Softening the Tribute

I have this massive archive in my hands and sometimes I don’t know how to deal with it. It intimidates me. I slowly unpick the information. I combine elements from different categories. I create new categories. Are categories problematic?

I shuffle things around; I make a mess. I repeat and I repeat, and I obsess over it.

And repeat again and repeat and obsess.

I look at the island from afar. I look from the island to the world.

I am trying to fit into its shape, I am trying to fit its shape into somewhere else. I am trying to fit the shape into another shape. I am trying to create a new shape. I am trying to create a new space. A space in-between, a space of possibility.

Making time, marking time, painstakingly stitching the lines on the fabric, paying attention to the details as they deserve.

Labour.

The women. The women of the island. I haven’t found one text written by a woman. Why haven’t I found any texts written by women?

From the descriptive to the abstract.

From the sensical to the non-sensical.

Transforming a socio-political archive into an artist’s archive?

Activating the archive.

Performing the archive.

Transforming the archive.

Chartographing the archive.

The poet said he wrote his poems on the island. He folded the paper into bottles and buried the bottles in the earth. They were found years later.