Speed of Life

                 Gangnam for Freedom - Anish Kapoor and Friends  The British sculptor Anish Kapoor and a group of his human rights oriented friends have released a new video in partnership with Amnesty International and PEN International to bring attention to the ongoing persecution of artists and writers across the globe from China to Russia who have been harassed and imprisoned because of their work. Taking up where Ai Wei Wei's recent Gangnam Style video left off, Kapoor's own Gangnam Style romp combines symbols of imprisonment and torture with the names of many who have been persecuted in their artistic strivings for freedom. Please watch, visit the links, and find out what you can do to help shed light on this growing problem of censorship and oppression. As an emigré from India to the United Kingdom, Anish Kapoor has often been concerned with the ideas of freedom and dislocation in his artwork. I have posted a few exam...

Sea Breeze, Bombay by Adil Jussawalla Partition's people stitched Shrouds from a flag, gentlemen scissored Sind. An opened people, fraying across the cut country reknotted themselves on this island. Surrogate city of banks, Brokering and bays, refugees' harbour and port, Gatherer of ends whose brick beginnings work Loose like a skin, spotting the coast, Restore us to fire. New refugees, Wearing blood-red wool in the worst heat, come from Tibet, scanning the sea from the north, Dazed, holes in their cracked feet. Restore us to fire. Still, Communities tear and re-form; and still, a breeze, Cooling our garrulous evenings, investigates nothing, Ruffles no tempers, uncovers no root, And settles no one adrift of the mainland's histories. (From the Oxford Anthology of Modern Indian Poetry ) When tragedy strikes, art has the power to connect. While searching my files for artistic connections to the events in Mumbai, I found the thoughts and writing...