breathe
June. 2. 2010
photograph by the mother [ backflip by me ]
HOMELAND
Last night a friend asked me, "Where is your homeland?"
I said nothing, for what could I say?
My homeland is not Egypt or Syria or Iraq.
My homeland's a place that has never had a name.
-Jalal-ud-Din Rumi
I was born in India
and used to figure that made me Indian.
It runs deep in my veins, but I see now that so do a lot of other things…
things more ancient than this planet
my parents have taken to telling me I’ve become “too American”
Americans I know say I speak British
the Brits say I speak American
and even though nowhere really fits
and you’d expect an identity crisis here,
it’ all seems to fit so well that these lines don’t matter-
no one more than another
I’m just a child of the universe, and I’m dealing with it
like a friend once said:
home is where people love you and the people you love are-
and my home is boundless
swimming to the sun
May. 4. 2010
…it’s a good way to go
I took this solitary beach trip to Goa a few years ago, and it was so quiet and empty and all you heard was the waves because the tourists hadn’t come in yet. I just needed the stretch, and it helped to go be a beach bum no matter how shady travel is when alone and female in the motherland.
I never swam the whole trip, but I thought about it
the day wasn’t orange- rather blue, in fact
but its memory still is
“swimming to the sun…” a friend once penned off, referring to Corbusier’s death and summing up my dreaming
and I, unaware of that story was so mesmerized by the sensuous image this little phrase conjured up in my head that even now when I know what he really meant, (and that knowledge changes everything), the visuals remain untarnished and refuse to stop flowing
Resonance.
If you know what I mean
as for this picture, I always thought that was two friends growing old together on the shore. Don’t care if it wasn’t.
oculus
April. 27. 2010
it could be a porthole
looking out to sea
or just a white bottle cap
photographed by me
but this is how the Pantheon
that Roman temple of the gods
lets summer showers in-
…They didn’t have sheet glass in ancient Rome, ya see? They say you can trace the origins of western architecture through to these parts…
I’m not religious- pretty sacrilegious in fact, but being a spiritual being I enjoy reflection in places of worship…where people seem to at least temporarily seek something larger
St Peters, Vatican City.
that sink and rise and sink again
April. 22. 2010
When I won my first travelling fellowship, three and a half years ago, in my acceptance speech I said I wanted to travel to learn to understand the world in order to love it better, and I meant it. The timeless search continues…
Back then I studied sinking cities in Europe, relating them back to good old New Orleans. So much came from that stunt of wandering…a summer of exploration without a plan…golden surprise and magnificience!
London, Venice, Hamburg, Brugge, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Amherst and so many more in betweens…
I went to interview Frank Welch today, and hearing him talk about his time in Paris reminded me of my own. I am often haunted by the places I go…
The Paris pictures will need to be dug out, but in the meanwhile- here’s a snippet of the whole from an article we ran in CONTEXTURE (LSU School of Architecture newspaper). The large photograph is Amsterdam. More thrilling in full-color, I’ll dig soon.
The title here of course is the marvellous Edna St.Vincent Millay…how I love her.
Somehow it seems to fit-
LOVE IS NOT ALL
Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution’s power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.
I am meant to do this forever- and hell or high water, I will.
improvisation [the namesake]
April. 15. 2010
written in a dark movie theater, watching the Namesake in Chicago, anticipating poetry class the next day in Baton Rouge…it’s funny how these things happen, the making of art from art…
Andrei Codrescu, I owe you.
Anyways, here goes (with much courage)-
Improvisation [the namesake]
Where do you want to go tonight?
Oh! I don’t know
Try it again-
there’s no previews here
but I still enjoy the watching of
a progression of things
WELCOME TO THE SHOW!
I wouldn’t dream places with him or without you
“Where are you?”
At least he went peacefully but when has that ever
ever sufficed?
We all came out of a nascent certainty
someday you’ll understand
I can do anything
You’ll see there are
no
accidents.
It’s all there I already checked-
Eyes black as blackberries.
Curious
I don’t want
to get away from this-
Remember always when you are lost that you and I went to a place from where there was nowhere left to go
aside
March. 16. 2010
photo by unknown genius + rant by me
There are people who can see beauty- recognize the sublime, and there are those who can’t.
I wonder if it’s an innate ability sometimes, but regardless, it is the in-between-ers that baffle me most; those who do recognize the universal consciousness that is good in other beings, objects and situations, but are either content with their carefully crafted illusion of joy and persist in their states, never reaching for anything higher, or worse, those who feel threatened by the same and tailor their pursuits to the reduction of the reaches of that good.
Why doesn’t everyone want to touch the edges of the beautiful especially after having caught a glimpse of it? If you know the possibilities are limitless, how is it not tempting to test them out, to be the best you can be, to nourish the good and wean the bad? Simply to reach farther in the world there is out there?
Is it tacitly programmed in us through years of being taught we ought to compromise? You’ve all heard it- you can’t have everything you want, you will never find someone who’s perfect, everything is flawed (what defines a flaw is so subjective, I can argue there is no such thing)…idealism is unreal…etc. etc. etc…it’s tiring, this battle against settling, and the best of us begin to doubt. But the question here is how will you find something you have convinced yourself doesn’t exist? In life, in love, in everything, the upper limits of what you get is set by what you demand. What you will not settle without…
We are people, and we are good and strong and beautiful, and our natural state is one of bliss, and peace, and oneness. Existence in itself is sublime. It is noble, and you as a part of it, are no less.
Call me an idiot, a dreamer or a sufi, but my optimism is unyielding and I am just tired of disillusionment coming in different packages. I am tired of the glorious human spirit being reduced to a joke, I am tired of hearing about settling, of following the norm, and I am tired of hearing people cite the “ignorance is bliss” philosophy to allow themselves to carry on just so. Since when can knowledge take away bliss? Ignorance could be de-constructed into a sheer lack of curiosity, ambition or courage (if not a combination therein), or just plain old denial. Denial doesn’t yield happiness and isn’t that the ultimate meaning of existence itself?
Delve a little deeper, ponder for a moment longer, and understand that bliss which can be denuded by knowledge, discovery, understanding, really isn’t that at all. So ingrained in the consciousness of the world- from the Adam and Eve fairy tales to taboos attached to questioning a tradition or established authority across so many cultures…this subtle acquiescence to live unquestioning, submissive lives in nefarious guises…where has it ever led?
This aside digresses, and these thoughts will need more ironing, but in the meanwhile let Tagore resonate:
Where The Mind is Without Fear
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depths of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake
[ Rabindranath Tagore- Geetanjali]
afloat
March. 8. 2010
re-imagine
the floors at every stripe
when the beast touched the ground
meetings on corners, walks to edges,
looking out-
afloat
woolen suspension in mid air
somewhere between matta-clark and the free market revolutions
I’m all steel and concrete
look up
March. 4. 2010
…sunny afternoon wandering on a crisp spring like day in the winter!
These are my friends, and I have love for them both- especially in this rare moment when they’re experiencing, exploring and enjoying architecture in all its splendour without me forcing them to, as usual.
People sometimes argue that imposing forms and spaces supposedly “out of scale,” belittle the human spirit. Moments like this however, are my argument for the contrary…
crosswalks
February. 28. 2010
How much of what we are and how we view the world and people in it depends on what we’ve been brainwashed with? THINK! Isn’t there a point in time when we should be able to step back from what we’ve been told is right and evaluate it for ourselves?
How would you react to a man walking down the street in a glittering dress complete with heels? Where’s the edge of your prejudices?
Isn’t the purpose of life to enjoy every moment, to find joy, spread it and revel in it? Can we stop taking that joy away from others who seem to have found it, please! Prejudice takes that away from both the subjects and the objects…
If a man wants to walk down the street in heels- power to you brother!
thethrillofitthrillofit
February. 7. 2010
they closed Woodall Rogers one weekend so we laid all out on what is usually a maddening rush of a freeway…it felt like one limitless afternoon
adding visual noise seemed to complement the stillness of this surreal moment…and i enjoy the “MUST EXIT” sign…these kids aren’t going anywhere ya hear?
it was an empire of the sun moment because -
“…we are always running for the thrill of it, thrill of it/ always pushing up the hill searching for the thrill of it/ On and on and on we are calling out and out again/ Never looking down, I’m just in awe of what’s in front of me…”
- just in awe of what’s in front of me.
whoa, what?
January. 27. 2010
A few of the final competition boards
Urban Ecology:
Dallas recently ran a competition called Re:Vision Dallas- with an invitation to rethink sustainable urban living and supersede any such existing facility. Jumped on it, of course! From the ground up: sustainability as a cry for longevity- long term investment in structures that stand the test of time and don’t have to be torn down thirty years down the line.
What’s sustainable about a LEED gold project that needs to be torn down in thirty years? Or for that matter, my favorite- a LEED certified plastic water bottle manufacturing plant…Whoa, not much really- that plastic’s going into a landfill ya see? So the idea here is to pre-empt obsolescence by understanding what the negotiable parts of a structure are: what stays, what can go, and what can come in between? So there ya have it: intelligent, systematic, customizable, individual expression: chaos in order in chaos.
You can be Joe Six Pack, but your neighbor two pods down just might be George W.
And we are A-OKAY with that…such Mavericks!
Alan Richards + Cletus Pippin + Isabel Mandujano + Ishita Sharma: collaborative
Quick-study placeholder blocking
Found.
January. 21. 2010
Today is Vasant Panchmi- the fifth day of the Indian month of Magh, and the verrah first day of Indian spring…yellow clothes, yellow food, beginnings, spirituality, learning, love…the coming together of things
here I will weave tomorrow and
piece new Suns together
Found.
a clean gold beginning-
…passing by
January. 11. 2010
“There is more to life than increasing its speed.”
-Mahatma Gandhi
The London underground had posters with that quote posted everywhere. So ironic. Here’s an aside:
We want stories told in the first two sentences, TV sports formatted to our limited attention spans, movies to get to the point already, clicks to respond instantaneously and have become so impatient that even flying (you know, soaring above the miles you would in theory need to walk, jump or swim?) seems tedious and prolonged…the pace of life and gratification are continually being shortened.
Even people who lament the loss of human interaction when conversing in their living rooms don an unapproachable air on the tube…and there we are, scuttling by each-other, anonymously rushing past a sea of abstraction.
Life without punctuation
I say, I
am merely, passing by
word
December. 2. 2009
I have favourite words. Add clairvoyance to the list above.
There is so much more to a word than its meaning….the touch of your tongue, further- the taste of that touch…the curl of your mouth, the connotations that reach far beyond meaning, the sound and the symbols themselves- the shape of the letters, the displacement of white space by print…
or consider just the relief of uttered word- expression itself…
so much more.
and the odds are…
November. 15. 2009
Everyone has a favourite number. I’m partial to probability- and its counterpart- improbability;
I wonder who you are reading these musings of mine…this blog has 754 hits- so someone’s reading these snippets of my mind. What do you think/feel when you see/read?
The odds of you being here out of our 6 billion fellow humans make you rather special- to me.
Throw in the fact that we don’t know each other- if there is more than one degree of separation between us, you’re even more special!
If you think about it, everyday events and the banality of life seem rather miraculous. Existence aside, random collisions in both space and thought are so very improbable!
Oh well- I’ll just say thanks- for sharing thoughts and discovering this little piece of virtual space I call my own.
take another little piece of my heart now baby
October. 24. 2009
Gripped with this sudden desire to go public and “be an artist properly” last month, I went and submitted some work to a local art show. I came home with a piece of my soul missing, or so it felt- this giant gaping hole left in my stomach where my beautiful charcoals used to be. I don’t want anyone to buy them.
I’ve never understood how people can part with their art.
Everything one make is a self portrait- it is a matter of course…the pieces of a soul are intrinsically embedded in its expression- the artist and the work of art are so to speak, monovular in their genesis and their synthesis. Like Rushdie’s Farishta bound to the Prophet, or a child to her mother- the creation is bound to the creator…
“We flow in both directions along the umbilical cord.”
-Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses
So how do you sever that sacred connection and let it go? It isn’t the selfish need to possess the thing that is made, more the fright of losing a piece of the self and becoming vulnerable.
I realize the irony of the situation- grossly enmeshed in it myself both as an artist and an architect. Nascent in the choice to make buildings for a living, there is an acceptance of the fact that our deconstructed identity will embellish everything we create- pieces of our souls scattered in every piece of architecture we touch. The scale of the profession leaves no choice in the matter- the Other and Otherness are both inherent in each reflection of the Self.
not the stuff we are made of
September. 15. 2009
When I was eight I asked my mother why my brain couldn’t understand itself- “I” was a blank to my self, yet I could understand the external world. I’m twenty six, and still wondering. Answers anyone? Cognitive Science is endlessly intriguing…
The fundamental question has always been who we are. What is the “I” we refer to as our “self?” People often separate our minds from our bodies- our soul from the corporeal…but what is the soul if not the sum of our consciousness- that which exists in our very cells? What makes a thing a being? What makes you you and me me? How about this for an answer:
“Matter flows from place to place, and momentarily comes together to be you. Whatever you are therefore, you are not the stuff you of which you are made…”
-Richard Dawkins
(http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_dawkins_on_our_queer_universe.html)
We are, in essence, at every point in time- a confluence of numerous possibilities- never to be repeated- a rare, magical moment in the universe at any given time. Never are we the same, yet we continue to retain our “self” through this seamless aberration called life.
I always wonder why some people can see more magic in the world than others- why isn’t it more obvious to everyone how mind-blowing this existence really is?
Yes, yes, Quantum Mechanics helped explain a lot, but more importantly the field has made us stretch our imaginations with a little more abandon- and demonstrates the improbability that plagues what seems mundane.
The sorcery is delightful, and delight must be shared. Wherever this road may lead, I walk it seeking something beautiful…and hopefully sprinkle some of the magic along the way.
Where are the rest of you who seek something beautiful and won’t settle for anything less?
[un]veiling the Statler Hilton
July. 28. 2009
they asked for a local landmark to be veiled.
check that premise, and it begs to be un-veiled…desperately!
stop constructing convoluted contraptions and bring the building to life instead…
[AIA Dallas Statler Hilton Competition entry: Ishita Sharma + Preston Kissman collaborative- we did good I'd say]
wanted to keep the graphics graphic, clear and sync the visuals with the theme of the entry- cinematic, vintage glory…(of sorts)…thus the movie-ish-ness!
here’s my fervid verbiage from the board:
[un] veiling the Statler Hilton
a nostalgic cinematic introspective
The opening of the Main Street Gardens in downtown Dallas elicits the questioning of its very use- who will visit the urban green and what will they see/experience? The block is surrounded by no abandoned relics from Dallas’ glory- now obsolete. Yet, their presence is imposing, and amongst them the Statler Hilton stands dominant in the urban streetscape. Listed as one of America’s most endangered historic buildings in 2008, the Statler is a handsome structure and a monument to the aspirations of an entrepreneurial city- one desperate for a renewed life and un-veiling in a new light.
This proposal seeks to use temporary artwork to bring a sense of revitalization to the space and structure to metaphorically illustrate the best of the hotel’s 56 years shared with the Dallas community, and the possibilities that lie dormant within.
This is accomplished by transforming the façade into a screen onto which films are back-projected. Sheets or (removable) translucent film would be adhered to the interior of the Hilton’s first and second floor windows, and projectors connected inside would then project movies and images onto these surfaces giving the façade a constructed life- animating the façade as seen from the street and the park; thus transforming gardens into a silent outdoor theater for ‘Movies in the Garden.’ Additionally, subtle up-lighting of the Hilton’s façade at night allows it to set the stage for activities in the new park.
The films and images compiled from the collective memory of the city showcase Dallas in the style and splendor of its growing years through the experience of its citizens and the highlights of the Statler Hilton’s glamorous past- a 56 year journey through time. The façade alternates movie panels with static display panels narrating the exhibition, in combination with additional flat color panels whose colors reflect hues used in the interior of the hotel.
Recognizing that pedestrian traffic is important in rebuilding a sense of place and unwilling to impede upon the space of the street, this scheme seeks to attract crowds to experience movies of their city’s past and present, transforming an obsolete sidewalk into a gallery walk.
