Pandora's Inkdoodles

120 beats per minute

My feminist collective usually has a film showing every other month. The films chosen are relevant, hard-hitting and more often than not there are tears in the audience. If you live in London and are interested in coming, drop me a line.

A couple of months ago we partnered up with Act Up London (the Aids activist group) for a showing of 120 bpm. It was a especially poignant to get a run down on…

Biketopia: Feminist Bicycle Science Fiction Stories in Extreme Futures

It’s as if this book was written just for me as it manages to combine three of my favourite things: bicycles, sic-fi and feminism. I practically squealed as I unwrapped it. Most on the nose birthday present ever! And what’s more, isn’t that one of the most gorgeous book covers you have ever seen?

Biketopiais the fourth volume of the Bikes in Space series of feminist science-fiction about cycling.…

Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas by the Academy of Ancient Music

I had missed their much acclaimed Faerie Queen two years ago, but had managed to see their exceptional King Arthur last year (the staging modernised to comment on the whole Brexit debacle). I was not going to pass up this year’s Dido and Aeneas.

I am not very knowledgeable about classical music and hardly go to any classical concerts. But I do like the opera; its the whole spectacle of the thing.…

As someone who studied architecture in the turn of the century and took not a few classes in Deconstructivism (or Decon), I had to visit two of the works I had read and been taught so much about, from two of the biggest names in Decon.

First up Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museum. I was so excited to see this building, as it had long been on my bucket list! Unfortunately the two top floors were closed for refurbishment, so I only got to see half of the building. Fortunately it was the most important half – for me at least.

If you visit museums for the actual exhibitions and contents, then the Libeskind building might not really hold you. The main exhibition spaces rich in contents are in the old building. However if you visit modern buildings for the experience, then you will love it. Libeskind’s Jewish Museum extension, is less a museum and more a memorial.

The building is a violent, jagged shape; it’s windows are slashes; the spaces are tall, narrow, inhuman; there are extremes of shadow and dark and sudden overly bright corridors. It is a perfect metaphor for the plight of the Jewish people.

Especially when visiting it in winter and having left your coat in the cloakroom, the added feeling of being cold in certain spaces helps you empathise even more.

There is no point analysing such a famous building. I will say though, that when I visited the museum was quite empty, so I managed to experience the Holocaust Tower in solitude. The space was cold, scary, alienating, spooky, especially after having got into the mind-space from reading the previous exhibits.

Similarly visiting the Garden of Exile, gave you a similar sort of lonely, lost feeling. Only this time you felt locked out and excluded, rather than locked away and abandoned.

Finally, the was the biggest and most poignant void space of the building, the Memory Void. The floor of which is filled by the installation Shalekhet (Fallen Leaves) by Israeli artist Menashe Kadishman. As you approach the space, long before you even know what you’ll find (unless you have studied and read up on the building like I had), you hear a strange clanging noise that is impossible to place or understand.

So you move towards the noise curious, and as you turn the corner you are faced with a sea of flat metal faces with open mouths in a tall jagged void of a space. The noise comes from the people walking over the faces. It is surprising poignant, walking over all those faces that look in anguish, shock, surprise.

After the strong emotions of the Libeskind building, the exhibition about Jerusalem I saw afterwards in the old building was a welcome come down.

To continue on the same theme, my next stop was Peter Eisenman’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Being midwinter, and having spent so much time in the Jewish Museum, the light was fading by the time I got to the Memorial. So I visited in the cold grey light of impending dusk in winter.

Eisenman’s Memorial is another stark, unyielding space. A sea of concrete columns of varying heights being pushed almost violently out the ground. The regular grid of the columns’ layout is broken rarely and irregularly by gaps where one column is missing. That void is felt even more strongly in contrast to sea of presence of the other columns.

The columns are perfectly orthogonal and aggressive in their presence in space, yet their grid is set on a slight slant, creating a slight sense of unease. The ground is covered by cobblestones and is uneven and slightly wavy. The natural giving feel of the ground provides even more contrast with the strict almost logical and inhumane nature of the columns.

The whole area feels very much like a memorial, its illogicality and inhumanness perfectly capturing that of the Holocaust. It also feels a little like a cemetery. The regularity of the concrete columns, mirroring the regulaity of the tombstones in a military war cemetery.

It was a perfect place to visit after the Jewish Museum, and both places give a very strong image of a very brief and violent period in the history of Berlin, that has marked it so profoundly.

Statement from the Justice for Zak/Zackie facebook page

Several weeks ago Zak Kostopoulos was killed at midday in central Athens. In an apparent cover-up, local news first reported the event as a drug addict attempting to rob a jewellery store with a knife and ending up dying due to an unfortunate series of events. Zak, however, was not a ‘junkie’, as they labelled him, but a much loved gay and human rights activist. Vocally HIV-positive, a drag queen and a performer, Zac was an active member of the Greek queer community. His many loving friends and the Greek LGBTQI community quickly fought the mainstream media’s attempts to brush aside his death and smear his name. Contrary to those first reports, the event looks like a murder, or as many are calling it, a “lynching”.

Through videos, testimonies and people’s tireless efforts to not let another death be covered over, quite a different story has come to light. In this account Zak was mobbed and took shelter in a shop. There he was attacked by the shop owner and another man. In a telling indictment of the apathy of (Greek) society, a large group of bystanders, including two men from the emergency services, gathered without intervening as he shouted for help. They silently watch as the two attackers threw stones and objects at him, broke the shop window on his head as he tried to crawl out from the shop, and beat and kick him. When the police arrived and dispelled the attackers, the emergency services men bandaged his head. He tried to get up and get away, but the police threw him back down, tied his hands behind his back and beat and kicked him in the head. They handcuffed him as he was taken away in an ambulance However the evidence indicates that, by then, he was already dead, and the handcuffs were nothing more than once last insult added to his lifeless body.

The hard truth is that, public institutions and mainstream media are rallying around the usual party line of supporting the status quo: “property owners”, “family men”, the “normals”, while dehumanising all the rest of us. And despite the video and witness evidence, despite the statements of the attackers being full of holes and inaccuracies, it is unlikely that there will be a fair and unbiased trial. There is institutionalised support of the far-right and a long history of rights violations in Greece. In particular, the police have time and again abused their power and proven that they can get away with it.

The police never sealed off the crime scene after the incident, but instead let the shop owner mop up. The second attacker was not arrested at the time, but brought in later. It has since come out that this attacker is a member of an extreme Right group. The knife Zak was supposedly holding was found days later without his fingerprints on it. The two attackers have already been set free on bail as they await trial, and the president of Police Union is unapologetic about the amount of force used during the incident. The investigation is being mismanaged, the victim is being treated more like a criminal than the perpetrators are, and the police are not cooperating with the public prosecutor.

There have since been rallies, protests, talks, tribute events and film showings in Athens and other cities in Greece, as well as his funeral in his hometown of Itea. Solidarity events have taken place internationally in Paris, Berlin, Brussels and Nicosia. Articles have been published in the Greek alternative press and opinion pieces in Greek mainstream publications, and even in the french newspapers. Statements of support and condemnation have been shared by university academics, students, medical professionals, lawyers, artists, journalists and photographers, Amnesty International Greece, the Hellenic League for Human Rights, the European Aids Treatment Group, ILGA Europe, the International Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Queer & Intersex Youth and Student Organisation, the Human Library Organization, the Athens Antiauthoritarian Movement, the Onassis Cultural Centre, the Athens sports team “Asteras Exarcheion”, many many antifascist groups and the list is constantly growing. The Greek Left and anti-fascist community has largely rallied around the LGBTQI community in their fight to get justice for Zak.

We have seen this kind of coordinated uprising in Greece against state-condoned violence and fascism before, after the shooting of the teenager Alexis Grigoropoulos by the police in 2008, and again after the knifing of the anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fussas by a member of Golden Dawn (a Greek nationalist and fascist group) in 2013. Those protests however, were violent outpourings of rage and shock that turned into riots and countrywide unrest. Whereas now, taking line from Zak’s own words: “I was never comfortable with violence”, the protests have been loud but peaceful. They aim to celebrate a much-loved friend’s life, ask that he be given justice and raise awareness of the issues he represented and fought for.

Unfortunately, as a Greek myself, I was not surprised when I heard the news. I was shocked, saddened and very much wounded by the violence of my country. But I was not surprised. Zak’s murder was another in a long list of killings and violent attacks over the last decade (or more) against students, anti-fascists, activists, migrants, HIV-positive people, foreigners, striking workers and anyone else who doesn’t fall in line. Under a thin veneer of “modernism” and “liberalism”, Greek society still hides violent fascist and patriarchal undercurrents. These have been stirred up and allowed freer reign in the aftermath of the economic crisis and the subsequent institutionalised deconstruction of society that has taken place under the banner of austerity.

Violence against women, children, queers, migrants, minorities, and other oppressed and disenfranchised groups, is an unspoken fact of life. Being queer or otherwise “different” is more than an act of self-expression in countries like Greece, it is an act of defiance and extreme bravery, a decision to spend the rest of your life as a battle. A battle not only to be accepted, but sometimes even a literal battle to be allowed to live. This a battle that Zak fought well, but ultimately lost.

Let’s not be part of the silent complicit crowd. Let’s raise our voices in support.

#JusticeforZak #justice4ZakZackie

Links: http://www.eatg.org/news/we-call-on-the-authorities-to-ensure-that-justice-for-zak-kostopoulos-is-done/ https://nomadicuniversality.com/2018/09/29/for-zak-the-responsibility-for-our-grief/ https://thepressproject.gr/article/134703/Ugeionomikoi-kaloun-to-EKAB-na-dosei-apantiseis-gia-ton-Z-Kostopoulo http://www.hlhr.gr/εμασ-δεν-μασ-αρεσει/ https://www.amnesty.gr/news/press/article/21619/dilosi-tis-diethnoys-amnistias-gia-ton-zak-kostopoylo https://www.lifo.gr/now/greece/209900/kallitexnes-tis-documenta-14-zitoyn-apo-tsipra-kai-kamini-dikaiosyni-gia-ton-zak-kostopoylo

Maze Runner books by James Dashner

I love myself some good YA fiction. I am a big sci-fi and fantasy fan and a lot of YA provides exactly that in an easy to read and fresh way. Its good as a simple read when you don’t feel like a complex or heavy read.

I read the books rather fast, so I don’t remember much of the details, and am not very clear where book two ends and book three begins.

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Tangerine Dream at the Union Chapel

I have seen a lot of good concerts this year, and this was definitely one of them! I like myself some good atmospheric ambient and prog. And I love visiting the Union Chapel – it’s both lovely and convenient.

I know Tangerine Dream is a 70s group, and that their leader has died, but I was too young to have had the chance to see them in their heyday. And this year I have been busy ticking artists…

Fevre Dream by George R. R. Martin

A couple of years ago I joined a book club to try and make myself read less stuff online and more real books. It was sci-fi and fantasy bookclub, as that’s my favourite type of fiction. I didn’t last long, because despite loving it, I became overwhelmed with work and life.

The first book I read with my club was Fevre Dream by George R.R.Martin, and I was decidedly underwhelmed. Especially…

I watched Lady Bird a while back. It was very much hyped and talked up by the critics, which is often a bad thing. As that often means you go in with far too high expectations and end up being disappointed. I know a couple of friends said they had expected more of this film.

I liked it, and was not disappointed. It wasn’t perfect, and it wasn’t ground-breaking. And as a teenager in the 90s, I…

2018 turned out to be the year of the opera for me, as I booked to see four operas, far more than I usually see. Coraline is a brand new opera by Mark-Anthony Turnage, who I learnt is a hot contemporary british opera composer. I don’t often see operas by living composers (Philip Glass being an obvious exception), but I was intrigued.

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Fever Ray at the Troxy

I have loved The Knife and Fever Ray for several years now. Their combination of haunting vocals and droning electro beats hits my musical sweet-spot just right. So as soon as I learnt Fever Ray was touring to promote her new record, I bought tickets for her London show without having even heard her new album. And then I spent long months eagerly waiting for the concert and slowly listening to…