Yo no puedo hablarte de teorías del arte, ni moderno ni antiguo. Algunas cosas me han llegado a las manos, y por ello saco en conclusión que las formas libres y el color son un gran lenguaje para expresar lo que llevamos dentro. Pero sí podemos y debemos hacer arte americano, debemos mirar en nuestro espíritu, en el interior del hombre que se debate y se enamora en medio de un paisaje magnífico y noble, entre huellas grandiosas, rodeado por un generoso impulso y un cálido resorte de idealismos. – Francisco Tumiñá Pillimué, 1950
La gente blanca dibuja sus palabras porque sus pensamientos están llenos de olvido. Nosotros guardamos las palabras de nuestros antepasados dentro de nuestro corazón, desde hace mucho tiempo, y continuamos transmitiéndoselas a nuestros hijos. Los niños, que no saben nada sobre los espíritus, escuchan los cantos del chamán y después también quieren verlos. Así es como, aunque las palabras de los espíritus son muy antiguas, siempre se renuevan. Son ellos quienes enriquecen nuestros pensamientos. Son ellos los que nos dejan ver y conocer cosas lejanas, las cosas de los viejos. Es nuestro estudio, el que nos muestra cómo soñar. – Davi Kopenawa
Claro que sí, yo soy artista, porque cuando duermo sueño e imagino cosas, y quiero hacer eso que veo al día siguiente, porque todo lo que me rodea es motivo de inspiración, en especial la naturaleza. – Rosario Chicunque, Pueblo Kamentzá
La forma de ver el mundo para un kuna es arte; la forma de entender las aguas o el río es que no existe una forma de saber el arte para ver o el arte para no ver, porque en tu forma de vida, desde el parto hasta la muerte, es arte. – Cebaldo de León Inawinapi
Ando enamorada de la Imprenta Rescate. “Todo lo que queda impreso, destila futuro”.
Por eso, Confetti Archive y más entran a partir de este momento en una larga pausa. O indefinida. Sabré en algún momento. Esto es parte de lo que me acompaña.
“La interpretación de nuestra realidad con esquemas ajenos solo contribuye a hacernos cada vez más desconocidos, cada vez menos libres, cada vez más solitarios”.
“Pero creo que los europeos de espíritu clarificador, los que luchan también aquí por su patria, por una patria más grande y más justa, podrían ayudarnos mejor si revisaran a fondo su manera de vernos. La solidaridad con nuestros sueños no nos hará sentir menos solos, mientras no se concrete con actos de respaldo legítimo a los pueblos que asuman la ilusión de tener una vida más propia en el reparto del mundo”.
“¿Por qué la originalidad que se nos admite sin reservas en la literatura se nos niega con toda clase de suspicacias en nuestras tentativas tan difíciles de un cambio social?, ¿por qué pensar que la justicia social que los europeos de avanzada tratan de imponer en sus países no puede ser también un objetivo latinoamericano con métodos distintos en condiciones diferentes?”
“En Italia no somos puntuales en la apertura de las oficinas, en la llegada de los trenes, en la reunión para una entrevista, porque el tiempo no tiene valor, porque el tiempo no es un coeficiente económico de producción. Diez horas antes, diez horas después: ¿qué son diez horas para los que no saben cómo llenarlas? ¿Lo mismo ocurre con la libertad? ¿Qué es la libertad para aquellos que no saben qué hacer con ella, para los que la libertad no es un valor económico, la posibilidad de trabajar, de producir, de cualquier modo? La libertad individual, la seguridad contra los abusos de la autoridad es la conquista del trabajo, de la producción, de las sociedades bien organizadas”.
“No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. Nobody is going to teach you your true history, teach you your true heroes, if they know that that knowledge will help set you free.”
It isn’t so much what I feel, Terry. It’s what I know. If my work is any good, it will last. I haven’t got to talk about that. There’s nothing to be said about it. But I do know what is happening… now. You know. I’m not so much a writer as I’m a citizen. And I’ve got to bear witness to something which I know.
What is important is I’m a survivor of something and a witness to something. That is what matters. And that is all that matters. I’m not speaking for me. I’m much too… I’m much too proud, for one thing, to speak for my own work. My work will speak for itself or it won’t. But I am a black man in the middle of this century. And I speak for that. To all of you. The English, the French, the Irish, all of you. Because none of you know yet who this dark stranger is. None of you know it.
Perhaps what I’m trying to tell you is that… when they tore this prison down (the Bastille), that was a great event in European history. And Europe understands that. I am trying to tear a prison down too. That event doesn’t yet occur in European imagination. I am still, for Europe, a savage. When a white man tears down a prison, he is trying to liberate himself. When I tear down a prison, I’m assumed to be turning into another savage. Because you don’t understand… that you, for me, are my prison. You are my warden. I am battling you. Not you, Terry. But you, the English, you, the French. A whole way of life, a whole system of thought which has kept me in prison until this hour.
The 20 years, the 22 years from 1948 and 1971. And speaking, you know, speaking now as Jimmy, you know, and speaking as a black American who was, you know, who was once as young as these children are now, and why I left my country, I left it because I knew I was going to be murdered there. And I, when I say that, I’m not, you know, exaggerating. That’s not a melodramatic statement. I mean that I could not have hoped to live if I had stayed there. Now, I come from a country which is very proud of calling itself a democracy and is very proud of what it calls progress. And I’m pointing out to you… that 22 years later… boys and girls just like I was then… in spite of all that democracy and all that progress, had to leave the country, our country, for the same reason that I left it. 1948 it was Truman in the White House, right? And he’d just dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. And in 1971, there’s who in the White House? What do they expect from us? The darker brother. I’ve had a hard life, you know? But my dear… no, really, I know it sounds a terrible thing to say… I would not be a white American… for all the tea in China. All the oil in Texas. I really wouldn’t like to have to live with all those lies. This is what is irreducible and awful. You, the English, you, the French, you, the West, you, the Christians. You can’t help but feel that there is something that you can do for me. That you can save me. And you don’t yet know… that I have endured your salvation so long, I cannot afford it anymore. Not another moment of your salvation. And that I… I… I… I can save you. I know something about you. I know something about you. You don’t know anything about me. And that is where it really is.
What’s gonna happen, sooner or later, all the wretched of the Earth… in one way or another… next Tuesday or next Wednesday… will destroy the cobblestones on which London and Rome and Paris are built. The world will change, because it has to change. And the Pope will die because the church is a criminal church. The party is over. That is what is going to happen.
Has everyone been in love? Not on the basis of the evidence. If they have, they’ve forgotten it. You can’t prove it by me that everyone’s been in love. If everyone had been in love, they’d treat their children differently. They’d treat each other differently.
🎞️ Jerusalem Flower of All Cities, 1969 Director: Ali Siam Synopsis: A poignant portrayal of Palestinian civil life in Jerusalem disrupted by the Israeli army’s occupation post the 1967 Naksa, set to Fairouz’s renowned song.
🎞️ Scenes of the Occupation from Gaza, 1973 Director: Mustafa Abu Ali Synopsis: A rare film by Mustafa Abu Ali, a pioneer of the Palestine Film Unit, providing early insights into the occupied territory in Gaza.
🎞️ The Road to Palestine, 1985 Director: Layaly Badr Synopsis: An animated short film based on the testimony of Laila, a girl residing in a Palestinian refugee camp.
🎞️ Ambience, 2019 Director: Wisam AlJafari Synopsis: Two young Palestinians navigate the chaos of a crowded refugee camp to creatively meet a music competition deadline.
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👁️ The Void Project: art project by filmmaker Azza El-Hassan that looks at the effect of the Israeli state’s abduction and destruction of Palestinian visual archive on Palestinian visual narrative.
👁️ BARARI: open science platform to responsibly share knowledge about wild food plants in Palestine.
👁️ The Nakba Archive: a grassroots oral history collective to record and commemorate the experiences of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon who lived through the 1948 Nakba, ‘catastrophe.’
Toto, recuerda siempre a tus verdaderos ancestros, tus raíces más profundas: palestinas y precolombinas–principalmente wayúu. A aquellos a quienes pertenecieron a la tierra. No rellenes tu vida de externalidades, de lo que te dicta la globalización, el mercadeo, o las historias/imaginaciones ajenas, los sistemas de turno, el ruido… No. Cuestiona todo para viajar hacia adentro. Sé tú. Llénate siempre de ti mismo en armonía con el universo.
A couple of years ago, a friend wrote me to urge me to focus on the lyrical end of my writing rather than activism and I wrote back, “What is the purpose of resisting corporate globalization if not to protect the obscure, the ineffable, the unmarketable, the unmanageable, the local, the poetic, and the eccentric? So they need to be practiced, celebrated, and studied too, right now.”
Confetti Archive 