Immortality & Kindness
“I was too young to notice
how fear persists, and how
the anger that causes fear persists,
that its trajectory can’t be changed
or broken, only interrupted.”
Thinking about action
Recently, whilst going about her day responsibly during this period of isolation, our friend was spat at. Sadly, this has not been an isolated occurrence for our Chinese Australian and Asian Australian friends. In addition to horrific incidents such as this, we have also seen examples of racist graffiti in our streets.
Contemplating our response, we were reminded of the words of Lisel Mueller’s poem "Immortality", presented above alongside a special reading in Chinese by acclaimed poet, novelist, editor and translator Ouyang Yu.
At first glance, Mueller’s poem is a startlingly simple observation. However, with closer reading, it is beautifully multilayered and intricate in its exploration of the human condition - how fleeting and precious life is, especially in the face of anger, fear and resentment.
Re-reading Immortality reminded us once more of the power of poetry - to make things plain in a way that injects just enough space for questioning in the search for deeper self-understanding. And, so it is the art of poetry that provides our starting point for "Thinking about Immortality & Kindness".
Thinking about Immortality & Kindness
Taking Mueller's poem as the starting point, we have asked three writers to reflect upon the topic of immortality in the context of our present socio-cultural circumstances. Our contributors are:
Editor & Global Health Advocate Dr Selina Lo
Award-winning Poet Eileen Chong
Gifted writer, poet and provocateur Jinghua Qian.
Each contributor will submit a 250-500 word written reflection to one another in the form of a letter between friends. They will then make a voice recording of their reflection and spend two minutes also reflecting upon the words of their fellow writers.
The recordings will be shared in a special online ‘viewing / listening room’ here at correspondences.work for us to listen to and think about in our own time.
In the meantime, we are working on the design of a special poster for an outdoor exhibition to be realised by September (revision due to COVID-19). The poster will feature an original artwork by award-winning visual artist Kuang Zai.
Our aim is for 50 posters to be installed in public spaces throughout Melbourne to remind people to think and to be kind. In the corner of the poster will be a QR code linking to Mueller's poem and our writers’ reflections.
Kuang's original artwork, a beautiful painting that we can’t wait to show you, will be the central subject of an online exhibition - to be opened in tandem with the poster exhibition.
How can you help?
Join us to interrupt this cycle of shameful behaviour - to create a space for thinking and quiet reflection, and above all, for kindness.
In September our team will install the posters and take a photograph to share the location on social media.
When you see your suburb just re-post away. Or, if you spot our poster on your travels, simply take a photograph tag your location (one of our wonderful co-exhibiting community partners) and us @correspondencesstudio with: #ThinkingAboutImmortalityAndKindness to join us in the making of our community act of kindness.
Thank-you: Project Updates?
Our fundraising is complete and our online viewing room is now live. Due to COVID-19, we have needed to delay the opening of our poster exhibition. However, rest assured it will follow after the closure of lockdown v2.0. To find out more visit the online viewing room via the button below.
We would like to thank our chuffed.org supporters for your generosity and belief in our project. It is truly valued, always - but most especially now. Heartfelt thanks must also go to the City of Melbourne who awarded as with a ‘COVID-19 Arts Grant’, making it possible for our creatives to continue and to receive payment for their work at industry rates.
Our contributors
Dr Selina Lo has a medical and legal background and is a consulting editor at the The Lancet medical journal where she was formerly Senior Editor for 8 years based in London and Beijing. Prior to her editorial life, she was the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Medical Director of the Access to Medicines Campaign based in Geneva, and the Clinton Foundation clinical advisor to the Chinese HIV AIDS national treatment programme. From 1996-2005 she led medical humanitarian projects for MSF in Afghanistan, Myanmar, Thailand, Bangladesh and China. She is a Senior Research Fellow at the Monash Sustainable Development Institute Australia, and an honorary fellow at University of Melbourne, School of Population and Global Health, with an interest in global and planetary health justice and supporting work with vulnerable communities and artists in the Asia Pacific.
Photograph by Charlene Winfred.
Eileen Chong is a poet based in Sydney, Australia. She was born in Singapore of Chinese descent. Her poetry collections are Burning Rice (2012), Peony (2014), Painting Red Orchids (2016), and Rainforest (2018), all from Pitt Street Poetry, Sydney. Chong writes about food, family, migration, love and loss. The Singaporean-Australian poet Boey Kim Cheng has said that ‘Chong’s work offers a poetry of feeling, rendered in luminous detail and language, alive to the sorrows and joys of daily living.’ Her books have been shortlisted for numerous awards, including the Anne Elder Award 2012 for a first book, the Australian Arts in Asia Award 2013, the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award 2017, and the Australian Prime Minister’s Literary Award 2013 and 2017. Her poems are widely anthologised in Australian and international anthologies.
Photograph (detail) by Alexis Desaulniers-Lea
Jinghua Qian is a Shanghainese writer living in the Kulin nations, fluent in prose, verse, and sharpening complexities without simplifying them. Jinghua has written about labour movement history for Right Now, performed dirges of diasporic grief in a seafarers’ church for Going Down Swinging, and discussed the racial politics of cosmetic surgery on Radio National. Ey founded people of colour performance night POC THE MIC (2010-2012), and was a presenter and producer on 3CR Community Radio’s Queering the Air from 2012 to 2015. Currently serving on the board of Asian-Australian arts and culture magazine, Peril, their words have appeared in The Guardian, Overland, Peril, Cordite, Autostraddle, and Melbourne Writers’ Festival.
Kuang Zai is a realist painter based in Melbourne. His artworks are known for their “unfussy emphasis” – a feature which effortlessly grounds his figures and objects in the real world, whilst also imbuing them with the sense of a private, inner world. Since making Australia his home in 1998, Kuang has been the recipient of and finalist in the Archibald Prize (2007, 2008), the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize (2007, 2009, 2010), the Sulman Prize (2012), the Fleurieu Art Prize (2008, 2011) and the Albany Art Prize (2008, 2010, 2011 and 2012), to name but a small few. He holds a Master degree in Fine Art from Tsinghua University (China) and Monash University (Melbourne). His works are held in various public and corporate collections including the Cowra Regional Art Gallery, BHP Billiton, Monash University, Macquarie University, as well as various private collections internationally.
Designer Carolyn Ang is a multi-disciplinary designer specialising in editorial design and publishing, brand identities and art direction. Having a love for typography, photography and a minimalist simplicity, she takes a purposeful approach to craft considered design solutions—always with a focus on strategy and being content and concept driven. Ang was the enormously talented design creative behind the most recent edition of Going Down Swinging, to name but one of her recent projects. Her website provides an overview of this and other examples of her work including the Matters Journal (2019), which was awarded a Merit at the AGDA Design Awards.
Photograph by Echo Cai
Ouyang Yu is a Chinese-born poet, novelist, editor and translator based in Melbourne. Since arriving in Australia in 1991, he has published over 100 books of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, literary translation and literary criticism in English and Chinese. He edits Australia’s only Chinese literary journal, Otherland. His poetry and translations have been included in major Australian collections such as The Penguin Anthology of Australian Poetry, The Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature and The turnrow Anthology of Contemporary Australian Poetry. His noted books include his award-winning novels, The Eastern Slope Chronicle (2002), The English Class (2010) and The Kingsbury Tales: A Complete Collection (2012), and his acclaimed books of poetry, Songs of the Last Chinese Poet (1997), New and Selected Poems (2004), to name but a few. In 2011 he was nominated one of the Top 10 most influential writers of Chinese origin in the Chinese diaspora.
Photograph by Echo Cai
Emma Thomson is an arts worker with an interest in socially engaged, situational and interdisciplinary practices. Her practice correspondences focuses on connecting diverse audiences, artists and art forms in ways that stimulate, inspire and question. She holds an MA in Curation from the University of Melbourne, along with qualifications in art history, finance and professional work experience as an accomplished project manager. She recently curated Liu Bolin 刘勃麟/伪装 and Noémie Goudal / Telluris for the 2019 Ballarat International Foto Biennale. Her next major project is Silent Dialogue. In the meantime, she is working on a variety of special initiatives which you can read about here.
