art is....

Written By Omnia Saed

Gardening in the city of Detroit is saying, ‘Fuck it’
— from Freedom Farmers, Monica M. White

I seem to get my best political ideas when looking for aesthetic solutions
— Lorraine O’Grady  

I’ve been in the habit of taking long walks around the neighborhood. It’s a way to breathe fresh air, stretch out my limbs and remember the possibilities of the world again. 

I love those little walks. 

I love the silence of it all. How after 7:30 pm suburbia seems to fall asleep, or close up shop, or run into the arms of a long-awaited lover, that is, home, or night, or bed, again. I love to tightrope walk across the street, arms stretched wide, eyes on the pavement, paying no mind to passing cars or passersby. the world feels so quiet. and quiet feels so endless and endless feels so expansive and expansive feels so possible and possible feels so possible, again. 

I don’t know how else to explain the feeling but to confirm, in motion, the motion that there is always beauty in the mundane.


Art Is. . . (Guys in a Crowd) It reminds me of a recent essay by Christina Sharpe on Lorraine O’Grady’s performance piece, “Art Is..” at the African American Day parade in Harlem in 1983. O’Grady alongside a team of volunteers held up gold frames around attendees:

“With Art Is . . . O’Grady moved avant-garde art directly into the streets, aiming to ‘put avant-garde art into the largest Black context she could think of, the million-plus viewers of the parade.’ The performance is the answer (art as argument) to the charge that the avant-garde has nothing to do with Black life. O’Grady writes that “the announcer made fun of the float as it passed the reviewing stand: ‘They tell me this is art, but you know the Studio Museum? I don’t understand that stuff.’ But the people on the parade route got it. Everywhere there were shouts of ‘That’s right. That’s what art is. We’re the art! And Frame ME, make ME art!’”

Art Is. . . (Girlfriends Times Two)

I love those little walks around the neighborhood in many ways for the same reason I love these pictures from O’Grady’s piece. Both movements say, I am here, all alone or all in loan, abundantly.


***

a bit of housekeeping and personal news: the start of ramadan marks one year since i first started this newsletter. i initially started this space to examine and reckon with my own personal notions of stillness and movement in relation to our collective spiritual traditions. since then — as things do as they move — this space has shifted, taken flight and form// it has served as a literary archive for personal musings, ideas, art, love and gratitude as they relate to freedom, as they relate to justice, as they relate to me. in many ways, this space has served as a personal reminder and a commitment to possibility. moving through my own personal reckonings this past year, i am proudly entering a new phase in my life now freelancing and writing full time.

in celebration of new beginnings, the upcoming new moon sighting, and a year come and a year a/go, I will be releasing this newsletter on a weekly cadence (again). this month, together, i hope we will continue to grapple, perhaps more critically, with conceptions of a kinder and more gracious world to come. I dedicate this series to reckonings in light of a new moon and new world order.

in the meantime, if this newsletter has brought you joy, brought you pause, if you have learned something along the way, please feel empowered to share it with your network.

for now, forward we go..
🌹omnia

 Anyways, here are some other readings that touched my heart this week:

Omnia Saed
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I am too full of dreams!