I will be free

According to Baudrillard, "Cultures, taken in themselves, are not moving towards each other. Or, if they are, they are doing so as slowly as tectonic plates. The dream of reconciling them all one day is an absurdity. From the point of view of the universal, which is our point of view, they can only be exterminated - including our own. The space left for any culture by Western un-culture can only be that of 'le mort' [the dead man, but also the 'dummy' at cards]."

I question everyday where I stand within the corners of this complex world. My background, my identity, my sexuality, my society, my friends, my environment I live in. My family? I grow weary of life because of the lack of tolerance towards each other. I often feel nihilistic. We all say we want unity, peace, to understand each other better, to live and to learn, magic mushrooms legalised, free weed, a revolution, a change, a sense of freedom for all people, all tribes, all colours of the world.

Utopia. Bliss.

This weekend I went to see an exhibition at the Southbank Centre of the World Press Photography competition. In the show, many different stories and issues were covered, snapped, depicted - in the style of photo journalism, a show similar to Visa Pour Un Visage (but on a much smaller scale) in Perpignan, South of France, which I had the chance to see quite a few years back. From issues of sexuality where intimate, emotional images of lesbians embracing to the tear jerking story of a blind man who adopted a blind child so he could teach the child the skills he had learnt. I recognised a Mali photographer I had seen a solo show of at the FOAM photography gallery in Amsterdam a few years back, an events photographer who managed to capture the lives, parties and elaborate garmented costumes these party goers would wear.

Another side of it was somewhat extremely political, issues dealing with Iran and Palestine. In frank, I found the images from Iran to be to iconic, as if to say, too typical: a man covered in blood before a burning car in the background, a woman raising her fist in the street during a protest. But what did strike me as a beautiful photograph was this years winner depicting women shouting from the rooftops of Tehran at night. Somehow, albeit natural night light, he had managed to capture the light perfectly. The lights on in the windows formulate a pattern from the bottom of the whole scene up to the top. Tehran is awake and they are upset at the rigging of the votes. the images of Palestine left me upset. Politicians use faith as a front.

Beyond the images of nature and sport, in my head I felt to question my origins, my beliefs, my upbringing, my politics. A lot of turbulence. The world is not a beautiful place and neither is my head. I curse my eyes for seeing such horrors. What does a person do now? People being shot smuggling. Oppression, wars, guns, death. Defence, defence, security, Security.

How can these colours of the earth unite. It is surely futile. Baudrillard's fragment reflects this futility, we can only seem to kill, and we cannot seem to combine or unite.

I sat in the restaurant afterwards talking with my friend whilst eating, but my mind was also thinking about this constant dilemma, this split that rests within me.



Again I feel as though I'm wondering in some sort of desert, swimming in some sort of void.




Whilst one side champions for a better ethical world in this way, it completely contradicts the other, who is also fighting for a better world in another way. One just cannot pick and choose as one would like to. One cannot play the bridge it seems. I have played the bridge and I keep getting trampled on. The world is not tolerant.

As a friend told me, Picasso changed every 5 years, and human beings are supposed to reach new cycles every 7 years, I am twisting and turning.

For a long time I have been living in this box but I do not wish to be afraid anymore.

Step by step, I am setting myself free: a libertine.