State of the Union by SHAMA KHANNA (image courtesy EVAN IFEKOYA)
The physical and digital and the spaces in-between by Dr SYLVIA THEURI (image courtesy estate of DONALD RODNEY)
Following Ten Million Dinner Parties by NISHA RAMAYYA
hair folder (video) by ULIJONA ODIŠARIJA
A temporal note introducing Ulijona Odišarija’s hair folder (video) by SHAMA KHANNA
In The Curve by JOSEPH WALSH
Lockdown performance by TOM RICHARDS
The blessing of the Pisces Rising by NATASHA LALL
There is a high chance that astrology is a load of bollocks but there are a few things I get out of it. Actually one or two things are very useful.
The first is a sense of belonging because for some reason astrology is a predominant part of lesbian culture. Don’t ask me why. I don’t really care why. Why not? I mean I was forced to study Christianity for a lot longer…lmao.
Anyway, I also find that regular horoscopes give me a sense of focus. That’s super useful for me. I find a lot of truth, or at least correlation, in my chart.
Notebook Score #2: The line of the hand throws the mind out of the body reading by HANNAH SATZ
This notebook practice represents a release of thought and feeling, in some sense counter to the control or fixity of Writing. It’s flighty – the motion of writing long-hand is another way of running – but the connection from hand to gut is also grounding; it earths me. I read fragments from the end of February to the end of April 2020, here and there; paragraphs, lines, or words from flicked through pages, self-censoring as I stumble and flow. It is meant, even in its inward-looking, to be a form of opening, an offering.
Peaceful in the rain in the order by DAN WALWIN
Interview with TEXTAQUEEN
… There are so many more south Asians I’ve connected with whose lives are on tangents to mine here in London than back ‘home’. I’ve felt part of a cluster of brown and black artists working with care and integrity here, and have made more intergenerational connections. My parents migrated, and I was born, not long after the White Australia policies ended, there aren’t elder second generation POC migrants and I have very few peers my age at my intersections. …
… A decolonial practice for me is, during the creative process, letting go of imagining the white liberal audience reaction to the work and keeping present in mind myself and an audience who will feel empowerment through the work.
rehana zaman
MEDICATED SUMMERS / BENEFITS TRAP / ENDS PORTALS two-part momentational sequence consisting of a short video and an image dump PDF file by ADAM FARAH
TAYLOR LE MELLE responds to MEDICATED SUMMERS / BENEFITS TRAP / ENDS PORTALS by Adam Farah
lucy clout
An Analog for Listening by NIKHIL VETTUKATTIL
natasha lall
dan walwin
Flatness presents new works and words by artists Lucy Clout, Adam Farah, Natasha Lall, Ulijona Odišarija, TextaQueen, Tom Richards, Nikhil Vettukattil, Joseph Walsh, Dan Walwin and Rehana Zaman and writers Taylor Le Melle, Nisha Ramayya and Hannah Satz.
This long-term research and commissioning platform for artists’ moving image and network culture decentres hegemonic narratives of the visual arts, from the margins of the online. Flatness presents a porous context for artworks to be shared as part of a genuinely networked culture, at a distance from structurally unjust institutions and market-led forces of the web.
Flatness values artistic experimentation and minor, durational experiences of art on the web. It is curated from the perspective of a queer Brown sick womxn with the aim of uplifting conversations and creative practices which defy intersectional oppression.
The aim of the website’s interactive elements – the calendar and comments feed – is to build an active community around these works, in support of their critical and social contextualisation. All contributions are moderated according to our safer space commitment included below.
In 2019 the project relaunched with a new interactive design and a series of new artist commissions. This edition of the site has been an ‘unflattening of the screen’ with key elements of the work – in terms of healing and building solidarity – happening outside the frame of the site prompting a rethink in the way in which the site operates. Read more about this process of transformation here. Flatness reflects critically on the current context where freedom of expression on the internet is devalued by social media algorithms which help push hate and misinformation up the agenda.
#Allblacklivesmatter
For Flatness there is no way back to how things were before the pandemic. Horizons have opened up as we have witnessed how change – d i s m a n t l i n g – can be achieved through taking action (rather than defaulting to critique). Our voices are clear and powerful and being heard. We need to support each other to keep energies strong. QTIBPOC lead the way in this urgent work. Our transcendence of normalcy transforms expectations of transcendence through art. Donate to UK BLM here.
During the COVID 19 pandemic:
We hope readers are managing to keep well body and soul.
Notwithstanding the pain and hardship brought on by the catastrophe we are watching the internet come alive in this period as sharing becomes more focused on connecting. This drive could potentially recontextualise what it means to be isolated in the widest sense – whether through mental, physical and financial impairment and discrimination, to the isolation of work or the studio – beyond the immediate confines of lockdown. Following the strengthened impetus (towards mutual aid, and towards recovering the health of the planet) to break the loop of crisis capitalism and nurture the bonds between us, between April and August Flatness invited contributions for work which corresponded to:
– the ‘situation’;
– stillness and liveness (signals from rituals/ practice); or
– the ‘future’.
Find new short form contributions in response by writer Hannah Satz, artists Dan Walwin, Natasha Lall, Joseph Walsh, Ulijona Odišarija, musician Tom Richards, and poet Nisha Ramayya.
about…
Live since 2013, Flatness is a long-running project curated and moderated by Shama Khanna offering artists and audiences a space for creativity away from structurally unjust institutions and market-led forces of the web. Help keep Flatness independent by donating to its supporters’ pool.
Read the latest ‘State of the Union‘ text by Shama Khanna from Autumn 2020.
Excerpt from an interview with Henry Broome for Spike Art Magazine from Autumn 2019:
How did Flatness first come about and what made you relaunch the platform this year?
… The new 2019 programme developed out of the political ruptures of 2016, also #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter and the Arab Spring, movements mobilised by the internet. It’s also a reflection of my lived experience of the art industry where people of colour are in token ways hypervisible but structurally disempowered.
The platform provides a critical framework to understand social media’s empowering potential against its ultimately extractive and manipulative business models, as shown by Zuckerberg’s infamous hearing in late 2018. I think Flatness offers a mouldable alternative: You don’t need to log in or pay to view works and the site is free and open to all. It’s still possible to build your own spaces rather than succumb to the format of big monopoly platforms. As the founder of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners Lee said, the future of the internet relies on individuals making and adding to their own sites, and keeping control of their data.
Creating safer spaces
The web is not a neutral space. From its beginnings as a US defence initiative to improve communication with soldiers in remote places through to the privileged, racial capitalistic understanding of freedom and ‘making the world a better place’ the cis-white male Californian ideologists who continue to structure and profit from it maintain. There has been an equally long history of artists and technologists critiquing this version of its development (and structurally unjust institutions and practices in general) which Flatness supplements.
Flatness is working on becoming a safer and accessible space free from racism, sexism, ableism, ageism, classism, casteism, homophobia, transphobia, fatphobia, or hatefulness. Let us know if there are ways we can do this better.
Subscribe to the Flatness newsletter for project updates.
Web design & programming by Gailė Pranckūnaitė & Andrius Zupkus.
All texts, works and images either belong to the artist, author or photographer named or are licensed under the terms of this CC 4.00 certificate.
Supported by public funding from the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
Comments
Menelik Shabazz and Imruh Caesar’s ‘Blood Ah Go Run’ from 1981 documenting the funerals of the 13 young people murdered in the New Cross Massacre and the Black Peoples Day of Action which followed is available to watch for a pound: https://player.bfi.org.uk/rentals/film/watch-blood-ah-go-run-1982-online
Late to the party but Ogmios has been keeping me going at the start of another faceless Monday in lockdown. I miss North London! Love their takes on scooter boys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RidKpZEJj4E
THIRTEEN DEAD 1981 by Keith Piper install shot from ‘Thirteen Ways of Looking’ curated by Dr Sylvia Theuri at the Herbert Gallery. Remembering the New Cross Massacre 40 years ago to the day. This anniversary has brought unprecedented coverage in the national press: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/17/forty-years-on-from-the-new-cross-fire-what-has-changed-for-black-britons Those who died in the fire were: Humphrey Brown, 18; Peter Campbell, 18; Steve Collins, 17; Patrick Cummings, 16; Gerry Francis, 17; Andrew Gooding, 14; Lloyd Richard Hall, 20; Patricia Denise Johnston, 15; Rosalind Henry, 16; Glenton Powell, 15; Paul Ruddock, 22; Yvonne Ruddock, 16; Owen Thompson, 16.
Lockdown autobiography in recently used emoji. The test was clear.
Suddenly feeling the dissonance of poppy ‘if you can’t love yourself how you gonna love someone else?’ delivered as a camp taunt against holistic felt energising political queerness of Lorde.
In the distracted, not-really-so urgent space of social media, the unshakeable fear I have forgotten something. The drama of the missed click … Do appreciate its moments of collective grief in our current crisis mode.
Hardeep Pandhal’s ENSORCELLED ENGLISH critiquing Goldsmiths from its CCA was one of the most poignant videos I saw last year. Available to view online: https://goldsmithscca.art/channel/hardeep-pandhal-ensorcelled-english/
Giving an intro to networked art history through the lens of Flatness for CAMP (Plymouth) in Feb. Planning to discuss questions of embodiment and disembodiment in relation to digital expression along with practical insights into curating work online. https://www.camp-plymouth.org/workshops/
Distancing itself from the FB empire (need I say more than it’s such a downer!), Flatness needs your help to circulate news of events and meetings that are important to you. As ever, use the calendar and comments feed to share news/ thoughts/ memes. Or just say hi! Go on …
The effects the news (of the culmination of white supremacist no1’s work) is having on our bodies is REAL. Remember to exhale <3
Quit Instagram for the holidays … literally gone cold turkey lol. It’s been very illuminating. Ideas starting to creep through …
I like her non-rational approach to participation. Equally I admire her ability to articulate this critically informed position alongside her performances (see the writing section on her website). It’s a big challenge but I think this is what democracy looks like at the end of 2020. (Pic: ‘Still Life: Lying Down Textiles’ (2005-07) Grace Ndiritu)
Smh thinking about how Ndiritu’s project to re-activate museums as a place for sharing is such a radical position!
Grace Ndiritu: ‘In 2012 I began creating a new body of works under the title Healing The Museum. It came out of a deep need to re-introduce non-rational methodologies such as shamanism to re-activate the ‘sacredness’ of art spaces. I believed that most modern art institutions were out of sync with their audiences’ everyday experiences and the widespread socio-economical and political changes that have taken place globally in the recent decades. Museums are dying. And I see shamanism as a way to re-activate the dying art space as a space for sharing, participation and ethics. From prehistoric to modern times the shaman was not only the group healer and facilitator of peace but also the creative; the artist.’ https://vimeo.com/171332806
I didn’t know about that project, will follow up. Have you seen these slides by UKArtists4BLM (design by Josh Wolford)? It’s everything atm! So glad POC are sharing like this. It’s exactly the driving force you describe. For me, naming these feelings is half the work. https://www.instagram.com/p/CI0BntCA-1f/
Yes I really like what Legacy Russell has posted about glitching and decolonising art institutions. I’m reminded of some of the work done by Grace Ndritu around ‘Healing the Museum’ highlighting the pain caused by these spaces and advocating for different forms of ‘decolonising’.
Yes absolutely, our presence there is tasked with so much. And then to be able to breathe and play in the same space is often impossible. My aim is to enable communities I can hear my voice reflected in, not just my image.
For me tension is uncomfortable, it’s not an easy feeling to sit with and exist within. I think not wanting to be in that type of space all the time is a driving force to want to enact change so that one can move out of that. I imagine being in a better space which is more free and where one can reside in peace. I just think about how that would be good for our souls.
I love how Legacy Russell has just posted about how the institution needs ‘glitching’ to be able to decolonise it
Can you say more about how this tension can be a productive vehicle?
I agree, it’s rare to feel heard within institutions. Recent (before lockdown) talks I’ve given at Slade, Cubitt and Rietveld Academie have purposely taken place outside their walls.