'The historian of promise - mother and child' 2019

Soldiers

‘The capacity to become “numb” and partially robotic during combat … allows the soldier to continue to function effectively without panic.’ p. 51.

Bruce D. Perry, MD, PhD, and Maia Szalavitz, The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog, 2017.

‘In extreme dissociative experience … the person becomes completely focused inward and disconnected from reality. Brain regions that dominate thinking shift from planning action to concerning themselves with brute survival. There is a sense that time has slowed and what’s happening isn’t “real”. Breathing slows. Pain and even fear shut down. People often report feeling emotionless and numb, as though they are watching what’s happening to them affect a character in a movie.’ Bruce D. Perry, MD, PhD, and Maia Szalavitz, The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog, 2017. pp. 50-51. 

‘And if these patterns are activated repeatedly long enough, due to the intensity, duration, or pattern of the trauma, there will be “use – dependent” changes in the neural systems that mediate these responses. The result is that these systems can become overactive and sensitized, leading to a host of emotional, behavioural, and cognitive problems long after the traumatic event is over.’ Bruce D. Perry, MD, PhD, and Maia Szalavitz, The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog, 2017. pp. 50-51. p. 51. 

ima - 'The historian of promise', paintings and the imagination of maternal subjectivity

YNG, Road's Gaze, Oil on canvas, 2015

YNG, Stones' Gaze, Oil on canvas, 2015

The gaze comes from within the stone and the road. It is not the road that is being depicted but its imaginary gaze that ‘sees’ itself and the world from its inside. The lines in these paintings are similarly so. They are not the ‘perfect’ lines as in Matisse’s drawings. Rather, they are drawn as they are from the inside: wet, leaking, un-stable, coming out in different quantities. Lines that emerge from their own inside.

This imagination – material imagination – comes not only from Gaston Bachelard’s conceptualization, but also, and especially, from the experiences of pregnancy, birth and bringing up and caring for children. It is these maternal experiences that re-wired and gave birth to new neurons in our body and brain. This imagination, this ‘maternal imagination’ enables to ‘see’ inside things, from their points of view, where seeing involves all the senses working together. Inhale – exhale. Inhale – exhale. 

ima - 'The historian of promise' and the paintings

In the performative drawing the sieve acts like a camera that captures objects while dismantles the drawing tool – the chalk. As the image is being built the tool is being taken apart. The concept ‘taken apart’ (or dismantled) takes a new meaning: it isn’t an action that leads only to disappearance; rather, it is an action that leads to the appearance of new shapes while changing the physical state. From solid to powder, from hard to soft, from unified to dispersion.

  

  

I am taken by surprise as suddenly I look up at my two paintings, Stone’s Gaze and Road’s Gaze (2015) and see the image of chalk-stones almost being mirrored. At the time of their making I was thinking of stones as a weapon, in reference to the image of Samakh, a Palestinian town that got destroyed in 1948, and to the two Palestinian Intifadas – uprisings (1987 – 1993 and 2000 - 2005).  

YNG, Stones' Gaze (right) and Road's Gaze (left), Oil on canvas, 2015

ima - 'The historian of promise - Some more thoughts about the creative flow

‘Even in utero and after birth, for every moment of every day, our brain is processing the nonstop set of incoming signals from our senses. Sight, sound, touch, smell, taste – all of the raw sensory data that will result in these sensations enter the lower parts of the brain and begin a multistage process of being categorized, compared to previously stored patterns, and ultimately, if necessary, acted upon.’ Bruce D. Perry, MD, PhD, and Maia Szalavitz, The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog, 2017, p. 46.

The quote above connects with the creative flow that was experienced in the performative drawing, The historian of promise (12 – 18.1.2019). I call ‘creative flow’ this process of constant sensual absorption. 

I connect with this flow using spontaneously and improvisationaly chalk, natural chalk-stones, sieves of different sizes, a hammer, strings, threads, stencils, ruler and more. While these tools are accessible and familiar they are being taken out of their usual context. For example, there is a hammer but no wood or nails, nor a broken object to be fixed.  This mis-use of tools stimulates the imagination.

This performative drawing creates a connection with childhood, particularly, the un-mediated material exploration of one’s self and his/her relation with the world through drawing and painting. Immersed in this creative flow the child collaborated and participated with all her senses.

why is there a desire to return to this open sensual state of being as in childhood? Perhaps it emerges from a need to ‘fill the batteries’, to renew one's energy, to be empowered, to reinforce one’s belief in life, to seek encouragement, even comfort. Perhaps it is a need to return to a multi-layered thinking process which involves words and materials?