Staying Alive: A Performance Piece.
(an essay about anxiety, Joseph Beuys and hesitantly choosing life)
hey, there. i just wanted to announce that my poetry book, Waiting on a Rapture, will be out in November and that i’ll begin posting more about the launch and fun little tidbits further on in the year. here’s the book’s playlist & my only rec for this week is that you read Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield. alright, that’s all. i love you and i’m sending all the light and energy you need for this week. <3
it’s July and everything is frightening. i lack the words to describe the mortal aching in my chest sometimes. i hate that the pain feels performative. anxiety has draped itself over my sullen shoulders, guiding me through the winter fog, as a messenger would. like a child, all i want is to shrink into the size of an ant and vanish. when someone asks me how i’ve been feeling, i tell them that ‘things could be better’. but what i wish to say is that i recognise the finality Joan of Arc felt; head titled toward heaven, smiling at her God of beatific visions once more, right before they burned her body at the stake. my friend, i feel like the most divine of tragedies to ever have graced this earth.
lately, i’ve been navigating a space of severe anxiety and the fear of being found out. it has riddled me with nightmares of a future where i am stripped of everything important to me, marked as undeserving of my accomplishments, deemed a disgrace and a liar, isolated and finally, at the mercy of a global court. in hindsight, this fear has been present since childhood. it also doesn’t help to think that a previous experience of accusations has left a lasting impact on my sense of identity and safety. it ebbs and flows, but one thing is certain: i share this not to gain sympathy or to impart guilt on others, but to commemorate my survival in a tough season that i am going through right now and acknowledge the psychic wounds that will be marred into stone.
to do this, i thought it an appropriate time to mention someone i hold deep revere for: Joseph Beuys. born in Krefeld, Germany, Beuys rose to fame in the art world, for his prolific performance pieces, visual artistry, commentary as a socio-philosopher and even for his sculpting. i had first learnt about him in my high school art class; my attention was caught by his willingness to submit to the eclectic powers that governed his pieces. many of his performances had been done in the presence of a wild animal and i found his casual submission to possible danger, so deeply fascinating. one example of this, is from his most acclaimed performance piece, I LIKE AMERICA AND AMERICA LIKES ME (1974). over three consecutive days and eight hours at a time, Beuys, wrapped in material felt, was locked in a spacious room with a coyote. during that time, they would study one another. the coyote would circle the artist as he stood up or moved corners and in turn, Beuys would watch and engage in conversation with the animal.
when writing about I LIKE AMERICA AND AMERICA LIKES ME, Shira Wolfe explained that Beuys ‘wanted to start a national dialogue’. this was in the wake of the Vietnam War, disenfranchised citizens and veterans, as well as in solidarity of marginalised communities. without analysing too much of the art piece itself, i wanted to highlight his point about starting a national dialogue. the choice of using a coyote was to pay homage to Native Americans and their rightful land, to acknowledge the ways that nature continues to be unpredictable and what i consider to be the most critical theme in all his works, the great shift towards healing and transformation. being in conversation with such a profound and spiritual creature was completely intentional and meticulously thought out. he knew how important it was to display the power of engaging with things that frighten us, but are equally as vulnerable and in need of conversation with others. when i say this, i think of the ways we speak to those we love, with so much care and humour. with an understanding that our love for them is not just warm and soft, but wise too. like Beuys and the coyote, we exercise a healing effect on both the audience (others) and the artist (ourselves) when we share in open and nurtured dialogue. there is a lot of fundamental care and humour to be found in these internal conversations, just as much as there is terror and anguish.
his focus on ‘process-oriented art’ was foundational. he valued the time and effort it took to build this kind of meaningful, slightly uncertain relationship. his piece was not just about being in a room with a wild coyote. it was a dance; revealing the sanctity of seeking, valuing and being afraid of things in internal unison. of all parts that make us who are, speaking and holding space for one another. Beuys had it right, our survival was a performance and as we communicate with the things that seem different or aren’t completely similar to us (like your cynical, pessimistic selves), we open the door to theories of care and community within ourselves.
as i’ve applied this somewhat Fluxus philosophy to my own life, quite a few meditations come to mind. the first is that more often than not, the strength i wager with is not my own and i am still as emotionally fragile as the youngest version of myself. i do not consider this a bad virtue, only an honest one. secondly, as we dance with the fear of being found out, i’ve realised that my anxieties (and those of you who relate) have a lot to do with disappointing others. something i’ve realised is that i’ve always felt slightly far from the world, just a little bit closer to the edge compared to everyone else. sometimes, it feels as though people know and feel more than i do. that they understand something precisely human, that i will never see or understand. this is enough to make any anxious person feel like a troubled object. thirdly and likely the worst part of having this fear, is that i sometimes feel like i was born to be morally challenged. almost like an anti-hero, with his arm in a sling, wondering how he had run his home to the ground. i feel like i was born a bad person. this is not to be mistaken with digesting negative perceptions cast by others, but the idea and ill-belief that this is my existence’s greatest truth.
what i take from all this, in its sad and decrepit light, is that i needed to be in conversation with myself to truly acknowledge these things. to notice how skewed my perceptions of self really can be. different versions and parts of me, stand as a jury in my mind and my spirit plays as the witness, victim and the accused. like Beuys, this dialogue was less about an outcome and more about giving each voice a moment to advocate and defend themselves. in doing this for myself, in seeing parts of me fight for my personhood and others detest it outright, i am experiencing life, run through me. some voices believe i should be alive and oftentimes, i don’t give them enough of a platform. but as Joseph has shown us, sometimes it’s worth the risk to hear those voices and give them a chance to convince you, that your humanity is not strange or unlike anyone else’s. i want to believe this with conviction. i need to.
hence, i will stay alive as performance art. not for the sake of being entertainment, but because my life and heart, even in shambles, deserve a moment to be witnessed with keen curiosity and adoration. more so, and at my most selfish, i would like to stay alive out of spite. this is as whimsical a feeling as any other vengeful thought, but it feels a bit exciting to know that my being alive, stirs something in the ethers. earlier on, i mentioned that i wanted to shrink into an ant, but maybe by staying alive, i’m giving myself a chance to stretch the length of an anthill.
there’s a song i often think of by Field Medic, called Noonday Sun. in it, he sings some of the most tried and true words i’d ever heard: ‘I know it’s over and I’m okay, but there’s still a price to pay, it’s that faraway look in my eyes// I know the circumstance was holy. They say Jesus suffered by his lonely, but I know I’m not him. I know I’m not him’. in these psalms, i find a resolution formed only through someone’s ability to converse and remain in dialogue with themselves. it’s the sort of self-awareness that brings about a great sadness, but an even greater growth. he perfectly documents what Beuys was trying to tell us: it’s all in the process. even rest, especially rest. we cannot get lost in the conversation, without offering ourselves a chance to be still and recognise our humanity.
with that, dear friend, i encourage you to keep the stage curtains open, just a while longer. evangelise your soliloquies and let it rip. i’ll try to do the same.
yours,
Thando. x
