The woman is present

Recently I read about a crowdfunding campaign launched by The Foundling Museum in London. It is held to collect money for a feminist exhibition at the museum in 2019. The exhibition "The Ladies of Quality and Distinction" will be dedicated to 21 noble women who, in 1735, supported Thomas Coram, the founder of the Foundling hospital. They signed a petition that helped to establish the institution after Coram got rejected by some distinguished noblemen of London.
More information about the campaign and the story behind the exhibition can be found here:
https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/london-museum-to-rehang-300-year-old-collection-of-male-portraits-with-paintings-of-women

I honestly think that this is amazing! I am deeply impressed by the curators of the exhibition, who worked for a whole year just to trace and collect pieces for this exhibition. Also, I get goose bumps whilst thinking of the symbolism of an empty picture frame, that the curators will hang up instead of the one portrait they couldn't find.
But (yes, there is always that "but") there is one thing that I had done differently if I were curating this exhibition (oh, a dreamer...). The curators proposed to remove the male portraits from the main picture gallery of the museum and replace them by the portraits of these 21 women. Which makes total sense. You want to make a statement - you have to be heard. In the campaign's video they even say, that the men's portraits will be tacked away in a storage room or something like that.
Now, I really don't care much about these guys. But in my opinion, what would really make a strong statement, is if the women's portraits and documents would be exhibited in the same room with all these noble men. Small or lost as they are, not painted by William Hogarth or Joshua Reynolds, but exactly there, in all and the same room with the men. Move the men to make room for the women but don't remove them from the room.
How would it look like if we think of portraits as living people? Ladies walk into the room and men leave, so they can do their "womanly business" in private. The room becomes "the women's room" and not in a nice-Virginia-Woolf meaning, but as something diminishing, unserious, that segregates women once again. From the place and from the history. Are we afraid that the women won't be able to stand out in comparison?
300 years later, let these women stand right next to the men and finally receive justice and respect they and so many other women in history deserve.
Step by step, and, hey, don't let those guys leave the room, they have to see it! 

Where do we draw a line?

When "metoo" compain started, I reposted it on my FB page. I had a second thought - "does my experience really matter? After all, it wasn't that horrible..." - which actually became the main trigger to write my own comment on this matter. As well as a wish to show an example for women in my country who may think even less of even bigger experiences, thinking they don't matter that much.
Because, sadly enough, even all those small experiences I had influenced part of my life that may have been different. I stop myself again and again, trying to minimise the impact. Like, it was about not wearing certain type of clothes, not coming home too late, be aware of how much I drink. That does not sound too bad? Well, I didn't escape anyway.

Of course it stired a lot of thoughs that keep on running on my mind. Trying to keep my head clear and cool is hard and my natural kind will to see both sides of an issue often fails to draw a line.
I walked in a park few weeks ago, when the weather was beautifully crisp, with the fresh snow on the ground, and I managed to be prodactive with my writing. In the middle of the day, there were enough people. Some running, some walking. I was walking with my headphones on when two middle-age men came running towards me and I could see one of them looking at me for awhile and then saying laughingly "Are you freezing?" (I was packed in winter jacket, hat and mittens). I kept on walking and they continued running in the opposite direction. I didn't react, pretending my headphones stopped me from hearing him. And yet, I had that nugging feeling inside of me - why did he address me? I am walking here, like everybody else. Why do you have to single me out? And more - why did it leave me feeling uncomfortable?
When I told the story to my friend he said that the man just wanted to be nice. It is like saying "hello". By why did I feel different?
Few days later, in a swimming pool, I was waiting to go into the water but there were few older men talking at the stairs, one of them on his way out. It was me an another woman waiting. He first wanted to let us use the stairs but the woman told him that he can get out, it's ok. It took him awhile, he was not too old but obviously had some troubles getting out. When he finally did, I let the woman go first and the man started talking to me. He said that he swam three km and after that it's hard to get back on the ground. I smiled and said that it's undestandable. Then I went into the water. And I didn't feel anything bad. I was standing next to a half naked older man, who wanted to excuse his slowness by telling me how many km he swam, maybe because he found it emberassing trying to get out in front of a young woman and being slow, maybe because he wanted to brag. But the fact is - I didn't feel bad about that situation and that talk.
What was it? His obvious human valnarability that made me feel like this situation is not thretening, in comparison to a younger sporty man in the park? Was it my mood and my general withdrawel from environment which usually accures when I am going swimming? Was it presence of another older woman next to me?

Where do you place your feeling in everyday life if you want to stay critical? Where do you draw the line between - violation and normality?

Terra incognita

Few days before going home to Moscow. With my mind already on the go, hence, incapable of working, I started to think - why does this threshold of going "home" become so increasingly tough for me? Is it general tiredness? Something that I didn’t accomplish here, that doesn’t let me fully embrace the meaning of it all, splitting me in two? Why does even fun stuff, like meeting family and friends or going book-shopping, seems like a tour de force?

I tried to look into everything, which I dim responsible for this uncomfortable tension. From an energy consuming planning to general feeling of "homelessness". Vaguely, yes, maybe. But today it hit me, even though I am still ashamed to admit it, something that barely touched my mind before - it is the city, that makes things so much harder for me. Sadly, with all the wonderful and interesting that Moscow has to offer - the city is a stranger to me. And not the kind you can ignore.

I have never felt completely sure and safe there, this much is true. But I knew my ways, navigating myself in the city's everyday life, in its crowd of people and houses. I had my passages of behavior and routes of emotional control developed for all those years I lived there. My ways were changing along with the city's ways. It grew, I grew, adjusted. It suited my peculiar need for even the slight illusion of control.

Then I left, to start from a blank page and draw my own map of a new city. Willingly, I embraced all changes that the new city brought, feeling that this time I can make it work. Leaving Moscow behind, like some life-long project, that I failed to accomplish. It took me no time to forget the ways of Moscow.

I know, that the city as such has little to do with the way I feel. I see younger people, whose life is dependent on the city and its activities, creative and lively, navigating Moscow as their own domain. Young women, always alert, but somehow like fish that know their sea. I have never been one of them and now I lost even that little that I knew.

Yet, I can't really look at the city through the eyes of a foreigner. It still hold those small warm spots that belong to me and will never turn blind. Places where I grew up, where someone dear lives or lived. They are like pins on the city's map, between which I navigate. The rest is a great unknown.

Why "Cover Me" is not a love song... or, maybe?

"Cover Me" is an unearthly beautiful piece from the Depeche Mode's latest record Spirit.
Generously accompanied by the Anton Corbijn's video, the song had an unexpected effect on me when I saw it for the first time at the DM's opening concert in Stockholm on the 5th of May, 2017. Not to mentioned it poured on my, along with the heavy rain, at the Olympiastadium in Berlin the next time I saw them. That time I knew what awaits me but by this day can't clearly recall what was happening during the second part of the song, when a cosmic synthesized sound was floating above the stadium. I really wanted to see what Dave was doing during that part... but I forgot. Everything.

Now, of course, it's a question of what comes first. If I payed more attention to the song before the concert and had a clear opinion about it, I may have thought about it differently. Maybe, I would have perceived it as a love song. A hearbreaking anthem for feelings that grow cold but one doesn't want to give them up, because "I am not going down/Not today".
But I didn't and that's why for me, despite the way it was promoted in social media, "Cover Me" is not a love song. I think in general, in the context of the album, "Cover Me" is not about love in a very hands on meaning of it. Or at least it is not about relationships in a narrow sense, as between two people and one heartbreak.
Starting from the first track I believed that no matter how much I wanted them to stick to that profoundly beautiful "personal" in their music, this album speaks out and reflects on society and life we are leaving now, way more than any other of their records. I mean, c'mon, where the revolution? However, speaking of the album to Rolling Stone magazine, Gahan says that the record is not about politics but about humanity and "our place in that". More on that: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/depeche-modes-dave-gahan-on-urgent-new-lp-bowie-influence-w462560

So, heads and tails. After seeing Dave performing "Heroes" at the concert, I had a strong feeling that "Cover Me" directly inspired by David Bowie's "Space Oddity". As if Major Tom just came back, all grown up and sober, but there is nothing here for him. That impression was clearly set on me by the video that accompanied the song, with Dave wondering on empty streets with his helmet of, dreaming of space but never returning there. My dreamy thinking, high on the concert's excitement.
Dave said to Rolling Stone, that the song is about the person who travels to another planet only to find that it is exactly the same and it's all about not being able to get away from yourself. And this explanation really klicks with the song. And... I still thought of something else.

For me, the song is about realizing that what you have is...all you have. You may have tried to find something else, "dreamed of us in another life" but the one "we've never reached". As if there may be another place, planet, universe, but we will never reach it because dreaming is endless and so fickle. There is freedom somewhere, "beyond the broken bars", where we have all the possibilities to go so far and be somebody else, "picture us in another life/ where we all super stars". The song is a thin line between dreaming beyond unknown and desirable and realizing that it may lead to loneliness, where something that we haven't treasured is taken from us. And it is not somewhere else, it is exactly where you are.
"The air is so cold here
Too cold to see
We have to take cover 
Cover me..." 

Oh, who knows, maybe it is about love after all. Because sometimes it's the biggest part of that little we actually have. And no, I don't only mean the romantic love.

P.S. Dave, screaming out "Cover me... will you?" didn't help my clear reasoning on this song.
P.S.S. Walking into the ocean, are you kidding me? Crying here...

Panic! Academia!

In Academia there are a lot of normal reasons to get off your skin and panic. Like in any kind of job.
Deadlines, which don't understand that you are not ready to meet them, that you need a bit more time. E-mails, which seem to be hiding and waiting when they can act and crash your mail. Colleagues, who say something without thinking and activate the "self-destruction" mode of your confidence. People in general, who tend to distract you exactly when... what was I going to say?

Etc etc.

But there is one special "I can't do that anymore" panic. And it is not even the infaimous writer's block. It is - "my thought is developing faster than I can comprehend it and then I lose it, though I  know that it could have been a great turn in my dissertation but I lost it before I wrote it down or if I wrote it down I lost the whole bloody train of thoughts that was following it and I am not sure what this theoretician means but I think it relates to my thought that I wrote or maybe didn't somewhere before I don't remember where...I need wine!" panic.

It doesn't even describe the glory of going into your writing when you already read too much of theory and too many of different hypotheses for a normal human being *khammm... academic*.

The moments like this one I always remember what my teacher in Chinese art used to say: "Don't try to understand it, you will unpack yourself" (c)
Students just looked at each other funny and went on writing. What she meant was probably, that we belong not just to a different timeframe but to a completely different culture. And she was worried that if we try to understand it fully, through all the discourses, we will lose our minds.
Well, I don't think she had reasons to worry about 20 years old us. Yet now, I really think there is a limit of what your brain should understand and connect before you "unpack" yourself!

And then I consider going back to working with little kids...

When you want to bike everywhere all the time... but you are a woman!

How endlessly wonderful it is to bike through Gothenburg!
Roads are unwrapping in front of you, people are passing you by so fast that they don't have time to annoy you, separate lines for bikers *occasionally* so you may actually make it to work/home alive, rain and wind when you try to bike up a hill.
Your morning hatred to humanity disappears together with your make-up and hairdo.
Benifits EVERYWHERE!

Well, seriously, I love biking. There are two activities that make me happy: biking and swimming. The second one, unfortunately, means most of the time being trapped with too many people in too little puddle of water. The first one, on the contrary, means avoiding most of annoying encounters on your way through the city.

Lately, happily picking up some of my boyfriend's good habits *including a handy habit of "saving money like a pro" which I picked in theory but still it doesn't affect my bank account in practice* I decided that I had enough of waiting for trams/busses, paying extra money just because I HAVE to go to work *I mean, where is logic in here?* and after investing some money in my precious bike Vincent aka Vinni *yes, van Gogh, what did you expect* I started to bike everywhere.

And I though weather will be my biggest problem. Until this morning.
As most women on this planet I have days when my Body literally screws me over. It doesn't matter how much I care about it, tend and cherish it, it will screw me over when the hormones kick in *for some reasons I always imagine hormones as some kind of rubber bouncy balls that start to act with your slightest move*.
The best part of my "Fuck you! Sincerely yours, Body" monthly routine is what I recently discovered calls: cyclical mastalgia. Everyday term: hurting boobs. Starts with a little discomfort and then turns into "Don't touch me or I'll kill you pain". So it goes.

Did you ever realize how many holes, riffles and steps you have to pass in the city?!
Well, I didn't count them all, but sure as hell, my girls did, moving uncomfortably every time the bike hit one of these traps. So in the end I learned how to get over bumps and holes by standing up on the bike and amortizing the blows from the road in my arms *what a skill, right?*.

I can't help but think that if people who build the roads have the same kind of pain every months the roads would have been smooth and responsive as a gymnastic floor *I managed to squeeze an up-to-date Olympic reference here*

On a serious issue: presents

I think Penny from Big Bang Theory is my favorite hero after Chandler from Friends.
And the next one after him I can relate to. Especially when it comes to my relationship (if we imagine Penny dating Sheldon) and wine.
*I can just as easily put it together and say "my relationship with wine"*

In the process of packing a present for my boyfriend I run through all possible reactions that he will have when I am going to give it to him *holy terror* on his 30th birthday *despicable*.

*Let's skip the fact that it is an original print of Nordic contries' map from 1893, which is already as nerdy as it can go.*

Reactions can include but not limited to: running away, refusing to take the present from my hands, blushing, face-palming, pretending to be dead etc.
As well as the attempts of verbal communication such as: "why do you give me presents when you have so many expenses this month?", "you shouldn't...", "it's really unnecessary", "I don't have a birthday", "do I know you?".
But, as in a good book *like the one with the frog*, there will be a happy ending in which he will accept the present, like it *because I am damn good at making presents* and say "thank you".

And this is when I'm introducing my relationship with wine...

On marriage and friendship...but mostly about women!

Instead of fully focusing on semiotics and be a good scholar I got myself some interesting piece of reading. (I think I just offended semiotics...)

Why Straight Women Are Marrying Each Other?

This is an article about a tribe in Tanzania where women are allowed to marry each other so they can keep their property in the absence of men. It is truly facinating how they manage even if it does not make a power relation between women and men in any way equal, it is still because of men and for men, and women can also be very abusive.
Yet, I got to think of one thing that with all those "but" and "if" gives me a very positive vibe. In her work "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existance" Adrienne Rich, among other issues, brings up a very strong and complex notion of lesbian existance, addressing lesbianism as an extension of feminism. In lesbian existance she sees a possibility for women to break free from the dominating political institution that is based on compulsory heterosexuality therefore establishes male dominancy over women on a lot of levels. Her work was taken to an extreme point of "must" for radical feminism and lesbian existance became addressed as the only certain weapon against male domination and violence. To speak of it very briefly.
Most of the points that Rich brings up in relation to power and lesbian existance are hardly applicable to the tribe's right of the marriage between women. As it is written in the article, women do not have any sexual relationship with each other and even more, the sexuality of a younger woman in a family is always directed towards a man so she will be able to produce a heir.
Yet, one aspect of lesbian existance that shows its complexity fully and often gets lost in the overall discussion about sexuality and power, can be traced in the tribe's tradition. Here comes the positive - female friendship!
While reading the actual stories I could not help but think that most of it, when it works sucessfully for both (or more) women, based on their friendship. Even if this friendship is only coming from women's mutual understanding of danger and lack of possibilities. Rich sees friendship between women as an important part of lesbian existance. Ability to recognise yourself and understand another woman becomes a strong foundation against the institution of male domination. Even if female frendship is not the first thing that springs to mind when one hears "lesbian existance", it is in there, nevertheless, and Rich stresses it as an important element of women's resistance.

So, yes, my point here - my grandma is wrong! Surprised? Well, alright, I was not writing this all to say that my grandma is wrong (ha!) but it came to my mind during my struggle with editing. She used to tell me from a very early age: "Do not trust girlfriends! They will betray you! You should only be good friends with guys."
Needless to say that I did not listen. Even as a child I had a strong feeling that gender has nothing to do with betrayal and if all girls are bitches then who am I? I can say that I was also a very pessimistic child and thought that there is no safety in any gender (or sexuality... do not get me started on this!). Yet I had a strong will to believe in female friendship being powerful, trustfull and long-lasting.
It paid off!

I am back!

Who cares? No one? Anyone?
Well, ok, let's be honest - I really need a place for all my crazy ideas, thoughts and sarcastic references because my supervisors look at my funny when I try to put them all in my dissertation.
So here I am!

We'll see what's gonna come out of it this time! 

Par Live. Part 3 - High heels off, I am feeling alive

On a day third hot men were replaced by one beautiful woman. By Sharon den Adel precisely, a front lady of Within Temptation. I honestly expected: 1. Her - to be somehow a diva, like Tarja of ex-Nightwish; 2. Myself - to be calm, dance a bit and enjoy; 3. The weather - to be hot and sunny.
The day was full of surprises ;)

















1. Sharon is wonderful and her voice is as beautiful on the open air festival as it is on the record.
This cover send us all up (though we were already soaking wet, dancing in a big puddle of water)



2. I'll never try to stand still when they play. It's impossible!

3. And as I mentioned already - it was raining. Yeah, just a bit...

Yes, I had a cold after but it worth it! ;)