AMIRA FOREVER

angry women

Anger is an emotion which must be reclaimed and legitimised as Woman’s rightful, healthy expression- anger can be a source of power, strength and clarity as well as a creative force. 

When rebelliously critiquing society, women have never been cast as sexy or desirable (like a female James Dean), but rather as a prime bitch: grim, humourless and non-sexual.

Women have a different, less destructive relationship to anger than men- especially since it has been a taboo expression for them. Theirs is not the frozen rage of serial killers, which festers internally, but rage that can be channelled creatively.*

Anger can spark and re-invigorate: it can bring hope and energy back into our lives and mobilise politically against the status quo. Could there have been a Civil Rights movement in the ’60s without anger?

We nee a renaissance of hope which anger can bring- stuck as we are in the midst of an existential, angst-ridden culture of cynicism which has helped implant a widespread attitude of passivity and submissive acceptance. 

-Andrea Juno & V. Vale 1991

*I don’t agree entirely with this. I am subject to festering, serial killer rage.

angry women

This mind/body split is sibling to a host of other dualisms- binary oppositional pairings which are never equal, which always force a hierarchy: man/woman, white/black, straight/gay, primitive/civilised, self/other, new/old. All dualisms are artificial and must be analysed as part of a system of either/or thinking which imposes restrictive categorisations. 

angry women

Consistently, women performance artists seemed most perceptive (and poetic) in their criticism of social and political inequities; in their radical public disclosure of personal humiliation, pain and injustice (an act of catharsis which benefits society); and in their calls for a new consciousness which for the first time would integrate political action, cutting-edge theory, linguistic reconstruction, adventurous sexuality, humour, spirituality and art toward the dream of a society of justice. 

happy ramadan

HONEY I’LL BE YOUR SHELTER

so i was sitting outside, alone, smoking, thinking about my mum and dad and one day getting my travolta daddy tattoo. but what about mum? the bart simpson unfinished “MOTH” tattoo? i haven’t seen my mum since february! 38 days til adelaide. anyway, i also remembered that she loved taylor dayne, played endlessly in the car when we’d go for “cruises” when i was 12. i would really like “I’LL BE YOUR SHELTER” to be my wedding song. or, y’know, an “art wedding” song. I MIGHT NOT EVER GET MARRIED/SORRY TO LET YOU DOWN. sing a heartbreak song with me at the opening on august 22.

this morning my job agency gave me a red velvet cupcake. i ate it, not bothering to ask if it had egg in it. OBVIOUSLY red velvet cakes have egg in them. but hallelujah! no reaction. everything’s coming up ami-lhouse.

my face is red from drinking 4 cups of black coffee today. rosacea. 

i just submitted a photo to the ‘hairy pits club’. that’s as nude as anyone is ever gonna see me (wearing a wedding veil)