25.06.2026

A: Why do you hate other people so much?

S: What have they done to deserve any love? Look at the world that they have put up around themselves.

A: But you are always talking about the love for humanity.

S: For humanity. Not for humans. For them in the abstract. Because their concrete form is atrocious. And besides which, the humanity that I live for and service is an idealised humanity. Without this idealisation, there would be no motivation to help people like these.

A: Is this world then so bad?

S: It is so wonderful that people have stopped reading the newspapers because they couldn’t bear to hear about the glorious achievements and happenings of this world. The fact that you can ask that question with a straight face is quite incredible.

A: But your life is not too bad, is it? You have someone. You have work. You have assets. You have the gift of genius. You have so many varied interests. You have a huge circle of friends. You can basically do whatever you feel like doing…

S: Genius lives in a world without appreciation and without recognition. And for a genius with the ego of a genius, this is torture. I suffer that I am not given my due.

A: People will always find something to complain about.

S: I complain about people. I am not people. I am the lone one. I am The Tiger. What do they do except produce complaints from the objective observer? Atrocious actions. Calamitous carryings-on. Repulsive redundancies.

A: Alliteration in all of its iterations. The Tiger scowls. But the friend asks, what is the cost for a smile?

25.06.2026

A: You still think that you are like Christiano Ronaldo?

S: Yes.

A: The one thing that you have in common is the ego.

S: That is exactly on the head of the nail. Yes, we share this ego. We believe that we are the best. We believe that we are the greatest. And that is why we perform. For the sake of this ego, we will go to any length. We are totally disciplined for this ego. We are brilliant and daring because of this ego.

A: Where does this ego come from?

S: Ronaldo, me. We have come from a humble background. He worked as a cleaner when he was a child, everyone knows this. It is this humble background that has given us this unassailable ego. This ego, this belief that we are special, exceptional, this has given us the ability to disregard the critics. The ability to answer the critics with genius. This ego allows us to overcome.

A: Your ego is political?

S: Yes, it is the ego of the fighter.

A: You realise that there are those that hate Ronaldo because of his ego? That hate you because of your ego?

S: They are inconsequential and weak. They make their whole lives about envy and jealousy. I don’t. Do you think that I am jealous of anyone that has been more successful than me? No I am not. Because I am confident in my own abilities. I know that I am a genius. I know that I am the truth. I didn’t climb up the greasy pole by kissing arse, through a popularity contest. Everything I have gotten in my life and done has been through honest hard work. Which they are not capable of. They have to cheat to get where they are. They are contemptible, not aspirational. I would never want to be like them.

A: Some claim that Ronaldo is arrogant.

S: The exceptional individual lives apart from the herd. What does it matter what they think? He is the captain of the team. He is the leader. He is the genius. He is the one that they talk about, that all eyes are on. And he is the one that will be remembered as the champion of the people.

A: It may never come to you like it has for Ronaldo.

S: Then that would be despite the talent. In any case, I have a name. I am known. Scholarship cites my work. Reviewers review my books. I have been published in many places.

A: You are not the public intellectual that you would be.

S: Life is long and every dog has its day. Remember this ego and this self-belief. I have never given up. We will see. The People, The Oppressed, The Mother, they expect.

23.06.2026

A: Why have you always wanted to be a writer?

S: To change the world.

A: Really? Since the very beginning?

S: There is this convention in writing. Everything is normal in the beginning. Then there is a disruption to the normal. And then everything goes back to being normal. That is exactly the kind of story that I do not want to write.

A: What do you want to write then?

S: In the beginning, there is the normal. But this is oppression. Then, there is the difference. The difference challenges the normal, the oppression. And then? Then, there is The Revolution. The change.

A: Do you think that only you want to change this world?

S: Not at all. I am the dream of The People. I am the dream of The Oppressed. I am their voice.

A: Why then are you not lauded and celebrated?

S: Because there is a sickness in this world. The rich and the powerful have made the world into a gutter full of cockroaches. They have only sycophants and non-men.

A: You would create a man?

S: My Mother has created a man. She has created a machine of war. I ask for an army of us.

A: You believe that you are the leader?

S: I believe that I can do anything I set my mind on. I believe that I am the hero.

A: So you write because you are the hero?

S: What else? And if my readers did not believe it, they would not read.

Review by Dr. Suneel Mehmi

Fern Gillam

Ferngillam.com

Insta: @fern.gillam.art

An examination of sculpture as theatre, this piece was of two figures conversing on a stage. One vertical and dyed with beetroot and made of toy stuffing, another made out of toilet paper and which expanded horizontally like in a rhizomatic way. The theme was social mobility and class. The stage was tiered, perhaps suggesting social stratification. At the same time, the verticality and the horizontality of the figures and this contrast maybe suggested class too. Fern spoke of how her practice aims to be inclusive of working class artists and to inspire them, to give them the motivation to succeed. Al the materials were resourcefully attained and would be reused, so this was a sustainable, ethical and economic artwork.

India Andrews-Eden

Insta: eden_indi

A striking video of a woman dressed as porcelain in blue and white captured our vision. She was moving a table backwards and forwards which seemed to have sexual connotations, whether or not this was a phallic symbol. One exhibition showed a pierced breast volcanically erupting with blood and which was rhymically knifed by a mechanical blade which perhaps alluded to breast surgery and bodily expectations. Blood was in the video and in the doll figures. The exhibition seemed to be about the sexualisation of women’s bodies and the violence done to them because of this, all of which the artist refers to as ‘the monstrous feminine’.

Ishitaa Kermani

@stitchstories_ishitaa

Textile patterns made out of leaves, which are sustainable, environmentally friendly and biodegradable. A real alternative to plastic sequins and the problems that they cause in the world. The designs were intricate and very thoughtfully laid out. The detailing and the colours were a reminder of Indian miniature painting and therefore combined innovation and modern relevance with tradition, in the Indian way which always celebrates our values in an ever-changing world.

Momo Stevens

@threadedbymomo

A beautiful kimono with intricate floral surfaces that combined hand stitching with the machine made to produce an affluence of cherry blossoms. An astonishingly elegant and poetic piece which utilised traditional Japanese methods and therefore also combined tradition with modernity.

Xinge Liu – Re-streaming

@xiagoe_x_x_

Wonderful brush strokes and pink shades combined to make this figurative painting stand out. A wonderful and dynamic piece with an unforgettable aesthetic. Play with different paint forms and gradiations as well as the subtle and accomplished rendering of fabric and costume at the heart of the image.

Cerys Kilmartin – Kin

Insta: ceryskilmartinn

A wonderfully witty and well thought out examination of the ingredients it takes to make a family, in the concrete form of a dining table with menus and place mats.

Ana-Maria Margarit

https:depositsilk.github.io/depositsilk/

@depositsilk

A muon capture device. Muons introduce randomness into binary code as subversive cosmic ray particles. This exhibition caught them as sound, as the sound of randomness. This was the investigation of the universe’s sabotage of computing, the idea of disruption as art, of the introduction of the universe’s anarchy into the human world of programming and planning. Ana-Maria had built her own circuits and this evolution in art was a departure from her beginnings in Blender, computer aided design, a real move away from the art of the computer.

Yufan Wang, Improvisation 2026

@sanye_animal

At the back, there is an auditorium of cameras representing surveillance and pressure. You sit with your back to them in a stress-free space. And you do an exam on paper which is a subversion of the exam factory, particularly that which represents Chinese studies for the entrance exams. The exam paper has nonsense questions and nonsense answers. It questions the value of examinations because it says it is worth a £100 pounds because it has ten ten pound notes glued to its back. This is the creation of a comic space which examines the societal pressure to perform and the implicit expectations of Asian culture for the young and the future.

Rosie O’Neill – Conversation Piece

@rosieoneilldesign

You sit on chairs which have scripts for four different voices on each chair. You have the scripted conversation. The creation of an immersive theatre space with no audience. The pleasures of reading, the pleasures of acting and the pleasures of speaking all combined.

Charlie Turnbull-Hall

@by.charlieth

A stylish black shirt with a scarlet rose on it which invokes the heights of haute couture and sophistication. A wonderful design.

Sarah Martinez Cornejo

Sarahmartinezcomejo.com

A pyramid sculpture which evoked the South American civilisations that had come before and connected to the traditions and culture of the artist. There was a book shaped as a mirror behind which shows the hand postures that had created the design, themselves inspired by glyphs from South American heritage. The pyramid as a memorial, as the preservation of time and culture perhaps, but also as the memory of the body and the artist’s hands to stand against the ravages of time.

Neha Ratanchand

Bluemangopractice.cargo.site

@bluemangopractice

Neha asks me what do women need more of? I say love. Everyone needs more love. Neha tells me that women need more space. It is something she learnt in South India, watching the conditions for women out there. So, she gives women space. A huge black notebook. A huge pencil.

She tells me to write that women need more love in the notebook since this was my answer. I move the pencil around. Maybe it represents the weight of the phallocentric order and patriarchy because of its phallic shape. I draw a heart with an arrow through it.

You can see the video of this immersive art experience on my Instagram account: @suneelmehmi