File Note 135: Adam Farah

I. (conversation)

Uh-huh La da da da da da da da, da da da da da Oh yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, exactly I like that (mm yeah) I want to enjoy life And I don’t know what I need to do Ok, ok yeah, to do that, yeah Yeah Fair enough, I get that, yeah It’s easy to succumb to overwhelming fears inside It’s like you have this thing you need which maybe exists under this kind of discursive context of what healing looks like and what it can be but you’re also saying it’s kind of like um a stance against— like you’re putting the work in the context that you’re also kind of like critical of but beauty has to flourish in the light Yeah, exactly Tell me… Why? Cause it’s just not respectful of the nature that all of this is coming from you know it’s coming from complete chaos, so let me just pay respects to that and also create a space that people don’t feel so pressured to connect with it, you know? I don’t know it’s destination I think the one thing I’ve done to try and protect my practice is to mess around with things, you know? To aesthetically mess around with things And the ground gave way beneath my feet And the earth took me in her arms Leaves covered my face Ants marched across my back Black sky opened up, blinding me I can’t be elusive with you, honey Let’s go down to the water’s edge And we can cast away those doubts (mm yeah) (feeling free) Yeah, the lyrics sum up what happened so perfectly to me, yeah And like, is your thinking ahead to do with like anxiety of what ahead could be? I wouldn’t say anxiety necessarily, it’s more just like… it’s more just like an uncertainty and I think I feel I need a change like, something needs to change, yeah I don’t know things feel very unclear for me right now I wanna breathe, Change, change all around, Go with the rhythm I’ve been wary of even like the way that if I talk about all of this it’s like, oh you’re just making a show about healing and self care and stuff in the way that the art world has just like completely gentrified those discourses in recent years, but I guess my art practice has tried to work against those like, simplifying discourses and reductive discourses, Expectations all around but my intuition knows no bounds (I know, I know) Also it’s the level of emotion, like the emotionality does tap in to something when you look at it that makes you feel less alone like, She’s got herself a universe But I’m not trying to dress it up in different things, um, I want it to be soft, I want it to be like the Velvet Rope and the Butterfly album and the Ray of Light album One thing that I find is that I like to be playful even humorous in a way but still keep it poetic