Ruminating

My co-teacher and all my students have completed their project sketch . . . but I am still ruminating. So now I have the daunting task the rest of the class just suffered through: committing to a project concept under the pressure of a deadline. Just like all those colleagues, I must make a decision even though I'd like more time. *Sigh*

So where am I?

Fragmented. Too many thoughts, too many ideas that aren't good enough, feelings of anxiety that I'm not going to be able to do my subject justice. All the same problems the others expressed during class.

What I'd like to do for about 15 minutes here (before I head off to my next meeting) is carve out a little space to reflect on some core questions or issues that I consider worthy of the artwork. In other words, I want to stop pondering clever images and symbols and focus on the more substantial challenge of what this artwork could say.

Here are the persistent questions I find myself pondering:

* What must Mayor Shirk have been struggling with: he was an historian, a preservationist who had to make the decision to demolish downtown buildings in order to proceed with the Pei Plan. As far as I can tell, Shirk was in the middle of the decision to *not* preserve the underground. I don't have time to do primary research among his personal journals and papers but I'd really like, someday, to do that research and compose an artwork and essay exploring that struggle. I've decided *not* to make this the subject of my current artwork because the story is hidden in his papers and in the archives of the history center. This is a story that I *can* research properly. Just not now.

You know what? This is reminding me that what I want the artwork to do is prompt questions in the mind of my audience moreso than even myself. So perhaps it would be better for me to focus on those kinds of questions.

OK, what would I like a viewer to ponder as a result of my artwork?

--> The importance of preserving history--of taking action in the moment when decisions are being made. People forget that history is what is happening NOW. Something could have been done to preserve more of the Chinese immigrants' story and their dwellings. People could have acted to make that story visible. Not enough people took action. So one thing I'd like a viewer to consider is his/her own role as the preserver of history today. I'd like the viewer to consider who is invisible today that could and should be more visible. I'd like the viewer to consider why and how some people become invisible and what actions could/should be taken to intervene when that invisibility may result in an injustice or cultural absence.

Lots of stuff there. Let's see if I can bulletize it better:

* The "invisibility" of underground Chinatown as a reminder of today's invisible communities.
- How that absence prevents us from fully knowing our own communities and cultures
- How that absence leads to injustice

* Ghostliness as a quality of invisibility: how invisible people become ghosts--people feared or exoticized as "others" that can't be understood or engaged as real people.