Decolonization as Care

Rizvi Uzma

INTRIGUED

•"Unless we choose to decolonize aesthetics, pedagogy, or archaeology, the systems by which we are taught research
continue to reinstate older, oppressive, racist, chauvinist, patriarchal models of being: that gets coded into all of us and we continue to replicate it."

•"In the world of right-handed desks in schools, a decolonized pedagogy and care would mean that as an educator, you might think about a lefthanded person and request left-handed desks to be brought into your classroom."

This reminded me of my art teacher in Bulgaria - she writes with her right hand, because when she was taught to write, the teachers kept her from writing with her left hand, because it is not "accepted", especially in a Communist country, which Bulgaria was from 1946 - '90.
However, she draws with her left hand.

•"a system in which objectivity requires us to remove subjectivity from material things."
Another thing is that I agree with the fact that we as makers should give our attention to everything basically, which includes objects. This is because we are constantly looking for something to alter, to better, to create something else out of it or simply change its meaning. However, I think we should not get attached to objects. This is why I admire so much the practice that the Tibetian monks do - to make a mandala out of colourful dust for months - with the tiniest details, when it is finished they enjoy what they have done for a few minutes and then destroy it. This practice is done so to symbolise impermanence - the nature of life.

DO NOT UNDERSTAND OR DISAGREE WITH:

•"If, due to your body experience, you have never had to question how the world looks at your race/class/ethnicity/ gender/body, or if that has never impacted the way the world identifies your research or work, you should know that that is a privileged experience." (p.86)
I have always connected calling someone privileged with negative vibes and this bit of the text annoyed me because I feel like it criticises the person who has not experienced any bullying throughout his lifetime.

•"If the architecture of our early childhood spaces structurally reiterates gender binaries, we will never grow up to really be comfortable in non-gendered bathrooms because our comfort is first introduced and developed at a young age." - I do not resonate with this, because I think in my childhood institutions toilets were never separated and no one had a problem with it at the time. Also, when going to a toilet where there is a long queue for the lady's bathroom (most of the times), I just go to the EMPTY male bathroom, because I do not see a point in waiting.

RESONATE WITH

•"In a broad sense, culture is everywhere: it is part of the way we walk, talk, move through space, the languages we speak, the values we have, the ways we think of ourselves, how we think of the world, et cetera. Once recognizing that there is potentially something cultural about everything around us, to also recognize its constantly changing nature, that culture is fluid, leads one to consider the capacity to change culture." - I really see this when I communicate with foreigners or when I studya a different language. We all have our ways of speaking, making comments, analogies, etc.

•"In our contemporary moment, we have lost the ability to take time out to think, to write, to draw, to wonder, to let our curiosity dictate a research pattern. More and more we are propelled into a system that requires all labor to produce at breakneck speed, suggesting that somehow the survival- of-the-fittest model of labor capitalism is achieved with a lack of all human needs: food, sleep, air, love, et cetera. The late capitalist model has alienated the human body to such
a degree that we no longer are allowed to be human to be considered successful." - I am so mad about this and it is so annoying because even in our art-free world, I feel the same. This quarantine is such a good rest-time - to have to think for yourself for a bit, to create, to read, to clean, to take your time for yoga, self-care. However, some of the days, I felt like I had all the time and still I have not done some things from the beginning of the quarantine.

This text reminded me of this experiment:

•"The moment you touch a landscape, the moment you touch
the soil, the moment you think about mudbrick, or work with mudbrick, you know it, and know it intimately." - I like this part a lot because it is so personal, shows that she cares, that she is an artist in a sense.