Field notes from the Limpopo, a difficult funding year, cultural research, a wall in Cape Town, and THE FLOOR’s Berlin open call.
A beautiful place, an uncertain mind
I had not received any of the funding I applied for this year, and the financial reality had started to feel heavy. I was exhausted, taking malaria pills and wondering whether the strange emotions belonged to the medication or to the career itself.
Then I looked up from a hut in the Limpopo region after a trek to a waterfall a local had shown us. There was a wall waiting for me in Cape Town. I was living the life I wanted and still felt suffocated by it. This is not a newsletter with answers. It is a record of being present inside that contradiction.
Why I was in the Limpopo
I was doing field research and plotting with my cofounder Danaja. I connected with artists and planned to leave a mark at Blue Gecko artist studios in Cape Town, run by Monica, who became a friend. We were also recording video interviews with locals about culture.
Danielle, the CEO of a sustainable tourism startup, invited me on a road trip into the middle of nowhere. I said yes and ran into a pack of giraffes. I travel now to connect artists and cultural practitioners, even when the route includes potholes. CounterCult, the partly vibe-coded open-source cultural infrastructure platform, is part of that work.
The pills were not the whole story
The anxiety came from how unknown everything felt. I was looking for a living mentor, not only the figures I grew up with: Amelia Earhart, Joan of Arc, Indiana Jones, Georgia O’Keeffe, Thelma and Louise, Anthony Bourdain and pirates. Perhaps the work is to keep putting one foot in front of the other until I become my own mentor.
I will continue the cultural field research, paint a wall wherever I can and apply for remote freelance work. I am a design lead, and I still have a corporate bone or two in my body.
Back to Berlin
When I returned to Berlin, I planned a new mixed-media and tattoo series and expected to show its first pieces in the coming months. I reopened commissions and wrote about commissioning an artist as a job, not a mysterious favour.
The projects on my list included CounterCult Studios, THE FLOOR’s open call, field research with Danaja, a possible mural connection with the cultural arm of the government in Pakistan, DA SWAMP with Niamh for 48 Hour Neukölln, an invitation back to Spain to restore and create work, freelance creative-lead work, a return to New York and Philly, and research with friends in Sardinia around heritage preservation and cultural infrastructure.
THE FLOOR open call
THE FLOOR is an artist-run project and co-living space in Berlin. It was already hosting its third resident, Lulu, an Irish tattoo and street artist, and accepting applications for new residents from April. The flat has multiple rooms, a studio and a private garden, making it a creative home for artists travelling through Berlin.
The open call was an invitation to explain who you are, why you want to join and what you want to make there. I wrote this from Africa, without pretending that the path was settled.
Originally published on Substack