The remains of a conversation

What I am left with after my conversation with artist Odette Graskie.

I believe that artist make something out of Nothing.

The German philosopher Heidegger explains in his essay 'The Origin of the Work of Art' that he believes we can understand our society when we look at the work of artists. I wonder what I can discover about our society if I have a conversation based on shared experiences with South African artist Odette Graskie. We had a conversation about two poetry books: "New names for lost things" by Pakistani poet and visual artist Noor Unnahar and "Let the world have you" by…

The shared experience of watching the movie Where the crawdads sing.

In this episode I share with you what happened during and after my conversation with South African artists DuduBloom More.

We talked about the movie Where the crawdads sing. DuduBloom More makes art that consist often of circles in soft materials, she uses strong colours and I see strong defined patterns in her work. I seem to see more strong patterns in African art after I've read Indaba my children, by Credo Mutwa. We talk about working from home and being without a community often. I think about Heidegger who had a…

Imaginings as a replacement for pain.

Athenkosi Kwinana is an African woman from the Eastern Cape who lives with Albinism. She makes large detailed self portraits. She invited me to listen to an ASMR video. I had never heard of this, so I was curious to explore. However my first attempt failed as I am hard of hearing and I couldn't understand anything the women from Kenya in the video was telling. I looked elsewhere, to words and images, to try to find explanations about what was going on. I read ASMR is about the sound effect in the body of hearing a whisper. This sensation I could explore…

Curls are the treasure.

Right in the beginning of our conversation Natalie de Morney shares with me she has the wish to become a death doula. I am reminded of a story I wrote many years ago about a fictional society that has specific customs to deal with illness and death. This story is called The boat. I share it with you in this episode. Natalies' wish is to become a death doula, a death doula helps someone die. In my story I express the wish that a society exists where the dying person is surrounded by community. These two wishes are I believe different expressions of a need in our time.…

In this episode, I share with you why I travel with art in my car to Howick, a quite remote place in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. I meet with internationally renowned, 82-year-old master ceramicist Lindsay Scott. Lindsay Scott is the owner of Hillford Pottery and he is one of the founders of the Midlands Meander: a famous initiative to support local artists.

Lindsay shows me his gallery and workspaces. We sit down in his gallery to have a conversation about art. I did not get a chance to prepare our conversation with him based on a shared experience, because of the physical distance between…