YEAR OF THE BOG

A four color image on a white background. In the center, three women wearing grecian dresses raise an offering toward the sky. They are outlined in blue with a light blue over color, and some yellow over wash on the bottom. On the edges, two piles of spirals sit under two black line illustrations of Lofi girl, a girl with bangs wearing headphones and a sweater and sitting with her head on one hand, looking pensive. A yellow circle is behind each illustration. The lofi girls face each other.

An ode to the cybernetic patron saint of work and procrastination, Lofi girl.

To hear some beats to relax/study to,
I invoke Lofi girl.In a mythic time of human/cyborg symbiosis, she and I are one. By the grace of her beats, I can achieve my best self.

Collage of various chumbox advertisement thumbnails: images of people, skin, and runny eggs.

Feelings at the Edge: A Chumbox Tour

The scene is all too familiar, the gestures rehearsed. It begins with the innocence of casual browsing, the wide-eyed wonder as you click and scroll, traipsing around some mildly interesting news article. Then it leers at you, inevitable and horrible.

Two people sit at a desk outdoors in front of a gallery, in warm evening summer light. On the left is Anisha, a brownskinned person with long dark hair wearing a pink shirt and skirt and smiling. The other person is Schwarzrund, a Black person with curly black hair, wearing a long black floral dress and talking into a microphone.

A Conversation on Care

‘A Conversation on Care’ was the official name of the talk SchwarzRund and I gave in Summer 2021, as part of COVEN BERLIN’s event “an invitation to sink in to the bog.” Watching it back though, I realise that another title could have been ‘A long overdue catch up between friends who are always keen to work together, could forever talk to each other, but don’t always have the energy to do so.’

A colorful illustration of a bug-like troll figure, with cars and bugs and a cityscape in the background. The city is black, and the sky is turquoise, with a large green vine and pastel-colored bugs.

The Troll: Between the Mythological and the Digital

Not so long ago I met a troll for the first time. Or I think I did. I’ve probably met others, but since they usually work in the shadows, their identity is anonymous. Trolls never show they are trolls. But this time we were living together.

A person in silhouette, bathed in orange light. The image is quite dark, and the person is holding a guitar and gold bead shoulder pads catch the light as they turn toward the camera.

Suddenly You’re Pointing Everywhere and Everywhere Points Right Back

DOOM leaves space for not just the work, but also specifically the footwork of mourning to pop up, which at times might look like a teetering dance and heavy breath from under a lace mask.

An image that shows muddy colors like brown green and blue flowing into each other. It almost looks like a blurred section of a map.

We started calling ourselves mycelium

Moisture fills all pores. When the whole planet is immersed in tropical weather, there will be no infertile soil and diversity will flourish in every corner.

A surreal watercolour painting of a black sky, red sea, and green creatures. Many planets seem to rise in the sky, and there appear to be gohsts and amoebas coming out of the sea.

Poem 1, 2, 3

Poems by Inky Lee.

I knew of an asian man. His body was small and he was going blind. He quit his office job and was training to become a masseur – to see with his hands while his eyes cease to see. He was a devout christian and was known to pray for many hours every day. People called him a holy man. One time, I went to his place to get a massage. After the massage, he prayed for me. As I was about to leave, he smirked and told me to never bring a black man home because that would make my mother go into a long fast.

An image of a water bottle with a pink label and cap, resting on medium sized river rocks. The label text has been swirled in an obviously edited fashion.

Aqualiteracies: Understanding (and Sensing) Water as a Hybrid Data Carrier

Coming from Bogotá, a previous swamp which was dried out in colonial times, I didn’t grow up with a body of water close to me. The Pacific and Atlantic Oceans were around 10 and 13 hours away from where I lived.

bogside down part 1

November 19-21 2021

at feldfünf e.V.
Fromet-und-Moses-Mendelssohn-Platz 7-8
10969 Berlin

and online

A few nights in a friend’s apartment, a Zoom support group, a Telegram chat that share free hormones: these are the bogs of queer commons some of us rely on. In an upside down hyper-capitalist world, COVEN BERLIN welcomes you to bogside down part 1: a weekend of discussion and workshops looking at the alternative structures that support us when the outside world can’t or refuses to.