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SCOTLAND ON INSTAGRAM VS. SCOTLAND IN REALITY.
Invited to comment on the emergence of the contemporary Scottish Art scene for BBC 4 television show Scotland's Art Revolution: The Maverick Generation, curator Hans Ulbricht Obrist invokes post-colonial theory to diffuse the nationalist subtext of the documentary: “The amazing philosopher Edouard Glissant always says that if the 20th century follows mainly a “continental logic”, the 21st century is more about an “archipelago logic”. Glissant talks about this idea of the archipelago being more sheltering, being more welcoming. And I think this is interesting to think of Scotland as an archipelago, which is very much a polyphony of centres.”
10 BEAUTIFUL SITES YOU WON'T BELIEVE ARE IN SCOTLAND.
For Glissant, la pensée archipélique, or “archipela- go-thinking”, entails creolization, which he defines as “the meeting, the interference, the shock, the harmonization and dissonance between cultures within the totality of the World-Earth.”1 Moreover, the glissantienne notion of creolization is designed “to open new spaces of relations.”2 For the philosopher, the processes of creolization are likely to dissolve the absolutism of the Continent, and the grand narratives of History. Under the gentle pressure of creolization, Glissant's deterritorialized identities become vulnerable, responsive and self-reflexive archipelagos. In fact, “archipelago-thinking” is an actual and utopian vision of the world, both reconciled through Glissant's poetic philosophical writings.
1 & 2 Édouard Glissant, Traité du Tout-Monde. Paris: Gallimard, 1997.
58 FACTS ABOUT SCOTLAND THAT WILL BLOW YOUR MIND IN ONLY ONE SENTENCE.
The iridescence of creolization is shining through the bleached out tartans, opening holes for colourful weaves to bleed slowly until they reveal their multicultural patterns. An act of defiance, the bleach bang whitens the stronghold of nationalism woven tightly into the tartans to its point of fault. Meanwhile, the soiled fabrics are embraced by the ceramics that are packing them into rolls of sorrows. Under the guise of hardness, forms and materials come together to make visible the vulnerability of our relationship to the world. And while the the echos of multilingual tongues are resonating through the ages of our ever changing history, I am an eye that listens, an hand that talks, and a body that sees.
19 THINGS THAT EDINBURGH HAS THAT LONDON SHOULD GET IMMEDIATELY.
Archeological researches in the Tarim Basin, located in the North West of China, have uncovered several mummies dated from 1800 BCE to the first centuries BCE. The complex analysis of the mummies' DNA stupefied the scientific community; altogether, the mummies had a varied pool of genetic characteristics similar to any contemporary cosmopolites. The mummy of the “Chärchan man”, a tall, slender, pale skin, red-hair and tartan wearing man attest to the multiculturalism of the communities formed in the Tarim Basin which are believed to be composed of travellers coming from both Asian and European countries. Cultural exchanges between these pre-historic people are evidenced by the remains of woven textiles, wooden text tablets, bronze and other artifacts made with low-level technologies found on the site alongside the mummies
THE 42 MOST PURE DEAD BRILLIANTLY SCOTTISH NATIONALIST MOMENTS EVER.
Wupu Bleach Bang is the title of a series of sculptures made of African waxprints and Scottish tartans, ceramics, metal and wood, all smeared with bleach. Ces sculptures rendent compte du processus autant traditionels que modernistes afin de donner forme à cette perception d’un monde éclaté. Cependant, cette rencontre toujours imparfaite a pour effet d’amenuiser petit à petit les distances qui nous séparent d’avec nous-mêmes, c’est à dire avec ce que nous portons tous d’humanité en nous. La formation archipélique n’est pas de l’ordre du miracle, mais d’un incessant devenir, devenir soit même autre, sortir de soi, et non se cristalliser en une hypocrysie patriotique.
OVNIS DIRECT by Maryse Larivière