Restlessness, Food Installations, And Our Beloved Objects
“Be sure to enjoy language, experiment with ways of talking, be exuberant even when you don't feel like it because language can make your world a better place to live.” ― Deborah Levy
I have a huge crush on Laila Gohar1s work. After binge-reading all her articles about hosting dinners in a Financial Times column called How To Host It, I gained some clarity and a deeper understanding into my own obsession with hosting immersing dinner experiences.
“I am not big on traditional holidays, opting instead to make up new traditions and reasons to celebrate. In the past few months I’ve celebrated a tomato festival, as well as a fava party, and made the case for cabbage. Part of the reason I enjoy these celebrations is because they highlight common ingredients that are often overlooked.
They are also free of religious connotation, which to me is important as I’m often celebrating with a chosen family of friends that is made up of people of all backgrounds. (As an immigrant to New York City, I have spent years cultivating a family here. My actual family is scattered all over the world – from our hometown of Cairo to Istanbul, Paris and beyond.) One of the beautiful things about having a diverse, blended family is that you can borrow traditions from each other.”
Laila Gohar
Restlessness
I have been feeling quite restless in the past days. There’s this nagging feeling that I should have already been somewhere. In part it has to do with a trip to New York that seems quite difficult to prepare for, without a clear direction and timing in sight. It’s been an obsession of mine in the past years, but the admin and the actual planning always felt unattainable. I know things will change eventually, somehow things will fall into place, but I also know that “what you seek is seeking you”2, and maybe I need to seek harder.
Objects
In 2021 I hosted an online salon series on curating our own online galleries, The Curation Series. I don’t have any formal curatorial experience but I’ve read countless books on the topic, from The Curator’s Handbook to Obrist’s books and interviews. My main goal with this series was to discuss curatorial practices and to start organising and curating an online gallery on Kunstmatrix, just for fun, to use our stories, photographs that we love, maybe some art that we made, and to try to tell an engaging visual story.
For these reasons and more, when I stumbled upon Kevin’s project objet.cc, I immediately fell in love with the idea behind it. An online place with stories of our beloved objects and a community of collectors. Every object that’s very dear and important to us has a compelling story. Being able to have access to some of those stories feels like a collector’s & curator’s dream.
Interview: Walking in Vilnius, Walking in Rome
I interviewed my friend, Kerry Kubilius, for The Flâneurs Project3. The full interview will be shared on the website at the end of this week. In this audio snippet below Kerry is describing a serendipitous encounter in Rome:
Art
Poem
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
(…)
I grow old ... I grow old ...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
Music
Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)
Thank you for reading and for listening. As always, you can book an intro call with me here.
Laila Gohar is an internationally recognized artist who works with food as her creative medium. Born in Egypt, she has lived and worked in the US for the last decade.
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing, there is a field.
I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.
What you seek, is seeking you.” ― Rumi
my love-project, an archive of stories mapped on cities around the world
😊 thanks for the shout out -- loved reading this 🥰