e.phemera...

a couple days ago, a throw-away line:
'And is there any value in ephemeral material (such as old programmes, posters, reviews)?'

and ironcally this evening, i went to an event marking '30 years of passionate dissent'
'LET THE WALLS SPEAK: POLITICAL POSTER EXHIBITION'

http://jura.org.au/node/517

the walls were full of strongly-coloured hand-screenprinted posters from the 1970s and 1980s - mainly from Earthworks Poster Collective / The Tin Sheds, as well as from other political art groups. These were the colours, slogans and humour of the first years of my 'city life' away from 'the femily' - years where personal / political issues marched / danced around everything .... everything but arabness / racism / language / wars in lebanon and palestine / etc.

nevertheless, such posters on streets, walls, phone booths, fridges, doors... were possibly more significant for me than some books, courses and conferences.

one particular poster design of the late 70s has always remained in my imagination: it was produced by anarchist feminist artists, in a storybook style of bold cartoons, with a 'wonder woman' reacting to the question:
"where do ideas come from?"
"do they come from books?" ... "kapow!"
"do they fall from the sky?" ... "clunk!"
the punchline had something to do with "social practice", after abusing "academics and egghead feminists" ...
[ok, not so cool now, but 30 years ago, yes]

anyway, i was recently doing an internet search for an image of this specific poster, and that's how i came across the information for the Jura Books 30 year anniversary event tonight.

i was looking for this poster because i believe that for me, the politics around it were as strong a philosophical influence as, say, the work of Paulo Freire...
this emerged in recent discussions with h.y. about 'where do our questions come from?' and 'how do we critique our own questions?' - whether that questioning happens in cafe conversations, action research or cultural production.


on an everyday practical level, this has meaning for the 3arabi project, as i wonder what questions do we ask of ourselves and our work as arab artists / writers / cultural producers / community activists - i.e. what are our insider questions?

so again i am circling / doing a dabke around:
'what is an arab-centred methodology' or 'how do we create arab-centred work'...
so now who's being an 'egghead'?!...


there's another old poster image i remember:
"mummy, what did you do during the revolution?"
"i danced."