London ICA, Damien Rice and Diane Arbus

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Sometimes we travel with our feet,

sometimes with our eyes and ears,

sometimes by being connected to something which inspires or challenges,
then,
we travel by thinking and feeling.

I've traveled far twice this week whilst standing or sitting in the same spot for an extended period of time. Last night was an example of movement in its purest emotional form. I went to the ICA, to the closing of the Tibetan Film Festival - the screening of ‘When the Dragon Swallowed the Sun’. I went for two reasons, one, I love Tibet and two I’m intrigued about Damien Rice who was singing the intro to the film live before it started.

Whilst I lived in China, I listened to his acoustic stuff every day for the last 8 months and now I was queuing to hear him and find out why he was interested in doing this kind of work.

We all filed into the screening in an orderly fashion but with an obvious underlying gentle 'pushing aim' to be near the front, if only to see Damien play up close.

He was waiting on the side of the stage wearing shabby clothes, crumpled hair and an aura of complete casualness to life whilst looking totally aware of self and situation. He told the story of how he wrote the song about something he didn’t know much about and almost gave up. Then he turned it all upon himself when someone asked him if he hadn’t done the same to others as the Chinese government were doing to the Tibetan population. And that’s where the song grew into something intensely real, obviously for him and the film. And, that's when we all became transfixed by him candidly kneeling there.

The film itself was moving and enlightening and sad and briefly funny (there was a dog running across the tibetan olympic 100mtr lanes) and it all heightened a longing in me. So, the film embedded an already increasing itch of yearning to travel again. But for 3 hours, I travelled further with my eyes and ears than I have in months and it felt good.

Also, this week, I returned to a place that I walked past on the night England won one of the games in the World Cup - I don’t even know who with but it was a Weds night. I was walking to my night class but kept walking straight past the uni.

I walked down from Islington all the way to St Paul’s and on the way passed the Bank of America and the whole front windows and foyer area along the street side of the bank had a Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon and Lisette Model exhibition. Huge medium format original b/w prints hanging there for all to see but only if you worked at the bank. I emailed the bank and made an appointment and on Monday, dropped in on the way to work and looked closely at the prints. It made me really happy to get close to Arbus's stories. The retired man and wife sitting nude at home in comfy chairs in a nudist camp. His look of confidence whilst only wearing slippers, her look of almost shyness with a slight leaning forwards and in between them, on the tele was a full photo of her in a garden, totally nude. It was taken the year I was born.
And, my favourite, the king and queen at the senior citizen dance - telling a story in long ago 1970, just the year before Arbus died.
And, the portrait of Ezra Pound taken by Richard Avedon in 1958. Him screwing his eyes up. I closed my eyes opposite then screwed them tight and felt some of the look of pain and sadness that Ezra looked to be drowning in.

It's not often work 'moves' me anymore but here it still is. Surprisingly, creative travel and a planted seed.

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