This Thursday I will be giving a short talk on postcards at Good Press in Glasgow (via Skype) as part of their G.P. Talks series in collaboration with the GSA Communication Design Department.

Next Sunday I will be giving a talk on Risographs, publications, and my artistic practice at Overgaden in Copenhagen (in person).

This second talk will be part of Kunstpublikationer 2012, which I will be attending as N S E W. Additionally, I am curating a small vitrine of personal and political Risograph publications that will remain at Overgaden the entire exhibition period of May 11 – 27.

paper wedged into dusty venetian blinds, sugar land, texas, usa, july 2011
shapes cut into a wall to let air flow freely, khartoum, sudan, march 2012

 
working title
Jessica Williams

Galleri Vitrine
Fossveien 24
0551 OSLO

March 19 – April 1, 2012

Over the next two weeks I will be (semi-secretly) showing some of my ink drawings and text-based notes in the lightbox in front of the Art Academy. The content of the box will be changed out every other day and will include many works in progress. As such, “working title” will literally be a window into my artistic practice / problems. Current problems include: freedom, commitment, and the inherent sensuality of materials.

It’s so strange to be back here in Oslo.

I feel like I’ve been gone for months or years, not just these past two weeks. For now here are a few impressions, nothing more / but more to come.

Sudan and Egypt were both beautiful, intense, and surprising places. Neither could I have understood or imagined so completely before being there in person.

On Tuesday I’ll be leaving on a trip to Sudan and Egypt for the next two weeks. I will not have the Internet but when I get back I will post some images.

Even though I have been reading many relevant books and watching films these last couple of months, I want to arrive in Africa with a totally clear and empty mind. I don’t know what it will be like and I am both nervous and excited.

For example, one of the most beautiful things to me about the Norwegian language is that many of the words themselves can be traced back directly to the national embrace of the social democratic system. And now that it is becoming ever more clear to me, I try to look for a similar thread in my own language, too. I ask myself: What is the English point of view? What is the American English point of view? What are the things we believe in so deeply that they have snuck into the very words we articulate ourselves with?

To be honest, I haven’t quite figured it out yet and I’m not sure if I ever totally will. However, I have found some small things along the way.  The word ambivalent is a good example . I always thought it just meant to “not care”, especially re: a situation or a choice between two things. “I am ambivalent about what we are having for dinner tonight.”

But actually it is so much more than that. Instead of “not caring”, to be ambivalent specifically relates to having mixed feelings or not being able to choose between two things. So we really do care, we just try to hide it with our indecision. Just a thought.

Hello from snowy Oslo.

Still slowly working on this website and other things. Some new pages have been added here.

By other things I mean mostly reading and thinking about writing. I’ve been listening to this album and this album, too.

Images above: Notes for Artists, 2011

As a sequel to my small NYC video, here is a video Espen and I have also compiled together of the footage from our time in China last fall.

As 2011 comes to a close, some thoughts about the life I left back in NYC.

Coming soon: Espen and I are working on putting together our footage from China and Norway..