BCC alum Yewande YoYo Odunubi was part of the collective for four years. Yewande was instrumental in the development and instituting of a slow organisational practice. Here, she reflects on her research as part of BCC's Pace & Flow programme.
Research Proposal
‘We are not striving for 'newness' but to shift attention and form connections between what already exists/is emerging.’ – Black Curators Collective (BCC), 'Meandering Networks, Mapping Nations.
Working between her artistic point of enquiry, “what does the body need to dream?” and propositions raised through Black Curators Collectives’ (BCC) 'Meandering Networks, Mapping Nations' programme, Yewande is interested in exploring what conditions, pedagogies and tools can help facilitate the possibility of dreaming particularly for herself as a b/Black artist and cultural practitioner.
Yewande will use this time to shift attention to rest, tending to self, play and thinking with and through works, musings and other offerings from creative practitioners such as Kevin Quashie, Lola Olufemi, Sonya Lindfors and Maryan Abdulkarim and Hannah Catherine Jones, Tricia Hersey and Sylvia Wynter.
Research Response
Time taken – a mediation draft
I count
one
two
three
shoulders down relaxed
chest out
chin up,
head back
mouth slowly parts agape
lips
open
breathe in inhale
breathe out exhale.
Feel your chest rise lift.
I wonder about the vastness of my belly. It’s not simply a container that holds but a site that gives play to frictions, connections, knowledges, overlaps, memories, translations, and mutations. Worlds are built at the ripple of my naval. Internal waves signal my intuition—gut melodies. Today, I asked what I needed of myself to be present with the day. I told myself to rest. This is an attempt at listening.
Bodies loose
limbs connecting to memory
memory to heart
not matter, but spirit
guiding the subtle shapes
of movement
of memory.
Your fingers, now heavy
make phantom performance
of the unseen
against the gentle, still air.
Are you still listening?
I never left, but
I felt my whole being
take flight
away from these
papered walls, transported to
black space
speckled with stars
galaxies afar, never in direct reach
to be understood, but yet
I’m content with floating,
echoing in this vast chasm
I know as my own.
Yesterday, I wondered what it means to give yourself time, space, and opportunity to sit with murmurs that often flash past without a second to pause. How much time I didn’t afford myself, yet afforded others—other things in place of [insert anything applicable]. I didn’t know how to have lighter steps. “Reclaiming my time”—beyond the virality and memes, I’m thinking about unlearning time as we commonly practise it. I will practise being out of time, syncopating, and attuning to a pace that understands my body's cycles, where I flow, and where I listen.
As I sit here
travelling beyond
this room in Glasgow
multiple planets gesture my arrival through
the flutter of my eyes. New realities
built through song(s)
melodies in and out of time
as my body breathes
deeply.
The only thing required of me
is to listen. Maintain a soft belly.
I pull, contract, fill, listen. Then open, loosen, stretch, empty.
A simple yet deliberate set of steps.
I am brought in
gut into belly
a feeling of warmth.
Pace & Flow is funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and Art Fund.
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