when resisting against the directive of having to commercialise

or censure our most authentic selves

not just TIME:

this process involves chaos, non-traceability, patience.

 

Dear Ambassadors of the performing arts field, may I speak to you honestly ? 

I am afraid of the way things are going

I want to keep hoping that here is a place where magic can happen 

where community can shape itself

but I need to rest assured of something: 

Which side are you on? 

 Some things are plainly black and white.

Are you on the side that wishes to cultivate authentic expression and feeling

or merely interested in conceptualising that feeling,

extracting from those engaged in maintaining that feeling alive, at the risk of their own personal security?

From most of what I  see from the sector, it’s like there’s merely two alternatives 

On one hand; showcasing the esthetically pleasing but reductive concepts of the otherness, diversity etcetera.

And on the other, the common heritage of nation pride.  

Understand me, us, 

It’s not that we’re cynical and celebrate ‘bad’ taste just for the  sake of provocation 

We just feel castrated in our creative freedom by the consensus this system imposes.

I  am revolted  when I get a feeling that I need to be ‘either / or’, 

to entertain categories for people to rest assured in their sense of order.

I’m bitter when I get the feeling that it isn’t “black or brown OR QUEER” enough to have tastes and preferences WHICH DERIVE FROM a general idea

There are many of us here who want to keep opening doors, undoing the conventions who’ve persistently portrayed us as monsters and I’d like to feel like this isn’t just possible but actually what we want, 

need more of! 

Alternative discourse of the otherness

because we are not ‘one thing’.

NEXT,

 

Once this is settled a bit more, I wonder if we can cultivate more spaces where it’s possible to disagree? 

IT IS imperative to keep cultivating safe spaces. 

I am ALSO more and more convinced it’s equally important to create contexts where disagreements are viewed as normal healthy things.

Consensus defies justice as it undermines alternative discourse, alternative modes of speech and thoughts from blooming. An attempt to restrict difference and people generating difference is imposing terror upon them.

When are we going to valorize new leadership types; listeners; people who don’t naturally lean towards terror? Haven’t seen enough of the former leadership, loud and invasive, safeguarding spaces in which competition and abuse are normalised traits?

We want people who’re courageous enough to accept failure and imperfection 

not refraining to be humbled by other views and experiences.

There’s nothing wrong with being wrong,

it means that there exists space for improving

our cultivation of empathy because we are different and have different needs

This is worth nurturing – rather than only stressing the importance to keep the other at at a safe distance 

and sometimes, allowing to switch off 

caring for our physical and mental health

protecting creativity and authenticity.

Dear fellowships, makers, searchers, humans and others 

mediators of worlds visible and invisible.

Is it just a question of time if it isn’t the apples but the basket itself which is rot? 

Only us can answer that question. 

We need to risk breaking the silence of terror,

acting where we expect us least to.

Don’t we have a responsibility to make work that serves the social goals we’ve defined for ourselves, instead of the representations they inevitably get caught in?

Can we help each other to not get stuck in comparison of our performances and rather acknowledge that our singular expressions take part in creating a healthy dynamic environment for creativity to bloom?  

It’s about the feeling we cultivate 

and that  people leave a room with 

when  pursuing a thing we don’t know why but is so dear to us

the reasonless obstination that is stronger than fear of erasure, failure, shame, humiliation or silencing.

That pursuing of freedom is constantly doing and undoing

dying to be born again;

here’s responsibility as freedom taking part in service to the collective.

Thank you.