Deltaworkers

I like to think of the cracks in between,
the wavering backdoor to every story.
This door is always overlooked, and has come to accept herself this way
but she knows her existence is as necessary as much as it is neglected.
Her opening is the one which lets the breeze in
delivering a sharp relief in the stifling heat of the room.
That breeze which creates the current underneath every word,
swaying each letter, left or right in the cavities of your mind.

These words then create images, and images sounds, and sounds actions,
Or perhaps the other way around…
Do you think differently if you lay on your back or on your side?

I like to dream of houses that never touch the ground,
Of feet that have learnt to glide like fish in water
To the rhythm of the sun
And blood throbbing through veins

I like to think of the things that might have been, but weren’t
of the songs that might be sung but aren’t
of the World with a different kind of tongue
of History with a different face
and in that moment when I look at where they would have stood,
they stand.
Fractures insinuate misunderstandings and estrangements yet
the rifts I found here bloom.
Just like the inverse mirage, eventually you come to see,
all the things which might have been, have been here all along.

In 2015 we visited New Orleans for the first time. We stayed only a week and we fell in love with the city and her southern vibe. But not only that. We were also shocked by the segregation, the inequality and the poverty that we witnessed here more than anywhere else in the VS. And we were impressed by the people and the many ways of self organization and civil initiatives on many levels. Our intention was definitely to come back one day.

In 2005 we founded the Rainbow Soulclub in the Blaka Watra shelter in Amsterdam, a shelter for homeless people and long term drug addicts, mainly from Surinamese origin.

The Rainbow Soulclub is a collaborative project: artists, art students and clients from the shelter meet each other already 12 years every Friday in the shelter. During those years a whole variety of activities came about. Not only a large art production and many exhibitions, but also field trips, workshops, performances, demonstrations, various publications and a travel to Ghana and Surinam were organized. It didn’t start off with a specific agenda, there was no plan from the beginning, and no idea about the outcome. It started almost as if it were a blind date between two different groups of people. Organically it became a collective of individuals who are interested in each other and undertake activities they wouldn’t do without each other.

For our residency at Deltaworkers we are interested in New Orleans’ citizens’ initiatives, a.o. grass roots movements, civil right activism, alternative ways of healing, small scale methods of raising awareness. How to deal with a racist past and the outcome of that past? How to change the present situation? What role can art play, if at all? How to deal with a government you didn’t vote for? Just a few of the many topical questions we ask ourselves here in New Orleans.

Deltaworkers is a research residency. That means that there is no concrete art production expected and there is no studio space or whatsoever to produce works. At first that feels slightly uncomfortable, as we are always in the mood to make new works and always wish to come home with ‘results’ of a travel, a residency. Producing (and exhibiting) works seems the natural satisfying mode for an artist in general and we are no exception here. But there is definitely something to learn about this attitude, especially in a place like New Orleans. Even though the Rainbow Soulclub changed our mentality already and shaped our awareness during the years; it made clear to us that ‘the path to the goal’ is the goal in itself.

Already after the first week it doesn’t feel right to arrive here as an outsider and to be quick with gathering ‘results’, hunting for inspiration or trying to find collaboration partners. New Orleans is a magnet for photographers, musicians, filmmakers and what we often hear is: ‘they all come here for inspiration, they earn money by publishing photo books, films, even HBO tv series whatsoever, but what’s in it for us?’ Art is not everywhere high on the agenda, if at all and that is understandable. To be a (white) artist is a privilege and here we feel more white and privileged then ever before.

We decide first to try to understand more of the current New Orleans; the city, the streets, the people, the complex history of the Southern States, Katrina. Every day we walk and bike the streets for hours, meeting people, listening to stories, opinions, experiences, with no intention to transform this all into art works, just listening, being open, receptive, non judgemental, no plans. It appears to us that the majority of visitors stay in the French Quarter around Bourbon street and have no desire to visit the various other neighbourhoods. Partly because they come especially for the booze & the bars and partly because they believe it is too dangerous in many places. Even travel guides advise to avoid a historically and culturally important neighbourhood like Tremé. (Later, a Tremé local will tell us that this is a strategy of the tour guides, in order to keep the tourist money in the French Quarter.)

March 2018
The Backstreet Cultural Museum in Tremé is one of the first places we visit and we will come back here several times. It is a private museum of the Mardi Grass Indian culture, founded in 1999 by Sylvester Francis. Originally it was based in a two-car garage, later it moved to a former funeral home. It is still run by mr. Francis and his family who give personal tours through the rooms.. All displays are self made and the costumes at display are self made by the Black Indians and donated by them. The museum is financed by the entrance fees and by donations. We learn about mr. Ashton Ramsey, a local historian, artist and activist who makes his own activist suits already for years. We will meet him later in a parade where he invites us to visit his studio in the Bywater.

In order to ‘understand’ New Orleans, we join the Sunday Second Lines, the weekly parades that are organized by the different Social Aid & Pleasure clubs in different neighbourhoods. Brassbands, dancers, mobile bars, bbq’s on wheels, bikes, horses, cars, signs, sellers, they’re all rolling and all is self made/self organized. Someone tells us: ‘We don’t have much in Louisiana, but if we don’t have it, we make ourselves’. From our shallow outsider’s perspective the parade looks like a festive exotic Mardi Grass parade. But the more often we are joining in, the more it reveals its deeper value. The Second Line Parades seem to us not just an important celebration and continuation of cultural heritage but also an -almost hypnotizing- weekly relief from daily reality. Perhaps that also explains the absence of tourists?

      

 

Hands on activism: Street signs- Take’m down Nola- New Orleans Murder map, March 2018
Besides the Sunday Second Lines we walk and bike every day through the neighbourhoods. Poverty, inequality and segregation are more openly visible than anywhere else we have been in the US. But also signs with protests, messages, warnings -placed in public space as an antidote- are very visible here. Every day we pass a profound sign on St.Bernard saying: ‘Think that You might be Wrong’. And another one reads: Always Film the Cops, as above, so below. And we bike along all the empty pedestals of the confederate statues -removed by the Take’m Down Nola Movement– as a pilgrimage to landmarks of change. We hope that it’s not just the removal of symbols, but the start of a real change. Later Maaike (Gouwenberg) shows us the St.Anna’s Episcopal Church, where pastor Terry keeps a record of all victims of violence in the city. On a huge white board in front of the church, he writes all their names with a permanent marker, mentioning their age and cause of death. It is an impressive and confronting monument.

We wonder if it is actually possible for us NOT to make a work of art here in Nola, but just to research. There are so many urgent topics that need to be addressed, and our natural medium to do so is art.

 

Meeting Pea (start of FREE BIRD RADIO)
One day in March we meet Pea for the first time, the peacock who lives in our neighbourhood. Pea used to live in the zoo but was freed from his cage by hurricane Katrina. Originally there were three peacocks, but sadly enough one disappeared and one was -according to rumours-probably killed for his meat and feathers. Already for twelve years Pea lives in a tree on Paris Avenue. Mr. Benny, one of our neighbours, feeds him a daily breakfast of donuts and apples. He is the only one who is able to approach Pea. Mr. Benny thinks that although Pea is a free bird now, he isn’t always happy. Pea always has to watch his feathers as danger is around the corner for him and mr. Benny thinks he’s lonely, looking for a mate. For us, Pea became a (strange) symbol of freedom and he became -without knowing it himself- the starting point of a new work: FREE BIRD RADIO, a political radio show for birds. (later more about this work)

 

Meeting Becca Begnaud in Lafayette
Via Deltaworkers, we get to know Cajun healer Becca Begnaud in Lafayette.

Becca treats her patients according to Cajun tradition, making use of prayers, her bright intuition and rituals from Native Americans. Last years there is an increasing interest in alternative ways of healing, perhaps because of an unaffordable or failing health care system or because one lost trust in the pharmaceutical industry. We hit it off immediately with Becca and we’re all interested in undertaking something together. Next to her house is her healer’s practice, based in a former Beauty Salon, that she wittily calls her Inner Beauty Salon. Becca invites us for a healing session with her clients, who approve our presence in the salon. We take part in a group meditation, a therapeutic drawing session and an emotional group talk. The clients- a mother and her two daughters- are not bothered at all by the presence of these two artists. Even more than that, they see it as a favorable sign. Like many people we meet, they have never been outside the US and find it interesting to meet two people from The Netherlands. The session is intimate, intense and we are grateful that we were part of it. In the evening Becca takes us to a workshop with the curious title How to die well in the local library, a workshop to address taboos around dying. She also takes us to Opelousas, according to her the most impoverished city of Louisiana, where we visit the statue of Amédé Ardoin and learn about his story. And she takes us to a befriended artist, who lives in a social housing project in Houma. A couple of weeks later we will return to Lafayette to conduct a meditation drawing workshop with Becca and other healers in the Inner Beauty Salon.

Memphis & Selma.
We visit the National Museum of Civil Rights in Memphis, to learn about the history of the civil rights movement. We spend almost six hours in the museum, definitely a personal museum record. The museum is based in the former Lorraine Motel where dr. Martin Luther King was shot in 1968. From a building across the street one can look through the window that was used by the assassin. From this window we can also see white bird’s nests hanging peacefully on a rope. They’re probably made by the residents of the building, as if someone wanted to chase away demons from this place.

After Memphis we visit the city of Selma, Alabama. Here we visit the Brown Chapel and the Edmund Pettus Bridge, iconic locations of protest and violence of the Civil Rights Movement. In the evening we start to watch the 14-part documentary Eyes on the Prize, and later we see Spike Lee’s documentary When the Levees Broke another time. There are definitely a lot of demons here that still need to be chased away. Way more then we thought before. It is a very humbling experience.

 

Community Bike Shop RUBARB
We hear about RUBARB (Rusted Up Beyond All Recognition Bike shop), the post-Katrina community bike workshop run by volunteers in the Upper Ninth Ward. After Katrina, they started collecting orphan bikes in the streets to fix and re-use these.

At Rubarb’s you can repair your own bike, or learn how to repair a bike. Kids are encouraged to ride bikes, learn to fix bikes and can get their own bike by earning ‘bike points’. And of course it is a friendly hang-out for anyone, a corner store. That things are not easy in this neighbourhood, we notice when we read a flyer that is casually posted on the wall: an offer for free bus services to various prison facilities, to visit your loved ones, complete with time schedule. We can’t even imagine seeing a flyer like this in a community center in The Netherlands.

At Rubarb they always need more volunteers, there are so many things to do. The walls on the outside need new murals and we volunteer for this task. The kids like drawing and painting so much and we make a drawing table.With them we will try to make a design for the mural. We buy materials and we visit RUBARB every Wednesday from now on. Good to be part of the RUBARB family.

 

27 March
On our search for local healers, Becca Begnaud takes us tot he Louisiana Himalaya Association, the smallest buddhist center of New orleans, where we can attend a Chöd practice (a ritual for ‘cutting’ through hindrances and obstacles such as ego, ignorance, anger).

We also visit the center’s annual Vision Fest, a gathering for alternative healers where we a.o. meet the Jin Shin Jyutsu healer Eric Pollard, who later gives us a class about Jin Shin Jyutsu in the local Healing Center.

In between all activities we make field recordings for a new work; a radio show for birds for the sound exhibition Lûd in a forest (the Rijsterbos in Friesland) in The Netherlands. Initially the plan was to create a musical radio show for birds, with music especially composed and played for birds by musicians from New Orleans. The idea was to connect two very different places in the world via music and via migratory birds. Probably many of the birds in the forest in The Netherlands frequent the Southern States where important breeding areas for migratory birds are.The idea was also to create an exercise of putting oneself in the position of ‘the other’, even if that other is a bird. Will birds like listening to human music in the same way as humans can enjoy bird sounds? And if they do, what would they like to listen to? Is it possible to compose music for birds?

However, during our stay in New Orleans, the concept of the work is gradually shifting. It becomes more political. It becomes a radio show for birds with an underlying message for humans. The subject becomes Freedom & Captivity, rather big subjects, but in the context of the history of New Orleans, the southern states, the police brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement it is an essential and, unfortunately, topical theme. And birds seem a good metaphor too, they’re often used by humans as symbols of peace or freedom, though also locked in cages by humans.

From now on we also make field recordings of birds on places of interest for birds ánd humans connected tot this subject and we start to collect material to make bird’s nests from, mainly protest flyers. Pea, the neighbourhood peacock that was freed from the zoo, seems a very symbolical starting point.

 

Making drawings at Becca’s Inner Beauty Salon
We are going to Lafayette for the mediation drawing workshop that we organise together with Becca Begnaud. Together with Becca’s guests we will copy classical, anonymous meditation drawings from the Tantric Hinduism tradition. There is not much known about these drawings, but what we do know is that these were used as tools to meditate and to train one’s mind, centuries ago in India. They were not considered as works of art, nor is there a traceable author or designer. The designs are passed on by generations of painters in a time there was no mechanical way of reproduction available and therefore the making of the drawings seems -in the perspective of art- an ego less practice.

At Becca’s we are not making individual drawings but we pass the paper and collectively work on each drawing. Calmly we produce a supply of drawings together, for each other. Meanwhile we talk about ego, authorship, motivation, intention and appropriation. Can we do this? Can we ‘use’ something from a culture that isn’t ours in order to meditate, to cure, or just to have a collective moment of reflection while painting these? Will all these positive things justify copying these drawings, if we don’t consider these as art works and do not exhibit these?

At the end of the afternoon we all pick a drawing and the other drawings will be given to patients of Becca or to whoever needs them by. One is for the Inner Beauty Salon and will be hanging in between other power objects. Becca’s thinks it is not a coincidence that this ancient drawing travelled all the way through distance and time to her practice. Her intention is to incorporate this way of meditation in her own healer’s practice. Drawing was already a vital part of it; it is very direct, meditative and if it fails, so what, throw it away! And actually, by working collectively on drawings, there is no failing, the drawing becomes merely a cherished memory of a collective moment.

 

Collaboration
The longer we are in Louisiana, the more we understand why Deltaworkers is a research residency and the more we appreciate that. It is so different from the other cities in the US where we have been.

There seems to be more segregation, more inequality, or at least this is more visible, on the surface.

For years already we love working together with locals, with ‘non artists’. Here that is not a natural thing to do specially when the (foreign) artist is white and the local is black. Here in New Orleans we feel more white privileged artists than ever before. Basic questions are: who wants what from who, and who will benefit from it in the end? What is the artist’s underlying motivation? And is the ‘collaboration partner’ not just part of the artist’s agenda? Fair questions and even after our long term experience with the Rainbow Soulclub, it is very essential for us to rethink these questions. When we attend lectures and artist talks in New Orleans, the audience seems always alert and keen to ask critical, confronting questions as many subjects are seen -and taken for granted- only from a white perspective.

Our (white) fellow resident Io Cooman, photographer from Belgium, would like to make portraits at the (black) Social Aid & Pleasure Clubs but despite her efforts she doesn’t manage to get access tot he clubs, partly because people are hesitant to help her and try to convince her that this is not a good idea at all for a white photographer. “Who will benefit from this at the end?” is the rhetorical question. Of course that is a more than fair question especially here in the context of Louisiana, with the long history of inequality and exploitation of the African Americans. But the thing that bothers Io the most is that she can not ask the people herself, whether they would be photographed or not. The fact that other (white) people think for them, and decide that ‘they will not like it’, without even asking them also doesn’t feel right. Isn’t that called white paternalism?

At the end, Io doesn’t succeed to make portraits at the Social Aid & Pleasure Clubs. But because she spends so much time in the streets, meets so many people ánd because she is sincerely interested, she finally finds interested people. At the Sojourner Truth Community Center she is allowed to install a make shift photo studio. The elderly ladies who frequent the center are in for it; it’s entertainment for them and also a chance to get free and professional portraits. Saskia joins Io to assist. No one in the center is bothered by the photo studio or by Io, it’s the opposite. The ladies are truly surprised by the professional and cheerful quality of the photos and some of them request a second shooting, in a different outfit, or to improve their way of posing.

 

Newcomb Art Department of Tulane University
On 17 April we give a collective talk together with Maaike Gouwenberg for the students of Tulane University on a.o. collaboration, Deltaworkers and Rainbow Soulclub. Two days later we visit the MA students in their studios for individual talks about their works. It’s a small but very engaged group of students. We invite some of them to join our next meditation drawing workshop.

 

R.U.B.A.R.B.
In the meantime we continue our weekly activities at Rubarb. We brainstorm about the mural and we organise a spray-paint-your-bike workshop because that’s by far what the kids like to do the most. We also join the annual Jazz Fest field trip, as the festival gives out free tickets to the Rubarb kids and volunteers and for every kid one chaperon is needed.

On 24 April we are invited for Janneke’s radio show Outspoken at the local radio station WHIV, the radio station dedicated to human rights and social justice. During one hour we speak about local politics and gentrification in New Orleans and in Amsterdam and about Rainbow Soulclub, our inevitable subject when it comes to politics.

 

5 May, meditation drawings at Camp Abundance.
We conduct a second meditation drawing session. This time it takes place in the garden of Camp Abundance with the students of Tulane University, Becca Begnaud and newly arrived Deltaworkers resident Alexandra Martens. In a calm and concentrated manner we produce the drawings while the neighbours across the street are cutting and braiding hair at their porch, meanwhile looking at our activities with interest. We talk about inviting them over to join in but somehow none of us does dare to do so, thinking that they might be suspicious about our plans, or just simply think we’re crazy. (Saskia: I still wonder why I didn’t invite the neighbours that day, usually I’m quick and spontaneous to invite people to join in. Am I discouraged by the segregation situation here and therefor I am suspicious of other people being suspicious about me?)

 

May- Mexican border- Terlingua
We decide to go for another road trip, to feel more of the Southern vibes. We will drive through Texas, along the Mexican border to off-the-grid Terlingua and to Marfa where we will visit the Judd and Chinati Foundation and via San Antonio we will drive back to New Orleans.

Along the Mexican border at the Rio Grande, we find the social routes in the corn fields that are used by migrants. Here we record bird sounds for the FREE BIRD RADIO.

We learn about the various organisations called Border Angels who set out bottles of drinking water in the desert for exhausted migrants. Unfortunately there are other organisations who are searching for bottles in order to take them away. We also learn that there are many people living off-the-grid in a self sustainable way in the Texas deserts. Some of them have no desire to be part of current society and decided to turn their back to it. Others think that this is even worse, and they try to take all action they can to help migrants and fight racism.

The Rio Grande is much smaller than we thought, at some points only a couple of meters wide and very shallow. It is easy to cross by foot. We see many border patrol cars driving around in search of suspicious situations. We are very aware of being here on this location as again -privileged- artists and not as migrants. Recording birds seems not very important here and now, but hopefully the meaning will emerge later from the finished work. And doing nothing because it all seems useless is not our attitude.

 

Back in New Orleans
We continue recording for the bird radio, meanwhile entitled FREE BIRD RADIO. Via Maaike we’re in contact with local musicianTom McDermott. We record at his place: loosely he improvises four pieces especially for birds. One of them played in the ‘butterfly’ spirt of the late James Booker, one of his favourite New Orleans piano players. (described by Dr.John as ‘the best black, gay, one-eyed junkie piano genius New Orleans has ever produced’.)

In Royal street we find more musicians who are interested in making music for birds. It seems that musicians have a natural appreciation for birds and their songs. Musicians Anton, Jonny, Max, Perikles and Blandine will come a couple of times to Camp Abundance for recordings.

 

19 May- Studio visit with mr. Ashton Ramsey
We are visiting mr. Ashton Ramsey, who we have met already in march during a Second Line, and who invited us over to his studio. Mr. Ramsey calls himself a historian/storyteller/activist/folk artist.

Already for years he is making paper suits. Every suit has another theme that usually is related to the current events. Previous themes include: Katrina, Black & White, Survival food, Earrings, Food coupons, Money etc. Originally mr.Ramsey wanted to become a Black Indian, like his brother who was making a new suit every year. But because he couldn’t afford the materials, the beads, the feathers, he decided to make low cost collage suits, decorated with meaningful newspaper clippings. Every suit has a matching paper hat and a pair of glasses spelling the title of the suit backwards.

His studio is in a small cabin in the backyard of his house in the Bywater.

Some of the paper costumes are in the Backstreet Cultural Museum, but unfortunately most of his costumes and his large newspaper clippings archive are stored here, in the humid climate. After years of making these incredible suits there is still no museum who is able to/or has the desire to conserve the suits. (for us hard to understand!) Because of negative experiences with journalists, mr. Ramsey doesn’t like to be interviewed anymore. Too many times people took advantage of him and his work.

But he likes to have visitors over and enjoys talking about his work. He has a mission too: he aims to keep the youngest generation off the streets and out of trouble, away from all criminal activities.

He still conducts workshops at schools and if his health allows him, he rides his bike in the parades, dressed in one of his suits, talking to everyone. Mr. Ramsey also talks about the neighbourhood, the gentrification. How it used to be a black neighbourhood with a lot of kids, who always came by. But these days the neighbourhood is completely white. Mrs. Ramsey mentions: ‘We really miss the kids, there are almost no kids anymore, all white couples now, but it’s good because they all like us and we like them all.’

We also visit the Tremé Petit Jazz Museum several times. An initiative of jazz historian mr.Alvin Jackson who founded the museum in his home in Tremé because he was not satisfied with the mainstream museums. According to him these museums are not telling the true history of jazz, but are more of a tourist attraction. Mr. Jackson is a member of the Social Aid and Pleasure Club called The Black Men of Labour (‘because we work for our money, we don’t sell drugs’) In the museum every visitor gets a personal tour along the timeline on the wall while learning how jazz originated from different cultures all around the world. All the displays are self made, with love. Like mr. Ramsey and like the Backstreet Cultural Museum, mr. Jackson still can’t count on support of the city government, though all of them are obviously valuable for local cultural heritage.

In order to keep his museum open, mr. Jackson rents a room above the museum to tourists. While we visit his museum, a ‘Tremé tour group’ with a guide passes by. We’re surprised they don’t make a stop at the museum at all. Mr. Jackson explains to us that the big tour organisations from the French Quarter are not willing to share their proceedings with him, they rather simply skip the museum.

 

Back at RUBARB – mid May
On a Wednesday afternoon we arrive at RUBARB with boxes full of materials for a.o. the mural, but RUBARB is closed. More than closed, the doors and windows are boarded up with wood and there is a note on the door saying that the shop is ‘closed due to ungrateful and irresponsible behaviour of some’. We call the other volunteers and learn there have been violent incidents and it seemed to dangerous to keep the shop open. The rest of the afternoon we spend in font of the closed door, chatting with other people who came to repair their bikes. A week later there is also an incident in our own street, a drive-by shooting that kills a 20-year old man, one and a half block away from Camp abundance. Reality is approaching during these three months.

https://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2018/05/homicide_bruxelles_street_new.html

 

Talk with Dawn DeDeaux at Camp Abundance
On 22 May we give a public artist talk together with Dawn DeDeaux, visual artist and founder of Camp Abundance. We feel kinship with Dawn and we have interest in similar subjects in our works. Together we decide on the title No Walls/ Flowers from the Cardboard Hotel. We will mainly speak about Rainbow Soulclub and Dawn will speak about the works she made in collaboration with young adults in a prison facility.

The Rainbow Soulclub, an initiative of Saskia Janssen and George Korsmit, involves collaborative projects between artists, art students and clients of The Rainbow Foundation, which provides shelter and care for homeless people and for long term drug addicts in Amsterdam. 

Dawn DeDeaux has implemented experimental art programming for a 6000-inmate prison facility including projects for for juvenile offenders, which led to a long-term collaboration with the Hardy boys, two of New Orleans’ most notorious gang leaders of the late 80s through the early 90s.

Janssen, Korsmit and DeDeaux will show the work that was made during these partnerships and go into a conversation about their experiences they’ve shared with their collaborators.

In the Community Book Center we find the Post-Racial Negro Green Book, published by Brown Birds Books. It is a book that holds a collection of occurrences, information, and data that document a pattern of racial bias against black people in the 21^st century. There is no commentary included in the book, just factual information. The format of the book, however, is commentary: it is based on the 20^th-century Negro Motorist Green Book, which was published from 1936 to 1966. This segregation-era guide helped black travellers find safe harbors and services in a United States that did not welcome them as equal citizens. To us, outsiders to the US, the book reads like a horrifying history book.

The introduction of the book reads:

A traveler happened upon a small bird lying on its back in the road, its tiny claws pointing skyward. “Little sparrwow,” said the traveler, “what are you doing?”

“I have heard that the sky is going to fall,” replied the bird.

“And you expect that your spindly legs will prevent this?”

The little brown bird was silent for a moment, and then it answered:

“one does what one can”

 

To New Orleans
During the last week of our stay we decide to a give -symbolically- a piece to the city. New Orleans gave us so much during the three months. This city and her residents have showed us so much and made us think about many topics. We decide to send a message in a bottle to whoever stranger will find it, in the same spirit as the bottles left at the Mexican border by the Border Angels. We put a  meditation drawing, a personal letter and a 20 dollar bill-for-a-drink in an empty water bottle. We attach the bottle to two jumbo balloons and head to Tremé. At first it’s not easy to find a spot, as wires and trees are everywhere in the way, but once released the balloons go up quickly and until they disappear as tiny black dots at the horizon, while some neighbors are watching.

 

FREE BIRD RADIO
For the exhibition LÛD we made a installation/sound piece in a tree in the Rijsterbos, (a forest in Friesland, The Netherlands) and a riso-printed pamphlet. The installation consists of fourteen birdhouses made of gourds and protest posters. Above the birdhouses is a speaker attached with the radio show for birds called: FREE BIRD RADIO.

Saskia Janssen, FREE BIRD RADIO, 2018
Free Bird Radio is a radio show on freedom and captivity, especially made for birds. It consists of field recordings made on specific locations in the Southern States of the US, and music especially composed and played for birds. In the South of the US, where people have to deal with ‘human problems’ such as migration, racism, borders, the slavery past, incarceration and poverty, birds seem to be free from this while migrating high above all from continent to continent. However while their images are being used by humans as symbols of peace and freedom, birds are still locked up in cages and in zoo’s by humans. Free Bird Radio is also an exercise to put one self in the position of the other, even though the other is  a bird. If birds could listen tot he radio, what would they be interested in? Would they like to listen to other birds, at the other side of the world? En could they enjoy human music, like humans enjoy bird sounds?

Free Bird Radio is dedicated Pea, the peacock who was freed by hurricane Katrina from the New Orleans zoo. Since 2005 Pea lives in a tree on Paris Avenue. Free Bird radio is also dedicated to Mr.Eddy, the neighbour who ever since feeds him a daily breakfast of apples and donuts.

We would like to thank Maaike Gouwenberg and Joris Lindhout for founding Deltaworkers in this incredible city and for taking care of our amazing stay at Camp Abundance. We would like to thank Dawn DeDeaux for founding Camp Abundance and for being the best host in the world. And A BIG thanks tot the Mondriaan Foundation for generously supporting our residency at Deltaworkers.

Saskia Janssen and George Korsmit,  24 October 2018.

In the summer and fall of 2017 we have ran a pilot exchange project with A.I.R Futura in Prague (Czech Republic). Marta Rodriguez Maleck was selected from an open call for a month long residency in August. The photos in this blogpost give an overview of the work she has been doing while in Prague.

During my time at Deltaworkers I created one of a series of film ‘sketches,’ tentatively called ‘Walls & Wills’. The film explores a movement American Painting called ‘Genre Painting.’ The film is my way of making sense of the current class struggles present in America.

In New Orleans, one is confronted with an increase in class disparity, an issue which dominates contemporary America, amidst other issues like poverty, racism, police violence, a crumbling infrastructure and so on. Aside from this, the city has an abundance of cultural offerings and beautiful natural surroundings. However, a street that divides two rows of houses may be much wider than it appears in regards to living conditions and opportunity.

Genre painting in the Golden Age, developed as an independent art form in Protestant Northern Europe, alongside the Dutch Realists of the 17^th century, such as the Haarlem School, The Leiden School and the Delft School led by Jan Vermeer. In America, the movement flourished during the 19th Century, a time of intense social, cultural, economic and technological change. The paintings reinforced popular notions of American Identity and fundamental national values. Economic uncertainty and class conflict eruptions were not omitted from the scenes but were rather dealt with in an often humorous or proverbial manner. For instance many of the paintings depict card playing and gambling scenes or the raffling for a goose (see William Sidney Mount Raffling for the Goose) to express the fluctuations of economic boom and bust. The marginalized place of women and people of color in the public sphere were played out in paintings like ‘Laundry’ by John Thomas Peele, or Thomas Waterman Wood’s’ Reading the Gazette.’ Many of the paintings also depicted the new role of the man in society, for example ‘Young Husband: First Marketing’ in 1854 by Lilly Martin Spencer.

American Genre painting took place in the transformative years following the Civil War.  Like the old master Dutch painters, they created clearly delineated scenes, humorous domestic and rural scenarios, and were often didactic and moralizing. After the brutality of the Civil War, there was an effort to increase empathy within the hearts of Americans again. What attracted me to these paintings were the depictions of the fraught relationships between blacks and whites, men and women, and immigrants and native workers – issues that remain relevant to this day.

In ‘Walls and Wills’ you may recognize the famous ‘ Fur Traders Descending the Missouri’ (originally titled “French Trader & Half breed Son,” but changed for its sale to the American Art- Union) created in 1845 by George Caleb Bingham. These paintings often depicted tranquil scenes and were designed to appeal to the urban spectator as a contrast to the tensions that were undoubtedly stirring in the South during this time of transition.

The artists of the time acted as poets, historians and sometimes comedians. Their paintings now function as historical records, albeit fabricated – photography is of course today’s equivalent. Strength and stability can help us to sustain our culture if we have knowledge and look to the past as a way of understanding the future.  In ‘Walls & Wills’ I take the viewer into people’s homes, through doors and windows to discover a past that struggles with class, race and gender. The camera sometimes emerges onto the streets to experience a more contemporary scenario. The film weaves together the past and present in order to re-experience these painterly interpretations or records of New Orleans.

I would like to thank Deltaworkers, the Mondriaan Fonds and Camp Abundance for ensuring my introduction into New Orleans culture was a stimulating and informative experience.  I have developed a heartfelt love for this city and have met many new friends and collaborators. It was an honor to have the talented drummer Doug Garrison perform live for the final screening of my film in June.

The following is a transcript from a performance that Siri Borge worked on during her residency in 2017.

Before I start this story- there are a few details that you need to know. This is a Christmas story, and it takes place in Stavanger, a city on the south-west coast of Norway. We have the Christmas dinner and open our gifts on the 24th of December, not on the 25th.

This is a story about me and my friend Steffen, and it takes place Christmas eve, 2002. At the time I was 17 years old, and celebrated the evening with my Mother and her “friend”.

But few guests did not mean that I could get out of the dress code tradition, so all three of us were wearing our classiest outfit to make the dinner party feel like a real celebration. Despite the fact that we are all non-believers.

After the appropriate amount of time hanging out with my mother and her friend, I was allowed to go visit my friend Steffen, and they even gave what was left over of the Aquavite- a traditional Norwegian, 40% hard liquor, that taste like liquid wood. Not that a 17 year old cares that much about what free liquor taste like.

Steffen was 16 years old, all alone, in a big house, celebrating Christmas eve- for the first time in his life. He grew up as a Jehovah witness, and Jehovah doesn’t celebrate Christmas. Steffen came out as gay to his parents in the summer that year, and told them he would not be baptized. And as long as you opt out before being baptized, you won’t get shunned. But you will not be invited to go to the family cabin in the mountains during Christmas either.

I walked right into their house, finding Steffen rolling a fat joint on the kitchen table. He had also dressed up for the occasion, wearing black pants with a plaid skirt, black nail polish and eyeliner. It must have been lonely but at the same time liberating for him. It certainly was for me. The days leading up to Christmas, he had stayed away from the house, staying with one of his lovers. I proudly presented him with the Aquavit, and complimented him on his rolling skills, which had improved greatly the last months. We smoked up, talking about boys and stupid parents, and about how Christmas would be when we moved out. We felt very mature.

Walking upstairs to use the restroom, i passed his bedroom. The door was halfway open, and the odour leaking out into the hallway was quite intense.

“Steffen, you pig!” I said when I came downstairs. “If you’re going to have pet rats, you could at least clean the cage! It stinks!” I told him.

Steffen looked at me surprised “I cleaned it a couple of days ago, it can’t be that bad!” He said.

I stuck my finger in my throat and rolled my eyes too make a point, and he went upstairs to check the cage.

I heard a high pitch scream coming from upstairs, followed by him dramatically running down the stairs.

“WTF is wrong?!”

“THE RATS….” he cried, “The rats! They killed one of their own!”

Steffen had two white female rats, and recently introduced a third rat to the party. They are social animals, and the owner thought it would be best to give this rat to Steffen, so it wouldn’t be too lonely after it’s sister died.

He went on describing the bloodbath in the cage, and how the the new rat had looked him straight in the eyes while holding the lifeless- and now headless cadaver of his pet rat between her paws. They were both bloody around their mouths, so they had been in on it both, he concluded.

“I used to have 3 rats, now I only have 2 and a half!”

What follows next is events that might have been very different if under adult supervision, if we were not stoned, and if we had internet in our lives. Here goes:

Me: This really scary thing happens when proteins from meat gets into the diet of a pet rat. It will actually become more aggressive, and crave blood. They can’t help it, it’s a chemical reaction.

Steffen: And they ate another rat, so they are basically cannibals now.

Me: So, basically- you will be alone in a house with cannibalistic killer rats.

Steffen: What to do?

Me: Well, we have to kill them.

Steffen is a patient and empathetic boy, and he truly did love his pet rats. Before me he did not really have any friends outside of Jehovah witness where most limit their social interaction with non-Witnesses, making his rats the friends who comforted him after numerous pray circles, with Steffen as the centrepiece where family and other witnesses tried to pray away the gay. However, being 16 years old, and home alone in this big house with cannibalistic rats was too much for the kid. He concurred.

Steffen: How? The vet is closed now, but I won’t spend a single night with them!

We discussed over drinks the best way to do this. Neither of us had any experience from farms, and even though Google did exist in 2002, we did not really know how to use it.

I suggested hammer to the head. It seemed so brutal at the time, and since I did not want to touch the rats, and Steffen never hurt a fly in his life, this was too violent for his taste.

We looked for poison, there were none. Ibuprofen overdose? Nah, they won’t eat it. Drowning? No. Rats are great swimmers.

Then we figured that since people die all the time from carbon monoxide poisoning, without even knowing that it’s happening- this would be the most humane way to kill the rats.

As luck would have it, Steffen’s mother left her car in the driveway, and the keys was just lying there, between our shitty hashish and liquid pine tree liquor on the kitchen table.

I resolutely grabbed the keys and and said to Steffen: Get me a towel, and a bucket with the two rats in it. We met by the car, and I remember the bucket with the rats being a beige, vintage plastic bucket with brown flowers on it. I later learned that his mother had a full set of cleaning supplies with the same pattern on it.

Anyways, Steffen turned on the car and let the engine run in park. I placed the towel over the bucket containing the two rats, doing my best not to look at them. I glanced over at Steffen who gave me a determined nod, and proceeded to put the exhaust pipe tight between the towel and the bucket.

At first it went precisely as we expected, there was no sound or movement, and we waited for the rats to fall asleep.

Suddenly they started to run around in circles in the bucket, very very fast, and I looked over at Steffen who was just as terrified as I was:
Me: What should we do?! Can I stop??

Steffen yelled: NO, JESUS CHRIST, DON’T STOP NOW, THEY ARE PROBABLY PISSED OFF AND BRAIN DAMAGED!

I kept holding the bucket still, feeling like the biggest asshole in the world. Then, they started to jump. They were big rats, and they jumped so high that you could see their heads in the towel, like small ghosts. Steffen was screaming, and I was laughing nervously and loud.

After a while the jumping stopped, and the only sound you could hear was from the car engine. “Meheheheeeep”, the bucket said.

Steffen: This is NOT funny, Siri, don’t make that sound!!

I turned to him with a serious stare, and then we heard it again: “Meheheheeeep”. The final death rattle from his beloved rats.

Just to be sure I held the bucket for a little longer, put the bucket down, and shut off the engine.

Steffen removed the towel and looked into the bucket: “I’m pretty sure they are dead, the pupils have dilated”

Me: Do they even have pupils to begin with?

Steffen: Well, Siri, they shat themselves, I think that’s evidence enough!

I agreed.

With his head hanging low and the bucket in his hand, he headed towards the bio trash bin. Norwegians recycle everything, but this might be taking it too far…

Me: Steffen, are you crazy? Are you throwing dead rat bodies in the bio waste?!

Steffen: Uhm. Yeah?

I was not sure if this was a bad or a good idea, and I did not know where the bio waste actually went or how it was processed, but it would be a gruesome sight for his parents returning from their non-Christmas.

Me: Have you never seen “I know what you did last summer?!

“Do you want murdered cannibal rats to haunt you?!” Whispering: “I know what you did last Christmas…”

Off course he agreed.

This taking place in Stavanger in Norway, the ground was frozen solid in december, so a proper burial was out of the question.

After a quick brainstorming, we decided on a Viking burial. Burning the evidence. While I rolled a joint to take away, Steffen gathered his 2 and a half rats and the bloody saw dust from the cage in the bucket, turpentine and some old newspapers. In Norway the age limit for getting a licence is 18, so none of us were legally qualified to drive, and contemplating the fact that it would be completely irresponsible of us to drive while under the influence- we decided to steal his mother’s red Toyota and drove to the nearest lake with the bodies in the trunk. After all, it was freezing outside.

The streets were empty, everyone was inside, still opening gifts and eating seven kinds of cakes. We drove the car as close to the lake as we possibly could, our logic was to get water from the lake to put out the fire if it got out of hand.

Steffen did the honors and sat it all on fire. I remember it being a really beautiful night. The sky was pitch black and clear, so we could see the stars. I don’t think we said much while the fire was burning, just smoking and spitting. And Steffen was soundlessly crying, both of us still wearing our finest outfits, freezing in the cold night.

Then I realized that the bucket we brought with us to get water from the lake, still containing the dead rats were melting in the fire. Because Steffen really did set it all on fire…

What are we going to do? How will we put out the fire? I ask Steffen.

Steffen: Well… I kind of have to.. uh. Pee?

I will never in my life forget the sight of my dear Steffen, with eyeliner streaming down his face, lit up by the fire, lifting his plaid skirt, pissing on the remains of his cannibalistic Rattus Norwegicus. And to this day, his mother is still looking for that beige, vintage bucket with brown roses.

Let us say a body is a city.

The veins would be streets.
The blood and neurons become the people walking those streets.

Nurture and genetics define the basic make up of the surroundings.
Is the city set in a mountainous region or is it sinking away in swamp land?
Does it have a mosquito problem?
Or is it situated in an agreeable sea climate?
All this shapes the architecture of a place.

Memories and experiences make up the history of this town.
They embellish the streets like scars adorn a skin.

And the heartbeat, well, that is time, mercilessly propelling everything forward.

This body, this city of mine, is moving. Although the outlines are defined and recognizable, and I have answered to the same name since my earliest beginnings, my city is constantly adding and evolving detailing that changes the whole.

I used to believe there was a clear identity at work within me.
Let us call it the mayor.
I was the mayor.
I got a final say in most of what went on in my town.
I was the law maker.
I called the shots.

It was me that got to say: ‘This is my town. This is what I stand for.‘

In New Orleans, I am a city within a city.
I cycle over the bust concrete roads of Nola and simultaneously trace the paths within me.
What made me come out here was sickness and sadness.
Cancer is some kind of natural disaster.
As is heartbreak.
This city knows pain.
 It knows sadness.

Here is what happened:
My mother got sick.
And as I held her hand
through bright red IV drips,
the infected wound cleaning,
the projectile vomiting,
the fearful nights,
the tense check ups,
I kept fear at bay
by a schedule divided
into clear cut appointment.

Staring at screens and numbers
and eventually
seeing her grow back hair
getting an appetite again
and being declared
clean.

Then I took a breath.
The first one in months
without thinking about death
and then
my significant other
left.

I sat at my desk, hours on end.
Motionless.
I did not know what I stood for anymore.
All laws seemed useless.
My itinerary could no longer guard me.
The laws had become redundant.
What I had believed in
was wiped out.

Working hard does not secure a safe future.
Being kind does not mean you will be treated alike.
Loving someone with all you have, does not make them stay.

These are truths.

I became unfit to rule.
I gave the reign to the people in my body.
All they said was: ‘flee‘.
And I did.
Just like he had done.
I left myself.
And now I am here.

Basking in that spicy, sticky Southern heat.
Disappointment drips out of my pores.
I let it sit, dry up and sweat again.
There is no use wiping it off.
There is always more.
There is no permanence.

Acknowledging that history is fluid.
Paradigms and values change.
Learning to accept that ever shifting of my city.
To sit through the unease.
The limitations of my will.

Maybe that is my real trouble.
Not that my lover left me
but everything leaves eventually.

Nothing is set in stone.
Not even stone itself.

I try to figure out what this place is that I move through.

I hear high pitched baby possums chatter underneath the house.
I sit on the toiletbowl and bend over to the floorboards.
They fall silent when I chatter back.

First week, I try to walk to the supermarket in shorts.
I get whistled at.
Men holler.
Applaud.
Leer.
Two guys jump out of a car, trying to coax me into the backseat.

‘We’ll take you anywhere, baby.‘

It is too much.
I feel threatened and painfully aware of my sex.
I turn around, walk back without groceries.
Something inside me hardens.

I want to be free.
I crave some kind of peace.
And I need to be safe.

Desire and reality clash.
This city of mine feels confining.
I need new laws to abide by
to accommodate this new surrounding.
To set boundaries for visitors.
To meet my needs.

New Orleans is a great city for restless souls.
I end up at a jock strap lube wrestling night.
Gorgeous bodies wrestle in a kiddy pool.
Digging fingers deep down in each others assholes.
Winners making out with losers afterwards.
The dolled up crowd cheers them on.
It is all good sport.

I sing my heart out at St Roch Tavern karaoke night.
They have all the rock ballads I love.
Hole, Garbage, Eurythmics.
GT’s are only four dollar.
I binge.

I listen to bounce music.
The aggressive undertones resonate with my mood.
The repetitive lyrics are like reruns
of memories and memories and memories.
What once was good, haunts me now.

I am so tired of being stuck on mental roundabouts. 
I am so tired of feeling sorry for myself.

I need to change my narrative.

Release your anger
Release your mind
Release your job
Release the time
Release your trade
Release the stress
Release the love
Forget the rest

I watch the Walmart videos.
Girls in skimpy outfits bend over in aisles.
They shake the meat off their bones
in between canned corn and pickles.
The camera never shows their faces.
But their cheeks fill the screen.
They transcend their female form.
They morph into titillating objects.

Moving from seductive to acrobatic monstrosities.

They play out the objectification that they are subjected to.
Overturn it by exaggeration.

Lust becomes fear.
Want turns into awe.

I take bounce classes at Dancing Grounds.
My teacher is a wild eyed, broad grinning force of nature.
Moe Joe, she calls herself.
‘You gotta make them tits fight,’ she yells at us.
She shows us how it is done.

Her body is not just dancing, it’s undulating.
Like some kind of digestive organ
processing
that gritty substance
called life.

To see her sweat, is to watch something done right.
Her beauty is captivating.
Natural.
Wide and unapologetic.
Celebratory.

I fall in love with her.
To be in love, is to be in love with yourself.
You perceive yourself through the eyes of the desirable other.
And you like what you see.

I learn the essence of attraction within me.
What makes men jump out of their car.
Follow me into stores.
Whistle, whisper, stare.
I thought it was just the banality of sex.

A societal programming that accepts micro aggressions.
A masculine image that is groomed by behavioural patterns.
A shape I just happened to fit that is en vogue.

But it is not.
Not just sex.
Not just ass.

It is the power.

‘Shaking’s not sexual.‘
Moe Joe says.
‘The body is an instrument.
It’s a drum.
People hear the call and they respond.
It’s about interaction.‘

The stacking of a spine.
The muscles that guard a fire.
It is the light that draws them.

I become more body
less mind.

Tornado warnings go out weekly in Nola.
I bike through intricate thunder operas.
I wait out rains coming down heavy as black metal.
I let my own storms rage on Messy Mya, Big Freedia, Katey Redd.
Every song I let go a little more.

I shake on an overheated beat.
I go to pieces.
I tear down.
I feel spacious.

Moe Joe tells me about the time
four white cops stopped her
for playing her music too loud.
How she was tasered
and jailed for two days.

How dare I
white woman
compare my body
to a town with toxic history
with racial inequality and violence.

I read Ta Nehisi Coates Between the World and Me
I learn about being a black body in the world.
How fragile it is.
How dangerous.
How easily destroyed.
How often blamed for its own suffering.

I finish the book and feel my privileges.
Every time I speak about my own pain,
I am ashamed.
It feels like I have too many teeth in my mouth.
Like my pain is unreal compared to others.

But still.
Pain is pain.
I hurt.

That too is a truth.

I think about my own body in space.
How I have imitated female archetypes.
How I spent it like cash.
What I got in return.
If it was worth it.

How I should stop turning my self image into a capitalist dream.

I learn to listen.
I learn to talk.
I learn to accept
my ignorance.

America is a slogan country.
Heading into town, I pass two signs daily that intrigue me.

Resistance must now become like breathing

and

Consider you might be wrong

Now I want to talk to about the monuments.
You know, the ones they have taken down.
Three generals of the Southern War.
Jefferson, Beauregard and Lee.

What once were monuments of pride and power
represent something wholly shameful in a different decade.

I bike from pedestal to pedestal
talk to protesters that have a problem with the rigidity of:

out with the old
in with the new.

They tell talk about a history
that is not as black and white
as it now seems.

I see a black veteran
sporting a flag for his military history.
I see a white mother tying a bonnet
on her black daughters head.

The generals,
they made history
even after war.

Beauregard adopted a black child.
Jefferson set free the slaves he inherited.
They worked with the new government
as best they could.

But still,

losers usually don’t get statues.

Symbols have power.
Especially in a struggling city.
Even though you cannot rewrite history,
you can put it into a different perspective.

I watch masked men taking down the statues.
Veiling themselves because they got death threats
and would like to live a little more.

We people love everything
staying the same.
There is safety in history.

Even tainted stories carry comfort.
We want something to hold on to
in this continuous letting go.

I think of the pedestals within me.
The pictures I put on there of what I once held dear
that now oppress me.

There is no permanence.
Acknowledging that history is fluid.
Paradigms and values change.
Learning to accept that ever shifting of my city.
To sit through the unease.
The limitations of my will.

Nothing is set in stone.
Not even stone itself.

It is time to change the narrative.
I am a city within a city.
A body in time and space.

The mayor has not returned to her seat.
She is still out
in the streets
among the people.

My will has become a voice in a crowd
that is sometimes calm,
sometimes in uproar.

Time is a muscle.
The heart beats through pain and love.
It is all movement
to the body, to the city.

The city does not mind the change.

We contract.
We undulate.
We struggle.
We let go.

We shake.
We dance.
We change.

This is history.