The Ides of March

Last weekend I went I to see the movie “The Ides of March” (trailer bellow). The movie is good; the story isn’t new, but still, worth repeating. Does the ends really justify the means? Machiavelli’s phrase is old, his words are still important. We tend to think that this question just relate to politics. But does it really?

I do have some maybe ingenuous thoughts that I could contribute to a better world. My ambitions provided me some challenging questions: What to do? How to get there? How to make a difference? etc. And I have worked pretty hard at the past years to answer those questions, to deal with those answers. And I cannot complain. I’ve worked with amazing people, at challenging projects and obtaining great results. Sometimes I even get the feeling that I might be really good in what I do and maybe make a difference. So, if I just work harder, if I just try harder, if I just think more, if I just give more... I might get there. But when I realise, by doing so, I find myself in this tornado of ideas and thoughts, crazy about getting something done, inspired by the possibility of success, obsessed about making a difference. Less hours of sleep, less time for healthy food, less laughs with my friends, less moments watching TV with my family... but of course it’s worth. After all, I am fighting for a change. Sometimes I even feel that I am actually in some kind of ring: my heart is beating fast, I am jumping in the same place, my eyes pop out in the expectation for the next move... and I may win. I may change something.

Is really that what I want for the world? The better world has racing hearts, nervous bodies and instable minds? How can I use the means that disagree with the kind of world that I want? And how I just don’t realise that by doing so I am not changing the world, but changing myself. Instead of being someone who could bring a change, I got changed.

This reminds me about one episode that I witnessed once. I was at a seminar and a friend of mine, who were still finishing her master degree, had been strongly criticised by a more senior lecturer about the paper that she had presented. Unluckily to the lecturer, my friend was supervised by the man who was the head of the seminar. So, when it came his time to speak, he strongly diminished the lecturer, he talked about how her posture wasn’t the proper one for a friendly seminar group. Strong recrimination and silence. Everyone thought that what he did was amazing. I thought that he had just done the same as the lecturer: to stop her violent attitude, he assumed a violent attitude himself. What difference did he really make?

So the question comes to: how to not lose track of who we are and what we want when facing the challenging events that life put in front of us? Maybe the big challenge is not to change the world, but to remain ourselves. No fights, no podium, no trophy, no big ending, no victory lap… but some integrity. Is this less adventurous?

ps: sorry for not writing last Tuesday, I wasn't feeling well ;)

Feeding a healthy world

Who knows me, knows that I think a lot. It’s obviously that everybody thinks... but some people has this ability (or disability, who knows?) when dealing with a though to consider every single aspect of it. For example... If I am going out, I would be thinking: should I wear a heavy jumper? But then the tube will be too hot. Ok, I am wearing two layers, so I can take one off at the tube. But then, how will a carry it? Should I take a larger bag then? Does it fit the clothes that I am wearing? I don’t have a proper bag. Ok, I am carrying the second layer with my hands. Will I have enough space when I get to sit in the university room? Will I bother other people with the amount of space that I am occupying? Will I... Ok, I will stop here because you are probably starting to think that I am a freak and I sometimes do too (and I just mentioned the issues about a jumper. Imagine talking to me about something as abstract and complex as love). So, that’s me... I think too much!

Sometime ago I was in this crazy puzzle: How to get out of this? How to think a little bit less? You know, it’s pretty damn tiring to think so much. Should I go to therapy? But would therapy help me to think about a way to stop thinking so much? That’s crazy! How to not think so much? (Please, don’t answer me to just “stop” because it’s impossible to stop an autonomous mind).

During my life I came to many answers for this personal challenge... but a turning point was when someone pretty smart said: “Just start to act, start to make things”. Really? No plan? But what if... “One thing is to think about what you wanna do, a whole new deal is to actually do it”. But how? When do I start? “No big clue, no big step... small things... small actions... just DO things”.

Since then, I am concentrated (an in action) on that. “Doing” something doesn’t just mean to read or to clean... it means to “put” things out for the world. So instead of engaging in a crazy and idealized dialogue with myself... I start to dialogue with the world (See now what this blog is for?). Everyday I make sure I “throw” some ideas out for the world. The important thing is less to really get an answer. The important thing is that by doing so I stop the crazy cycle...I am not wondering “if”, I am waiting for a real answer (or comments in this case).

But the funniest thing is that objects also talk. So, if people are too busy... let’s make things!!! Last weekend I made vegetables risotto. First I actually had to talk to a human being. Dad needed to tell me the recipe. But then I started to “talk” with the food... Onion and garlic told me that they have the best smell when fried... the carrots told me that they are harder, so they needed to be cooked for longer. The oven told me that I was operating it wrong, food was getting burned. But then the risotto told me how easy-peasy it is... It’s in good shape no matter how unskilled is the cooker. They were not just products of my imagination... those are things that actually have an impact at the world (despite not speaking English). By the end... instead of a “if” thought inside my mind, I had a good smell outside my nose.

I never proper read Descartes, so I will challenge to paraphrase him without knowing much.... But if he “thinks therefore he is”.... well, in my case, I need to make in order to be (a healthy person). Let’s eat!

A painted world

How does a painting REALLY impact our day-to-day life?

This weekend I went to this amazing exhibition called “Building the Revolution: Soviet Art and Architecture 1915-1935”. And it was not the political argument that amazed me; I am not communist or socialist. The reason why this event was so interesting was because it showed through a very simple and clear way the power of artistic paintings. We love to see Monet’s beauty or Picasso’s boldness. But do we ever see how their work of art might affect our lives? How many times do we just go to a museum to tick one more item in our tourist’s list?

The exhibition presented some paintings and drawings from some important soviet artists from the post-revolution decades. Their challenge wasn’t a small one. Through their paintings they aimed to investigate new possibilities in order to build up a new society - The Soviet Nation. They were fully committed with the development of a new architecture. They understood that if the Soviet Union wanted a new culture, this implied new walls and new windows. A new way to understand the world, a new way to “frame” the world, a way to “create their own words” to describe the world. The old words were not enough anymore. And they knew that the instrument to get to new possibilities was art.

So, you are probably curious to understand what kind of drawings and paintings did they do to enable this big accomplishment.  What kind of figure may construct a whole nation? Surprisingly, It was most geometric forms (triangles, rectangles, lines, etc.). Trough the juxtaposition, composition and inversion of those abstract geometric forms, they investigated 2D and 3D dimensions. But one could wonder, what the hell a triangle has anything to do with socialism?

                                                            El Lissitzky

                                                   Ivan Kudriashov

What we usually don’t get is that we are surrounded by those forms. We got so used to them, that we don’t realise that we think through them. A window is usually squared, a room is usually rectangular and a roof, triangular. Who has a circular living room? How does a circular living room fit our squared house? How does a circular living room fit our idea of home? Through rectangles, triangles, circles and lines, they were studying the “forms” of our everyday. And how those enabled some space and limited others.

It would be just paper… but just aside the painted canvas at the exhibition, you could see the photos of existing buildings. The ink became concrete. The lines became buildings. Real industries, houses, and clubs that were suppose to translate the values of a new society. The new values were chosen - equality, sociality, productivism, etc – and each wall should translate them, each corridor should take you in their direction:  housing with mainly common areas so people would interact, public kitchens so the women wouldn’t be responsible for the housework, building’s facades that would be integrated with their functions. For this new society, with a new mind, circular buildings please…

 

                      
                                                                         Photos Richard Pare

Not every art is political and not every art is engaged with the construction of a whole new society. Not every art aims to contribute with architecture. That one did… But through this example we can clearly see how those simple rectangles drawn on the paper might drastically influence the kind of walls that we build to our lives and the kind of doors that we see to ourselves.

How do you draw a house? What about a person? A stickman? Is that what you really see? Or better, is that what you would like to see and draw? Could you go farther? What could you use instead of lines? Could you use rectangles? What kind of person would it be then? What kind of world would it constitute? Will you keep squared or try to go circle?

… Shall we look Picasso again?

Xx CBalt

For more information about the exhibition, visit: http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/building-the-revolution/

Images from the exhibition catalogue

The slash people

I remember having always faced kind of a dilemma since I was young. I always had a hard time when dealing with the question: “are you this, or that?” Of course that when it comes to children, they don’t really pronounce so clearly the need to decide. But always when I would get to a reading book club at school with my posh outfit I would get that look: “so, are you preppy or smart after all”? Probably most of you faced similar things, or maybe not, but as I grew up the questions became more and more strong: so, are you more into history or into maths? An academic or corporative? Communication studies or anthropology? When I finally got to London the question was: So, which department are you from, social anthropology or material culture? “Well, I am kind of both. You see, my first supervisor is from material culture and my second is from social anthropology, and my thesis kind of stays in the in-between”.

Mary Douglas (a very important anthropologist) probably would say that the human being need those kind of classifications – maps to understand how to deal with life – and that’s why people are so against the in-between, what she would call “dirty”. Those maps are classifications that separate one thing from the other and, therefore, make things understandable. Those are “frames” that put each set of things into a different box. And I acknowledge that, as I mentioned in the second post of this blog, we need the frames and so, the separations that they imply. But I just cannot avoid my passion for the “in-between”. For something that is between one frame and the other, one classification and the other. And a few weeks ago, I got what I needed.

One of my PhD mattes was challenged by the same question that I was: So, are you from social anthropology or material culture? “Well I am social anthropology slash material culture”. My eyes sparkled! Is that an answer? Can I say that? Slash something else? And I realised how often they do this here. For example, if you don’t understand an Indian dish, one might say: well, this is a yogurt/drink (yogurtslashdrink), a bread/pancake (breadslashpancake). Or, if you don’t know a place, they might say it’s a pub/restaurant (pubslashrestaurant).

Not so surprising to see that in London. After all, that’s the city where nobody is English but everybody is half Greek/half Danish, half Indian/half American, half French/half Japanese, etc. That’s actually what they answer if you ask them their nationality. And do you know the funniest thing? Mary Douglas was a professor at my school!! The slash people school!! Maybe London has changed, maybe not…

Anyway I am already using it. So… Nice to meet you, I am an anthropologist/consultant/teacher/translator/something else that I am still finding out. And that’s not because I cannot figure out myself but because where you see difference, I see connection. Where you see separation, I see communication. 


                                            Another slash thing: House/school/screen

Jeremy Rifkin lecture 'The Third Industrial Revolution’

The lecture was projected on to the AA building. 

To see more: http://www.aaschool.ac.uk

Photos: TS

The Box - 2nd post

In one of my first weeks here I had the chance to participate in someone else's world, or should I say box? Have a look…

For who doesn’t know, this is a pavilion designed by the Swiss architect Peter Zumthor. It’s a project from the Serpentine Gallery. Every year, during the summer this gallery invites an important architect to build up something in the provided space at Hyde Park, London. This year, I had the chance to visit it. But what should one expect from a black big box in the middle of the green field? I was curious to find out what waited for me in the inside. When I got there, the surprise…

Inside the black box, he placed a garden. Around the garden, some tables and chairs where people could sit and observe… observe the garden! At the top of the box there was a rectangular big hole where one could se the sky. Not as big as the whole surface of the pavilion but big enough to see a great part of the sky.

At first, I thought it was ironic, why to come inside to appreciate a garden if we could go outside and have the whole Hyde Park? But this did not seem to bother other people. Actually, they were pretty concentrated in talking and looking the green.  But then I realised, how often, when going to a park, we REALLY stop and look into the flowers, the leaves, the details, or even the sky? Did you look the sky today?

And this is not a romantic appeal for you to leave the building and see the sky, you probably had something more important to do. The issue here is how the architect made tangible and concrete something that is so familiar and so not known about the human being: we need frames! You can be an anthropologist and call it culture, a businessman and call it career plan, a mom and call it education… you can choose whatever you prefer… But can you recognise the box? I am not asking you to leave it. I am not even saying that you could (where to start without the frames?). I am just asking, can you see it?

4nabisworld

This is a Brazilian, actually a carioca, writing from a very cold land called London. As most of you probably know, it’s not surprising that they talk so much about the weather over here, sun is a really BIG happening. So, why did I leave the lovely beaches from my hometown to come over here? Well... to pursue this crazy dream of becoming an anthropologist. You are probably wondering if by that I mean those people who study the evolution of the human being, well... not quite that. I won’t dare to try to define anthropology here (I already have a hard time doing that at my PhD), but there is something pretty common about all the definitions... anthropology is about understanding people. That’s what I love... people! Anthropology is just a way that I found to understand people, to connect to people, to learn with people, to communicate...

And that’s what I am here for, to communicate. To share with you the things that capture my attention during this journey, hopping that through my eyes, you can also get amazed with those strange people that I have been meeting. I might talk about people that I already knew, about people that I just met, about goods that people produce to express themselves, about exhibitions that portrait people, about well-known people or people just famous to me. And by sharing my interaction with the world, I hope to reach you... meet you... be with you! Even from far away...

The name of the blog tells a lot about it’s purpose. A story deserves to be told... I have this friend who shared with me a habit that she use to have when she was a child. When discovering a word that she did not like, she would change it’s pronunciation. So, for example, if she didn’t like the word bottle, she would pronounce it pottle, if it sounded better. Why? Because she liked it better. And so, some friends and I use to mock her about creating her own world... what we called Nabi’s world (Nabi being a distortion of her real name, Nati). And here I am, making a manifest for the Nabi’s world. For all those amazing people that through the smallest and unpretentious things dare to challenge the common perspective and create their own words to describe the world they see.

At last, by meeting worlds like Nabi’s, through me, I hope you can also find yourself... and create your own words to communicate...

Hello there!