Phoebe is in Africa!
Madagascar ... and Uganda ... and South Africa
A research project by Phoebe Sullivan
Inspiration: Walter Benjamin, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Laura Marks, Taussig, Woolf, Faulkner. Buck-Morss. Being in an alone space. Empty journals, waiting. Up with the dawn. Those who stand on the outside, creatively - Jordorowsky, Brakhage, Longley.
What I'm doing: Research (?!). In Madagascar, an island that the anthropologist Anna Tsing would likely call an "out of way place." Research on a growing commodity, carbon, that connects Madagascar to a global economy, pulls it into the international drama of climate change. Forest dependent communities face to face with conservationists, asked to rally around the creation/management/maintenance of an "invisible" product (carbon credits) sold to Pearl Jam and the Dixie Chicks, to corporations, to Americans. Fair deals, off-sets to balance out the physical ramifications of industrialization. This packaged as a way to improve rural livelihoods in those out-of-way places. Research to see how this plays out in the forests, in the managed-spaces of national parks, to see who leads and who follows, who resists and who benefits.
What I have: 50 pens and a tent I have yet to set up, books to last 10 months and my faded purple Lacoste sneakers. Duct tape and MGMT. A disc-man on its deathbed.
Metaphor: Taussig works with the concept of the "nervous system", Trinh Minh-ha with "interval", Tsing with "friction." I begin with: residue - what is left behind, hard to rub away, what may be unseen but still felt. The encounter between local and global economies, development discourse and on-the-ground-"reality." The leftovers of these encounters, on the skin of communities and organizations, (finger-hand-activity)-prints on a place, and those who occupy it (those who live there and those who name the space to control it).
Blog: Wing & Shine
