–:–:–Read week 1 journal here–:–:–
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Mon 13 Jun
Avoid most types of action and interaction today. Go and practise my Russian with babushkas selling their herbs, and clear one of her butterhead lettuce. I clean and reorganise both the fridge and my bedroom. Get into bed and watch Navalny, that shit is wild.
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Tues 14 Jun
Today i am fucking glum perhaps because it’s raining or perhaps that’s just capitalism. All i want to do is sleep. I know that ‘being productive’ is a coping mechanism that i’ve been socialised with, and even trying to motivate oneself is a form of denial of feelings. Of course I have a few deadlines for a little work to do while i’m here which is not ideal, and i will get it done as i normally do. It’s just a little begrudging today. I do have this thing though, this habit that follows me around, where I hyperfixate on the things that need doing without logically thinking about the time they will take to complete. Like something that will take two hours will also take the two days leading up to it. anxiety work
The other part of my affliction is that I know that as soon as I go outside I will feel better, but I can’t grant myself permission to do so because of looming tasks.
I manage to get out in the rain, socks soaking
my borders are porous
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Wed 15 Jun
Cheese, mustard & spring onion toasties with babushka lettuce and a glass of fresh OJ. Begin rendering my film for Gathenhielmska Huset and stare out the window at the third day of rain. It would be very simple to blame this bad mood on water falling from the sky, I think it has more to do with failing to express myself properly of late. Everything that once was separate to me –my art practice, professional life– is now exactly the same thing. Some days it feels non-existent and others too heavy to carry, very rarely a manageable package I can pick up or put down. It’s through my own doing that I can no longer distinguish when I am working or resting and the clock lost meaning a long time ago.
Accidentally then on purpose took a nap in a very comfy old chair
few hours later and I’m feeling rad. sowed some seeds (rocket, radish and some sweet pea kindly given to me by Linda Bolsokova). spoke with friend and illustrator Lauren Doughty about an upcoming collaboration, and did some intensive exercise to counteract all the cheese I’ve been eating. For all the shit i give joe wicks, he is actually very sweet, especially when he is fake grunting and falling over. watched new Brad Troemel film thru his patreon with dinner and tasted some jam soda I made with a ginger bug.
so glad i can spend a little money saved by never having spotify or netflix or sky on these direct support mechanisms for artists i admire and trust and still be in pocket
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Thurs 16 Jun
Back on top, I have breakfast with the Reconfiguring Territories crew, and immediately head to the garden, pushing my barrow filled with plantlets, seeds and waste water from the kitchen. Up to this point, I’ve sowed some rocket and lettuce directly, and set a few wooden crates and plastic boxes with dill, mustard, carrots and cress. With some good rain and now the hot sun, I’m taking advantage and planting on my courgettes (guilded with marigolds and parsley), and sink in some rescued tomatoes and pansies from a nice lady round the corner.
In alternate points of the star bed, I plant multiple groups of three or four tiny beets, and choose a spare one to sow some radishes in drills. The comfrey I chopped a few days ago is not rotted down slightly and is a perfect mulch for everything. Everything gets a good watering, and I plan my next moves: popping the teepee on top of the bed to grow peas up the legs, dropping some twine to help the tomatoes, and making some scarers –CDs, bottle caps on thread, plastic bag tassels.
Lunch is so nice, I’m greedy. Onions, garlic and chicken of the woods fried in butter, diced tomato and parsley stalks, a few frozen pelmeni (small dumplings) that I steamed yesterday, then I take everything out of the pan, add a layer of shredded cheese and put everything back on top, flipping when brown. Green salad of dandelion, dill, butterhead lettuce and balsamic vinegar on the side.
I go to the post office on the bike but have forgotten my postcards again. I buy tarragon from the lady’s table and a chocolate bar and two beers from the bodega. My towel, book and suncream is already in my bag so I head down to Narva Venice. The plan is to head to one of NART’s garages and chill out and read but I get sidetracked and take a detour to the summer house zone. I have a pitstop on the bank of the lake with a beer and start reading the Ragged Trouser Philanthropists.
When I reach it immediately I’m besotted – imagine a British caravan park but every plot has a DIY cottage, materials store and multiple veg beds. Cycling around and smiling, stopping to take photos or just stare intently as some joinery; the proprietors must have been confused or suspicious. Half is on a grid and half is kinda free-form, but there is some hefty irrigation system that I need to investigate more next time I come down.
When I get home I catch up on another of Brad’s video essays and twist sandwich bags into cord.
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Fri 17 Jun
Porridge w pnut butter and Varia’s rhubarb compote. Walk to art gallery while having separate chats with a few ppl i love. Look at paintings but don’t feel much at all. Take a long detour around a sunken lake that’s dried up, now replete with wildflowers which stretch all the way down the hill to a series of stone doorways which look like they all connect via tunnels. I poke my head in one and immediately regret it –smells like piss– then take a scooter right back to NART. I head back out momentarily to pick up a few morsels, prep my dinner for the grill and pack them up in a shopper with some paper plates and metal cutlery.
The bbq is down at the Narva Venice garages, on occasion of trying to convince some neighbours that as artists we don’t (only) engage in orgies and witchcraft. The locals are drunk and friendly, playing nationalist songs over the speaker while asking me if I’ve been to Buckingham Palace. We cook on duff coals that don’t catch for a few hours, then when it gets good we introduce all sorts of things from packets and have a dance on the shonky jetties.
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Sat 18 Jun
I took my first workshop of the residency, it went very well and I did not feel exhausted or empty afterwards. Here is my analysis that I wrote directly afterwards.
today in my public herbal balm workshop at Kreenholm Plants with Reconfiguring Territories and NART, i tested the boundaries of what is expected of me as facilitator. after i set out my plan to address collective plant blindness, we walked round the garden in silence, then I read part of an essay I'm working on, requested attendees to hold their questions, and encouraged international translations of plant names which will help me correctly label the herbal teas i am making for future residents at NART.
we then harvested a few plants that were abundant and took them back to the kitchen where i made everyone drink my wild fermented soda (using leftover jam) and demonstrsted how to dry and harvest herbs. using my own oil infused with comfrey, daisy and yarrow, and a block of local beeswax, I showed how to make a gardener's hand balm on a double boiler, made some final clarifications then sent everyone to lunch and filled their containers.
i needed to try a new approach to learning situations where i can be firm but not rude, and put my own needs before others so I don't get burnt out or give short answers. Putting down boundaries like this has been healthy and makes me think about how the workshop fatigue is ingrained in the contemporary educational hierarchy ie i consume your knowledge and decide if value-for-money.
in conducting this more like a multi-phase, multi-sensory performance i can share what is specific to my research and bask in the beauty of my favourite pastime while resisting the need to be a teacher or expert or host, ie i can give you a sourdough starter but you need to bake the bread yourself. this presents the opportunity to resist answering every question and providing a spark of inspiration instead. there is (hopefully) a sharing of eco-philosophy that will allow attendees to have their own moments of realisation, rather than a traditional transference of empirical fact which has no relation to the body and mind in late capitalism.
Lunch is ridiculous, I will remember it forever. Jana has made Võileivatort - Estonian sandwich cake. No photos as too shocked and awed so here is a reference palette:
Reminds me of that great meme of the “picky food” your mum brings out as soon as it’s sunny except smashed together violently with mayonnaise and edges.
In the evening a few ppl go to the shops for booze and we sit around the long table chatting, teaming up for saunas, and changing into our dancing rags. Someone’s janky dell laptop is hooked up to a large speaker and we are queueing up allsorts. I go for some amerie, janet jackson and missy elliot, someone else plays a whole talking heads album. There is a bottle of organic estonian vodka going round –so delicious– this is a personal reminder to find out the name and get one for shots and tinctures. Most retire at roughly the same time and the rest of us smoke loads of ciggies and drink prosecco. Someone decides the vibe shift and puts on an album by japanese band that straddles mathrock, techno and screamo and we go full freestyle.
Getting over my own self-consciousness by dancing with strangers has changed me. Or I have changed and now I can do this nice thing for myself?