Life moves to Book 3 – Act I Sc I

FUTURE ME, Digital Print, 2010 – Saira Ansari

Book 3, Act I Sc I

2 months, 12 days since the last post
Current location: Germany
Dream Status: Extraordinary, with lots of cobalt blue. Recorded strongest lucid dream to date in mid-October.

This post has been a long time coming. Eons in fact. It’s time to move on after having taken some brutally honest decisions in life. They are just as hard as they sound but it’s been empowering to shut Book 2 of Life.

I have now moved halfway across the world, on my own, and am, as I like to call it, ‘transitioning’ in cold Europe at the moment. I’m far far away from Brazil, and sunny Rio, a city I fell desperately in love with. And I’m not any closer to Lahore, a city I will always obsess about, but from which I will never get the kind of commitment I want.

I am, though, far more closer to redefining my own self… which is a curiously, ridiculously, interesting feeling. With a lot of possibilities. BAM: Suddenly the idea of a Ph.D is back on the table. It wasn’t really ever off it. Just slid under the mundane-ness of existence and dirty dishes. Let me get my MA dissertation cleared first though.

But more so, I get to be back on the blog, and back to my drawings, writings and scribbles, with a much broader agenda. I know, I know. I’ve threatened many comebacks on the blog. But this time I’m cooking up some stuff that I hope will come to some sort of geographical and mental positioning closer to what I love. So many mysteries! Don’t worry, I will still take a decorative crap on a piece of shit art review; Or gape in shock when some sensational art world gossip is exchanged with me via twitter DM’s; Or blog about young artists; or old ones; or homosexual ones; And I’m still writing. typing. what-evering.

There’s so much been happening in Pakistan in the Arts that I have been itching to write/applaud/bitch about. A multitude of shows, talks, awards, politics just waiting to be wordpressed. That I will get to, one by one, soon after this post.

The one thing I have never done (till now) is miss deadlines or commitments and I’m glad that the people I have worked with over the years have agreed…so far. Which is why I feel horrible about the last few months, with my own personal crises taking precedence over my writing. Horrible about not posting The Attic Studio review that I had harped on about and for which I had dragged the delightful Thesis students at NCA into a multi-crammed Skype meeting. I still plan to post it sooner or later. Horrible about the article I promised Raza Rumi at The Friday Times. That’s about 16 weeks late, and no longer relevant (sorry Raza!) And horrible for not sending in the write-up for the Curatorial Workshop website to Gemma Sharpe (exceptionally annoying since I actually did finish it and just never got around to the final proofreading stage). Or this that and the other for Art Now Pakistan (although I do believe that Nafisa Rizvi is no longer the editor, and instead Quddus Mirza is – so not really sure if they’re taking my writings anymore).

And so this is my public apology for being such a shitty piece of Arse, and I promise I’ll deliver, those that still have a deliverable deadline. Or take on new assignments. And blog some more. Thankfully, the drawings and the dream journals have continued despite it being a ‘dead’ period in terms of other things. 

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Thank you everyone for your great emails, tweets, FB messages, google chats for getting me back on track. And thanks especially to the lovely words of support from the super awesome Umer Butt (Grey Noise) and Mohsin Shafi, as well as the delightful nudges of Fazal Rizvi, Gemma Sharpe (Vasl), Abdullah Qureshi (39K Gallery) and Hareem Sumbul.

With this I end this sappy excuse of a blogpost and move on towards business.

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Till then do watch this video celebrating Pakistani Neo-Miniaturist Imran Qureshi as ‘Artist of the Year 2013’ by Deutsch + Guggenheim. It’s been directed by a friend and colleague, Shah Zaman Baloch. Read more about the award in the e-flux announcement.

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