#curating

[artoounces]

[theendofthetunnelbitch]

[fortokeep]

(Technically a pin.) Source, via @littlefleamart , which is so full of lovely little joys

(also, perfect size for a discord sticker in all your favorite servers.)

[lacerise]

Ethereal | Photos by @cbkaxpyniccccce on Instagram

[balluprojects]

Broken Walls of Contrast, 2024

leaf skeleton under macro lentz from the project Catalogar Poros.

exploring results on frames and also on walls, giving it time to breath, deconstructing and curating different ways to connect to the project itself.

have a wonderful day*

[curatorsarchive]

Marina Abramović, Art Must Be Beautiful, Artist Must Be Beautiful, 1975

Overview In this hour-long performance, Marina Abramović repeatedly brushes her hair aggressively while chanting, “Art must be beautiful, artist must be beautiful.” This intense ritual embodies the societal pressures placed on women and artists to conform to rigid standards of beauty. By the end of the performance, the repeated motions and intense brushing transform the act into a painful display of frustration and despair, drawing attention to the emotional toll of striving for perfection. This piece uses physical endurance to showcase the impact of societal expectations on women, particularly in the context of beauty and identity.

Critical Analysis

In Art Must Be Beautiful, Artist Must Be Beautiful, Abramović critiques the restrictive beauty standards imposed on women and artists, exposing the cost of these societal expectations. Her performance suggests the exhaustion women face by trying to conform to ideals often defined by a male gaze. While it critiques society’s emphasis on perfect appearances, it also highlights how women themselves can internalize and reinforce these expectations, fueling a cycle of objectification.

This piece resonates in societies where traditional gender roles still prevail, such as in China. Chinese women are often expected to embody both beauty and modesty, taking on roles as dutiful wives and mothers. This pressure comes not only from men but also from other women, revealing how ingrained gender roles affect societal expectations. For instance, many women in China reinforce traditional ideals, even in challenging relationships with mothers-in-law, where these roles persist under cultural pressures rather than being questioned.

Abramović’s piece, through its repetitive and self-harming gestures, highlights the futility of striving for perfection in a world of unachievable standards. The performance urges viewers to reflect on the consequences of these ideals, illustrating how women in gender-normative societies often find themselves confined to predetermined roles. Her work resonates with global struggles for freedom over one’s body and identity, challenging restrictive definitions of beauty, respect, and success.

[omi-papus]

Hey if you ever look at Tiktok fandom culture, and ask yourself why the drama and the fights, mostly resulting from people not cursting their content comes from, I am here to inform you that Tiktok is one of fhe only platforms that does NOT have a feature to block users. And telling the app that you are not interested in sometjing does nothing. I have been forced to encounter an account entierly dedicated to saying homosexual parenting is grooming and I can not for the fucking life of me get that thing out of my feed.

Tiktok literally prevents users from curating their content unless you file a detailed report to allow you go keep certain content out of your feed.

Its literally built to make people see unplesant content and fight about it.

Its also why the character limit on comments is so low because it forces people to make entire videos responding to simple comments, fulling the drama spiral even more.

After learning this I have only used it to look at videos a recently made long distance friend sends me, but this platform has too many issues to be responsably used for anything.

[kellymrichman]

Guest Essay: “Oh, My Dark Children”: Seeing the Holy Mothers of the Harlem Renaissance in the Art of John Biggers

Click here to read my guest essay for New World Symphony, written for their 2024 I Dream a World: Mary Lou's Harlem Festival.

[artoounces]

[winterrosewriter]

regarding used bookstores, here is what i hope

So, as you all might expect due to how much I can't stop obsessing over Rebecca, I love to read. As a result, I have a lot of books. Not as many as some people, but more than people who don't read. Probably around 150, in a big tall bookcase with glass doors.

Lately, I have wanted to own fewer books. I think I got to the point, especially during the pandemic, where the bookshelves became pretty decor, instead of carefully curated reading material.

I kept a lot of children's books I loved. Lots of classics, Fantasy. Signed books. Young adult. You get the idea.

Anyway, last weekend, I went through the books, and bagged up around 60 to pass on to a used bookstore. It's funny, because deciding what to pass on wasn't even that difficult. I asked myself: Am I going to read this again? Have I read this? Did I really, truly love this? Will I be sad if this is not here anymore?

I kept this a pretty quick pass. A lot of the children's fiction that I loved but was ready to move on from went. Some grammar books. Some nonfiction. Some adult fiction. I had read all but one of them. (The exception was Philippa Gregory's Virgin Earth, for the record, because blarg on her historical fiction. Why I picked that up, I don't know.)

I am very pleased I did this. I still have books, just less of them.

I even passed on my Daphne du Maurier omnibus (Rebecca, My Cousin Rachel, Jamaica Inn, Frenchman's Creek). It has a scene from 1979 Rebecca on the cover (imo the best version hands down) but I just didn't feel like I needed to keep it anymore. And that feels great. If I don't want something anymore, that means someone else can find enjoyment in it.

I could tell the used bookstore owner didn't really want my books, though he did take them in the end. This bookstore is the kind of old-timey store that writers especially love. It's the kind of store where, if you have the patience and the time, you will wander for a while and then you will randomly find a book that turns out to be excellent and you will wonder at how you found it at all.

There were tons of books in this store, Boxes of books on the floor. Tables full. Piles on the floor. Just books everywhere. When we left, the books I gave them were still in bags on the floor. I can understand why the owner was reluctant.

It can be really hard to know where to take used books. Most are not worth much (if anything). Some libraries don't want books at all. Little free libraries are often full. I don't know a lot of other readers in real life. So, I went with the used bookstore.

When I was a kid, people would give me bookstore gift cards and I would never know what to pick out. My dad resorted once to picking books out for me, telling me they all looked great.

So, here is what I hope:

I hope this store has regulars to pore through the new books people like me bring in. I hope they find something interesting and new and exciting.

I hope a father brings in his 11-year-old daughter because she loves to read, but never knows what to get, and I hope he picks up some of the great children's fiction I hung onto for too long for her, and says, "This looks great! How about this?"

I hope other readers find my books. And yours. And everyone else's. And I hope they enjoy the stories we all have to share.

[goddessbloom25]

It feels so good to be free. Free from expectations, opinions, standards, people, places, and self sabotaging thoughts. It feels good to think clearly, speak clearly, be intuitively clear. It feels so good that this year has brought about so many blessings and abundance. I’ve done what it is I’ve wanted and things are flourishing in ways I never could foresee. It feels so good to be me, so good to be free.

[balluprojects]

Desapego II, 2025

another on stand by until further notice ☕️🩵💚💛🧡

a wonderful rest to you all, after all this hard work*

[eurydike-on-media]

Who am I?

During my time as a bachelor student in Liberal Arts and Sciences at University College Utrecht in the Netherlands, I was largely exposed to concepts I understood but had no names for. Growing up on a post-colonial island in a British educational institute, we were often fed the phrase "you were part of an empire" rather than the correct phrasing "you were colonized". This perspective shift was an important one that introduced me to the value of restructuring language to better represent reality. It introduced me to one of my major interests, editing language to ensure the intention runs through from the writer to the audience well and accurately. My investment in human rights issues grew from simply there to something I understood.

Also during this time, I took an elective introducing geology and environmental science, which shook me to the core. I fell in love with the textbook, the way it read and how the information that seemed so dull – rocks and tectonics and groundwater – proved to be so entertaining and exciting. The earth below me came alive and so followed my interest. I finished my degree with courses in Earth & environment, literature and global health. My bachelor thesis was an attempt to communicate the interdisciplinary truth of Aruba's gold mine industry, to maybe better introduce the non-geologist to how even the rocks below them were used by the colonial presences to control and alter the people and the land.

Every concern is interdisciplinary, every existence is intersectional, and to simplify it to its parts, belittles the truth of the whole. We must work together from multiple angles if we wish to repair, restructure, regenerate for a more optimistic future.

This academic experience was precious, albeit complicated. An interdisciplinary degree greatly prepared me for life but less so for qualifying in strictly STEM master's, as such I am returning to a bachelor setting, now in the US, to deepen my scientific background so that I may proceed down the path I have discovered is right for me. I will be a science communicator. In some ways, you may think of this as curating content to a standard that may be consumed by a greater range of people. Science belongs to us all, so to all it must be shared with. My aim is to establish myself as a communicator, as a vessel to carry meaning and to play my role in society.

As simplistic as it may seem, we have two outcomes as we are now. We either survive or we don't. We must actively put effort into regeneration and restoration, because to consume would be to accept that what has been lost is not worth being found. I am someone who believes, who hopes, that we can work collectively and collaboratively to improve the state of the world for us all, from the smallest sapling to the largest mammal.

[nightmare-from-heaven]

Hey. Your brain needs to de-frag. Literally it needs you to sit there and space out.

If you want your memory or executive function to improve, stare out a window at the skyline or sidewalk or trees or birds on the electrical wires for like 20+ minutes per day. (With no other stimulation like a podcast or TV if you can manage but hey baby steps innit). If you're fortunate enough to have safe outside with any bits of nature, go stare closely at a 1 meter square of grass and trip out on the bugs and shapes of grasses and stuff.

Literally this will make you smarter. Our brains HAVE TO HAVE this zone out time to do important stuff behind the scenes. This does not happen during sleep, it's something else.

That weird pressurized feeling you get sometimes might be your brain on no defrag.

Give your brain a Daily Dose Of De-Frag.