I haven’t seen this film, Manufactured Landscapes, yet. But from what I read, and watching this trailor, I’m incredibly inspired by photographer Edward Burtnysky’s aesthetics and politics. His work echos a balance between beautiful aesthetic and striking commentary that is not polemical or dogmatic but communicated through the visuals alone–a balance that I really hope to achieve in my own creative work one day.
I have yet to hear as moving and and respectful media piece on transgender people than this recent episode of This American Life about two transgirls who are 8 years old and parents are letting them live as girls. I highly recommend that segment, which is act 2 of the show.
As part of being a good ally to the transgender people in my life, I’m often searching for validating and afffirming stories like this to share with people in my life who aren’t familiar with what it means to be transgender and was glad to find this.
Last Saturday I was cranky. Cranky that I got stuck in Chinatown for a ridiculous amount of time inching through traffic from the auto show at the convention center. Dubious whether I should drop the money for the play that evening when I’m trying to save up two months worth of mortgage for my recession safety net. But, by the end of the evening I was so grateful and excited as I remembered the healing nature of congregation–gathering with good people–and good food.
If you haven’t been in the amazing new Asian Arts Initiative space thier current show–Cooking con Karimi–is a good excuse to go check it out. I braved the autoshow traffic to shoot for Aggie‘s interview with the show’s creator and star, Robert Karimi. I’m crafting a post for the blog with Aggie that I’ll cross post here about nuggets from Karimi’s interview that launched us into some good discussion on identity politics in general, and the newness of the Iranian community in the US in particular. For the first time she and I got that the “Iranian-American” identity is in such a nascent stage compared to so many other groups in the US. And, we also got excited to think about our roles as part of a fleet of artists pioneers.
The show, it turns out, is so worth your $10. Especially if you like the combination of food and politics in a way that allows peoples comfort while at the same time pushing them past many of their set worldviews that perpetrate a fix notion of what “culture”, “identity” or “authenticity” is.
