A week into my residency and Shenzhen and Sitka begin to speak to each other.
Yesterday, I walked along the banks of Salmon River. Kim provided snowpants and Jalene lent me a pair of boots, so I trudged happily through the muck, where the grass, barnacles, some kind of seaweed, and spiraling sands enabled a silence that I have previously only experienced in meditation. The natural beauty of Cascade Head gentles me, helping me to feel where I am.
Feeling space, as opposed to resisting space is new to me. In Shenzhen, I devote much of my time to documenting spaces that shock or outrage me. This means that I rarely allow myself to experience the agony of how the environment has been transformed in Shenzhen. Instead, I back away at critical moments and sink into abstractions about place and space. This abstracting is both defensive (Houhai truly depresses me) and part of a struggle to engage others in dialogue about what is happening in Shenzhen because I'm not sure how much others know about what is going on here (and here even in Sitka is Shenzhen...)
What strikes me in Sitka is how Shenzhen allows Sitka and other beautiful places to exist without questioning the conditions that make them possible--contamination out of sight/site, out of mind. Specifically, In Lincoln City, I haven't seen any manufacturing. Most of the stuff around me was made in or near Shenzhen, including parts for the eMac that I'm using to type this entry (FoxConn is in Longhua, just past the Meilin Checkpoint.) Everyone at the center is involved in consumption, including consumption of this amazing environment. The rub of course is that this kind of consumption (in house with central heating and internet hook-up) is predicated on the existence of places like Shenzhen...
Together, Sitka and Shenzhen make visceral for me the question of sustainable livelihood. It is not just that we need to preserve places like Cascade Head, but also that we need to come up with ways of living that do not lead to the level of destruction that go into creating Shenzhen. The point, of course, is that these worlds co-evolve; FoxComm is where it is for real reasons, including poverty throughout neidi.
Yesterday, I walked along the banks of Salmon River. Kim provided snowpants and Jalene lent me a pair of boots, so I trudged happily through the muck, where the grass, barnacles, some kind of seaweed, and spiraling sands enabled a silence that I have previously only experienced in meditation. The natural beauty of Cascade Head gentles me, helping me to feel where I am.
Feeling space, as opposed to resisting space is new to me. In Shenzhen, I devote much of my time to documenting spaces that shock or outrage me. This means that I rarely allow myself to experience the agony of how the environment has been transformed in Shenzhen. Instead, I back away at critical moments and sink into abstractions about place and space. This abstracting is both defensive (Houhai truly depresses me) and part of a struggle to engage others in dialogue about what is happening in Shenzhen because I'm not sure how much others know about what is going on here (and here even in Sitka is Shenzhen...)
What strikes me in Sitka is how Shenzhen allows Sitka and other beautiful places to exist without questioning the conditions that make them possible--contamination out of sight/site, out of mind. Specifically, In Lincoln City, I haven't seen any manufacturing. Most of the stuff around me was made in or near Shenzhen, including parts for the eMac that I'm using to type this entry (FoxConn is in Longhua, just past the Meilin Checkpoint.) Everyone at the center is involved in consumption, including consumption of this amazing environment. The rub of course is that this kind of consumption (in house with central heating and internet hook-up) is predicated on the existence of places like Shenzhen...
Together, Sitka and Shenzhen make visceral for me the question of sustainable livelihood. It is not just that we need to preserve places like Cascade Head, but also that we need to come up with ways of living that do not lead to the level of destruction that go into creating Shenzhen. The point, of course, is that these worlds co-evolve; FoxComm is where it is for real reasons, including poverty throughout neidi.