"Is It Possible to Decolonise a Biennial?" by Manuel Borja-Villel #ArtReview
"Operating under the title Foreigners Everywhere, the 60th Venice Biennale promises to be both inclusive and a gesture towards decolonising one of the world’s foremost largescale exhibitions. But is it possible to decolonise a biennial? Can a decolonising discourse radically transform the institution?"
" I am quite sure that the Venice Biennale will grant visibility to some narratives that have been unjustly silenced, if not repressed. Nevertheless, if the people who produced those narratives are denied the possibility of creating their own frames of reference and cannot determine their own forms of governance, then Foreigners Everywhere will remain once more an empty gesture. Decolonisation is a two-way street."
Monday was okay-ish with some really super okay bits.
The super okay bits:
(1) One article accepted subject to some revisions (phew!).
(2) !! So I shot my shot a couple of weeks back and asked a memory scholar I admire if she'd be keynote for my Memory studies seminar. She said yes this morning! This will be great not just for me but my PhD supervisees who are working on #memorystudies with me.
(3) Got my meds from the hospital (tiring long drive though) and this marks the first time I've been there since injury without using a cane. Another milestone.
(4) First class of the semester went okay, despite a couple of technical hitches. Lovely students! And I had sufficient brainspace later to do event organising for the creative writing workshop (secured a #psychogeographer as guest speaker) plus work on another article.
Wednesday is my only day with no classes this sem, but it did mean that I was up to my eyebrows in course admin and supervision matters. Also battling a lot of exhaustion from having submitted four articles during semester break (also the mountain of grading I had to do and other stuff). Break? What break?
(It's a good thing I love my job and that there are perks that make it worthwhile)
Attended an early morning online research grant workshop (talk given by my mentor), now going to reward myself with pumpkin spice latte before starting the prep for this afternoon's lecture.
I'm home early from work because the water supply was cut for repairs and we were advised to go home. Attended another research grant workshop this morning after overcoming yet another morning pain episode (meh) but the liniment the hospital provided was amazingly good. Better than the pain pack!
Anyway, resting for a bit and chilling for the sake of my back, before I dive into corrections to this article back from peer review. And then onwards to other outstanding tasks.
I need to do another working weekend because points at frighteningly long to-do list * and bajillion commitments so I'll just wish you all a good weekend early, and talk to you on Monday, Masto.
*still, I'm hoping to at least do a trial run of my piano exam recordings, plus submit a couple of short stories.
Academic Updates: I've got at least one article in the bag re article acceptance, final copyedits all done. Waiting to hear from the others...
There are other urgent things to settle, however: The two events I am running in November, and I'm going to be giving a talk at the Romancing the Gothic series of events, also in November. Which means I'm prepping for two talks -- I'll be presenting a paper at the Memory in Literature and the Humanities webinar I am running on the 28th of November.
Keynote: Professor Emma Bond.
I'm also writing two grant proposals (which will make four grant applications sent in this year) and preparing a handful of PhD supervisees for proposal defense, and another handful for paper presentations.
TW/CW: there is sexual assault in this very old Malay movie. I'm drawing comparisons between the descent into abjection in the protagonist here and in Lewis's The Monk.
ps: I will likely surface to post deets on two more events: one a creative writing workshop exploring spatiality and the hypertext with Dr. Darin Bradley, Dr Ewan Awang and Dr Fadhli Kaidhzir as guest speakers (I'll be doing the hypertext fiction workshop part), and the second one my second Memory Studies in Literature and the Humanities webinar.
