a tale of two Madeira cakes
Familiar Stranger: A Life Between Two Islands
Stuart Hall
“At the core of diasporic experience is a variant of what W. E. B. DuBois called ‘double consciousness’: that of belonging to more than one world, of being both ‘here’ and ‘there’, of thinking about ‘there’ from ‘here’ and vice versa; of being ‘at home’ - but never wholly - in both places; neither fundamentally the same, nor totally different. It thus entails a very different conception of identity’s relation to cultural traditions from that of conventional notions, which tend to emphasise remaining true to one’s primordial origins and imply continuity, fixity and an unchanging rootedness. Here, ‘routes’ (change, movement, transformations, adaptation, being always 'in process’) are just as important as ‘roots’, if not more so...”
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Due to a historical clash of (and yet gap between) the local and the global, a Madeira cake in Madeira is not the same as a madeira cake in the English speaking world. Only the second generationer, the offspring of the migrant - of both places but not wholly belonging to either - has the knowledge to negotiate this confusion.
Stuart Hall
“At the core of diasporic experience is a variant of what W. E. B. DuBois called ‘double consciousness’: that of belonging to more than one world, of being both ‘here’ and ‘there’, of thinking about ‘there’ from ‘here’ and vice versa; of being ‘at home’ - but never wholly - in both places; neither fundamentally the same, nor totally different. It thus entails a very different conception of identity’s relation to cultural traditions from that of conventional notions, which tend to emphasise remaining true to one’s primordial origins and imply continuity, fixity and an unchanging rootedness. Here, ‘routes’ (change, movement, transformations, adaptation, being always 'in process’) are just as important as ‘roots’, if not more so...”
/
Due to a historical clash of (and yet gap between) the local and the global, a Madeira cake in Madeira is not the same as a madeira cake in the English speaking world. Only the second generationer, the offspring of the migrant - of both places but not wholly belonging to either - has the knowledge to negotiate this confusion.
sculptural installation comprised of Madeira cake, madeira cake,
and found and donated objects [three wooden chairs, drop leaf kitchen
table, plastic tablecloth, ceramic plate, two ceramic mugs, a knife, a
bottle of whiskey, a bottle of wine and a Portuguese ceramic cockerel]. The method of acquisition mimicks my migrant experience of accumulating obejcts for the home.
(dimensions variable)
Images:
installation at Southwark Park Galleries, London
along with
they always said this land não ia comer os seus ossos (background)
tabletop
(detail)
under table
(detail)
(dimensions variable)
Images:
installation at Southwark Park Galleries, London
along with
they always said this land não ia comer os seus ossos (background)
tabletop
(detail)
under table
(detail)
