reflecting on an unsettled life

23.09.2026

While I was born and raised in England, my family in India are poor. So, my whole life, I have been hearing about poverty. I have been hearing about the insecurity and precarity that comes with an unsettled life.

My family in India, they believe that when they get to a developed Western country, their life will be settled. The lives of their children will be settled. This is what my grandfather believed when he came to this country. That’s the future that he imagined for his children and his grandchildren.

But my life has never been settled. I have had to struggle. Just like they dream of a settled life, so I have had to dream of a settled life.

The difference between the ones from India and the ones from here is that they have arranged marriages and they have their own unified community. So they fit in and they get hitched. They’re willing to work in whatever job they find because it is better than being unemployed in India or working for peanuts.

Here, if you are Indian and choose not to get an arranged marriage, try meeting someone. Try starting a family. Try getting the jobs that you are qualified for doing and would excel in. It all hitches on someone giving you a chance or an opportunity. When they cannot. Because of the racism in this country.

So, just like the origin of my poor family in India in the caste of the Dalits and Untouchables has clouded their whole life and made it a struggle, making their lives unsettled, so has my ethnic origin as an Indian person.

But still, I have refused to give up my Indian culture. I have refused to accept the conformity in this country or pander to the unjust expectations that we must all follow convention. Is it worth it? It has come at a great personal cost. The greatest personal cost. Yet if it was easy and convenient to be authentic and true to oneself, then the world would not be what it is.

The virtue of an unsettled life is that this is a life that I have created for myself despite everyone else. Despite the insane pressure from the Indian and the British community, I have forged my own way through life. I have done what I thought is right. I have made my own choices. I have thought out life in my own way.

The reward is isolation, uncertainty, the lack of a resolution or a happy ending. No love. The achievement? Dignity and self respect. We come from the honour culture. It is the greatest prize.

Frida and Whistler at the Tate: The Weirdness of the Artist

09.09.2026

The ambition? Two exhibitions in one day. Two of the most famous artists in the world. Two artists, I have to admit, that I do not have a particular affinity for.

It began with the Frida. Almost immediately, I noted what the tenor of the exhibition would be. Because there was not much of her work, they were going to pad it all out with other artists and photographs and imitators and those inspired by her. Her style has never appealed to me but the exhibition was keen to show why she was so iconic. She appealed to the women, the feminists, the LGBT+ community, those with medical issues, etc. She was capitalism’s darling as an artist.

I’ve always thought that as a woman artist, much of her reputation rested on her suffering. Because the public wants the artist to suffer. I know it by my own fortunes. They want us to have no money and suffer and suffer and suffer. This, they believe, gives good art. The most iconic artist in this regard is Van Gogh.

Frida was weird. The Suicide of Dorothy Hale, 1938 which depicts a young woman falling from a building was something she intended for the young woman’s mother instead of an idealised portrait. Can you believe it? Where was the compassion for the grieving mother? Frida rubbed in the circumstances of the tragic death instead. The woman lies at the bottom in a blanket of blood. This is what Frida’s art is: trying to show reality. Yet she is associated at the same time with the surreal, the out of ordinary and both realms collide on the spectacle of suffering.

The feminist credentials of the exhibition were iffy, considering she is a feminist icon. We wondered whether the nude intimate photographs of Frida should have been on display. They were private things that she had not authorised to be shown in her lifetime. Shouldn’t Frida have been given ownership of her own body as a woman? Again, Rivera’s work was displayed alongside hers. Wasn’t the aim of the feminists to argue that these women artists that lived in the shadow of their husbands were just as good? Wasn’t it the feminist aim for the art of the women to be seen aside from and apart from the art of their husbands? I found it weird given the context, even though I do not see myself as a Western feminist at all.

If Frida was weird, so was Whistler. He came across in the biographical details as a despicable and aggressive human being. He had fights with all the men in his life. In his time, when relationships were supposed to be for life, he seemed to go through woman after woman and could not keep faith with them. The display showed how petty and argumentative he was as well.

I’ve never admired his art. The best stuff for me was the White on White series, featuring his then love and muse Joanna Hiffernan. Perhaps because this is about love. Perhaps because it is less experimental than the other paintings in my mind.

Whistler was a rule breaker. He was expelled from Westpoint for breaking the rules. And he appeared to break the rules in art as well. However, the aesthetic is not appealing. The portraits all look unfinished and too faint and obscure. The landscapes are all obscured in the mist as well, although some of the nocturnes look okay. He was good as a realist artist as his early ink sketches show, but even there he was not exceptional.

The Peacock room fiasco where he overextended his artistic licence with a rich patron, which led to a bitter quarrel, shows the personality of the man. He believed that because he was an artist, that he was special and that he could do whatever he wanted. He was arrogant. And you can see this arrogance in his paintings. He made the sitters sit for up to seventy times so that he could control them, keep them immobile and under his sight. The man was obnoxious and on a weird power trip where he wanted to impose himself on everything and everyone. It’s not a surprise that he is so rated in a culture which overvalues arrogance and a supposed exceptionalism. The reason that he broke the rules? Because he thought he was too good for the rules.

20.08.2026 – Travel Diary: Sambourne House, Nigo exhibition at the Design Museum, Japan House, The Whitechapel Gallery

The day began with reading the news and meditation followed by chi building, light weights, a shower and breakfast. Language learning was next. Harry Potter in French, Urdu and Hindi. BBC Punjabi news and short stories for beginners in French and Spanish, a page each. On the commute to the first destination, I read Let’s Talk by Nihal Arthanayake, all about the art of conversation. I would finish the book during the day. My first finished book in a while as I am reading a few all together.

Sambourne House

A time capsule into the Victorian past with an overwhelmingly beautiful maximalist aesthetic. It was truly glorious to step into each room and look over the cherished family objects, many of them bought at auction and at bargain prices such as the chipped plates that were displayed on the wall. What added to the fascination was reading the room guides and learning how the family had acquired the objects and delving into their lives, how they truly lived on a day to day basis. For one house, there was so much to do.

The visit began with a video introduction to Linley the artist, the family and the house. The son Roy who had taken up the house was one of those boys that could not get on with education I noted, and had never managed to take the degree at Oxford.

The list of objects were intriguing. From the make do conservatory to the walking stick that had been manufactured from a crocodile spine, there was a glorious array. Roy’s room was full of photographs of actresses from the time, there were Linley’s cameras lying around, photographs of nudes, and a peculiar turtle shaped object near the fireplace which turned out to be a container for cigarettes.

At the end of the visit, as I was recircling the rooms, one of the volunteers came to speak with me alongside the fountain of all knowledge there who was called Stephen. We chatted about volunteering in these heritage sites and about some of the attractions around London.

Nigo Exhibition at the Design Museum

I went to this exhibition because I just happened to be in the area after Sambourne house. The story that they were telling about Nigo was that he wanted to rebel against the conformism in Japanese society. And therefore, he had gone to America and the west. As I pondered upon this tale, looking over his designs which I was not very partial to, all of the ugliest of American design copied out, I thought to myself why these non-Western people seem to think of the West as a revolution. All Nigo had done was to substitute Japanese conformism with American conformism. It was ridiculous. Yet they thought it was Revolution. Yes, it is Revolution to slavishly mimic the art and culture of the bullies in the world. To fawn over the powerful. Yes, that is the essence of Revolution.

I noted though, with a wry smile, that at the end of the exhibition, Nigo had become a Japanese tea master and learnt how to make Japanese porcelain in the old way. At least that was encouraging. He had gone to the west to rebel but had returned to his roots.

Japan House

After a lunch of reduced price sushi from Tesco’s, I had a quick look upstairs here as I had seen the exhibition downstairs about photography before. As usual, it was a delight to look over the tatami mats, the pearl jewellery, the wooden rings, the pottery and the dishes made out of lacquered wood, the stationery and the beautiful pens. To admire the Japanese infusion of art into everything that they do. I returned to the display about bamboo and reluctantly left the place.

The Whitechapel Gallery

I met up with a friend and she and I investigated the ‘patchwork’ theme of the artworks downstairs, including a video of the bespoke suit industry, the contrast of Islamic carpet textiles inside with the British world outside in a series of photographs of windows (perhaps about the religious Islamic view of the world?) a gold and textile screen which hid a video and poetry about Chinese immigrants in Britain and also a video about Bengali muslin producers.

As we were down there, we were informed of a speech by Fozia Ismail about ‘A Song for the Xeedho’, about knot making from a Somali nomadic community of women. The speech was interesting and went on for about an hour. I saw the artwork as a reaction against Western art and its values. The art was communal, not individualistic. It was from a women’s tradition and not patriarchal. It was by nomads and not the settled. It was handicraft rather than fine art.

Upstairs, we saw some beautiful greenery made out of bronze and paint, saw an exhibition where you tasted Bengali food and then a video about Punjabi women in the fields talking about their life. We also saw the exhibition on the ‘OITIJ-JO Collective: TUFAN’. I took a series of photographs of my friend with the artworks throughout.

Items read today commuting to and fro from places:

New York Times

The Metro

The Financial Times

The Transalpine Gazette

The Red Bulletin

Music listened to today:

Batwara 1947 – The Movie Soundtrack

Nindiya Pari from Gandhi Talks

I finished off the day with wings, fries and a mountain chicken fillet burger at Chicken Cottage washed down with a tropical Pepsi. And a phone call with my girlfriend just before I got the tube back home at Liverpool Street.

Travel Diary 13.08.2026

Today was results day for my two nephews. Anxiously, we awaited what would happen. It was good news. And particularly heartening for me because I had tutored one of my nephews and now he had got into the university that he wanted. The other boy, I had also helped to raise. These things are always team efforts.

After finding out, I headed off to Apsley House, home of the Duke of Wellington, the hero of the war against Napoleon. It was full of treasures, including an elaborate Egyptian dining centrepiece which was absolutely magnificent. The hieroglyphs were so detailed and done in miniature on the piece. There were amazing treasures too in this museum room, including much gold and many swords, some of them Persian and Indian. I particularly admired the mermaids on the trophies. In this room, I read a letter in French presenting the Egyptian centrepiece and thought to myself how wonderful it was that I could read the language so fluently. I had really enriched my life by studying the tongue.

I spoke to the volunteer about the fabulous Canova statue of Napoleon that was there, so heavy and big at three tons that the room underneath had had to be fortified. I told her that it was probably not my nephew’s favourite as the Napoleon section of the history exam had been quite difficult. There were many other Canovas too, which was a real delight, as well as paintings by Rubens and Velasquez, the latter which I admiringly gazed at. The rooms were all a delight and there were other treasures such as the oldest grand piano in the country. I asked one of the staff members what their favourite painting was in one of the rooms and noted that they had one of one of the places where I work. Apparently, she had also worked there. The banqueting table room was quite magnificent too and seeing it, a lady visitor remarked that the place was better than Buckingham palace.

The next trip was to Hyde Park, where I called on a couple of my friends to wish them a happy anniversary. By this time in the afternoon, I had already called one of my best friends, my girlfriend, an older lady friend who is not doing so well nowadays and the couple with the anniversary. I spent time in the park gazing at the floral beauties in the display in front of, of all places, the facilities.

Home next. On the commute to and fro from London I had been reading great tales from English history and listening to Hindi film songs. At home, I made myself sausage and ketchup sandwiches which I washed down with water. I went to sleep next on my bed.

When I woke up, I refreshed myself with some lychee juice and studied French, Spanish, German, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu by reading short stories and the news. A few letters to my pen pals in New Zealand and Paris were penned and then I spent time booking things with my girlfriend then headed into London again to meet up with her briefly before I embarked on the last stage of the night.

The venue was the Piano Smithfield near the Barbican. I crammed in a Subway meal for the first time in my life next to it: a sub made out of pepperoni, salami, cheese, jalapenos, red peppers, onions and spicy chipotle sauce. Washed down with a Coke and followed by a double chocolate cookie. It was quite tasty.

The performance was STAGE FEVER Vol. 1 – Royal Serenade, about Korean music and love. Featured Artists:

Soprano: Soyeon Shin, Sophia Jin

Global Pop Artist: QoA

Featured Musicians

Piano: Leah Park

Violin: Sophia Jin

Performers

Stanely Dubentru-huret

Henry Chandler

I had fun listening to the wonderful music, watching the dances and taking many photographs of the event which you can see on my instagram page for my photos – @suneelmehmi . At the end of the performance, I got a photo with the very beautiful Soyeon Shin who I had immediately been besotted with.

When I got home for the night time, I finished off a Lindt chocolate and hazel nut bar that had been kicking around for a couple of months and then edited up my photos of the event and posted them. Then, I wrote my travel diary which I have just completed now.

Oxford Travel Diary 09.08.2026

At 8 am, we left home for the trip. The ride there was accompanied by the songs of the Beegees and Burt Bacharach.

We arrived at the Park and Ride just out of the city in good spirits and caught the 400 bus down after almost going down to Redbridge instead. We had been asking a lady that had suggested it and also letting her know that we lived in Redbridge in London. The bus driver had redirected us. The journey into town was lively as there were a number of young students on the bus as well.

The first thing we did when we got into town was to dive into the Paul’s bakery where I treated myself to a blueberry brioche that was on for two pounds. It was delicious and I washed it down with a glass of water. My friend had an Americano and I was telling him that I was not a big fan of the flavour.

We got out of the bakery and walked past the town hall which was closed on a Sunday. Initially, we thought that we would just look around without any guidance or Google but then I saw what looked like a local and asked him for directions. He gave them to us patiently and when my friend enquired what it was like to live in Oxford, he told us it used to be much better.

The first stop was the Ashmolean museum. The staff on the entrance joked with us about cake and how we were too individualistic because we hadn’t shared any with them. Inside, we started off with the statues and then walked into the Ancient Egypt tour by Mary which had just started. The tour was very interesting and included the history of the Ashmolean, Great Britain’s first museum. When the tour was finished, we bumped into Mary again by a tablet in Ancient Greek and she started talking to us about all sorts of things like teaching Ancient Greek, classics and learning hieroglyphs. She answered all my friend’s questions about Ancient Egypt too. Then, she invited us to some drinks and we sat in the cafe with her talking about Oxford and things like whether museums should charge. I had a Coke while we were talking.

We meandered over to the Natural History museum next which was fun with all of the fossils. We took in the exhibition with the key materials of the future and spent a lot of time admiring the birds and insects that had been done in taxidermy. We started our adventure there with the cafe and had foccacio, mine with cheese, rocket and tomatoes. Highlights of the trip included seeing the Venus of Willendorf and seeing the skeleton of a chimpanzee as well as the skull of a hippopotamus. The Natural History museum lead into the Pitt Rivers museum which was a fantastic collection of stuff like Japanese masks, snuff boxes from different cultures and things like carved boats.

Next stop, the Oxfam bookshop. Slightly disappointing as I thought it would have a better selection. We do much better in London. I picked up a book on Imperialism though. We then made our way into the University Parks where we found a big tree to lie under and have a nap.

Feeling refreshed, we made our way into the city centre to have a look about. We did all the big tourist things. The Bridge of Sighs which I thought had been slightly over hyped. Investigating the area around the Bodleian library and seeing the Radcliffe Camera too, an area in which I had a chocolate chip ice cream and where we were surrounded with what looked like Chinese tourists.

We wandered into the Thames path next and had a refreshing walk in the greenery. We were behind a massive group of young students. My friend had a swim in the Thames. We came out and saw the music artist Devon Mayson performing the Cher song ‘Do you believe in love after love’ in the balcony of ‘The Head of the River’ and then walked into the Christchurch gardens which were wonderfully beautiful.

We closed the day at Oxford with a meal at Popeyes where we had a Cajun spiced chicken burger, mine with spicy wings and fries. Finally, it was the 400 bus back to the park and ride and then a journey home where I had to rest my eyes a little bit. I got back home at about a quarter past eleven and finally in bed at about a quarter to midnight after sharing the photos and videos of the day with my friend.

Ulting and Southend on Sea – Travel Diary 08.08.2026

The last long walk and day out that my friend and I had last week was from Woolwich Arsenal to Crystal Palace which was about forty five thousand steps (but I never managed to write about this walk). I was really looking forward to this walk.

After we dropped off my son’s friend at Stanstead Airport, we headed down to Ulting and the river Chelmer. The sun was glorious and not too intense and we made our way down along the river. My friend was seeking out an entry point for some wild swimming. Apparently, the Chelmer was known to be a good spot for this.

Unfortunately, the lining in my favourite grey Puma trainers had ruptured and my foot had been sore with a blister for the past few days. Today I was in excruciating pain. I hobbled along.

The river was populated by a number of families and couples. We saw a guy with his whole body tattooed several times as he walked up and down the riverbank with his girlfriend (tattooless). There were little boys fishing with their fathers and my friend asked them if they had caught anything. There was one very pretty blonde woman on her bike with her boyfriend accompanying her too.

We noted quite a few points where the entry point would be quite good and decided to do the thing after a quick snack. We stopped off at the lock and had a seat in the shade and cracked open a box of chocolate chip cake and bananas. I peered inside my trainer and discovered why my foot was in such pain. The rupture in the lining had created a hard nodule that had risen up and it was digging into my foot. Although my foot hurt, I had not been aware of it. I pulled it out. Then we set back to find the suitable spot to have a wild swim. It took a bit of time to navigate where my friend could get in but we got to it.

As we walked back, which was now less painful, my friend was telling me his theory about fishing. It was, he said, a sport where you hunted in one spot. You were chasing the animal in a stationary position, which made it a unique form of hunting.

My friend stripped off and got into his trunks and then went into the river. I had decided not to go in because I had caught a few things in the past from swimming and had been advised not to do anything by my girlfriend in addition. So I took some action shots of my friend. The water looked very cool, refreshing and invigorating and my friend told me that it was indeed. I was tempted to get in but decided that it was good enough to sit on a towel on the riverbank in the shade and to live the experience vicariously through my friend.

We drove down next to Southend on Sea next, to some parts that I had never been before like Thorpe Bay, although I had been to the grammar school there for seven years. When we got there, we happened upon a Toby Carvery so I treated us to a big roast as a thank you to my friend for driving us all day. It was delicious. I had a king sized platter. He heaped his plate which too much food but amazingly managed to finish it and was completely stuffed afterwards.

After that, we walked along the beach for a few hours. It was windy at first and it was messing around my hair which was annoying, as I am quite self-conscious about it. However, it was an amazing walk. We were scanning the ground for interesting shells and jellyfish of which there were many. I was picking up stones and admiring them and we skimmed some across the surface of the sea, although my friend was much better at this than me. My foot was still in considerable pain – in the evening I would see that there was a massive blister there. We managed twenty five thousand steps in the day though by the end. If there’s one thing that anyone knows about me, it is that I can endure a lot of pain and I don’t like to give up.

We came across a lady feeding seagulls which was quite a picturesque sight and I wish that I had taken a few photos of it after getting her permission. A blonde lady with a family took some photos of me and my friend on the beach at my request. She was a pro apparently and took a number of shots, although the final version that we went with was just the one straight forward shot that she took as my friend was not a fan of the diagonal angles. At one point, we walked though a massive Afro Caribbean party on the beach.

I went back to Toby’s Carvery at the end and got myself a chocolate brownie sundae. My friend was still full and didn’t want one. We had a final look at the sea as my friend had suggested some more wild swimming but now it was slightly colder and he had eaten a little too much so we gave it a miss. Then, at the end, what was there but the drive home? We listened to Dan TDM with video game music on Classical FM, discussing which sounds were palatable or not. The foot was super sore in the evening.

the reality of the mountain

04.08.2026

S: In this journey, there is the mountain. And there is only the mountain. There is no plain sailing.

A: You do not have to climb the mountain.

S: That is what you believe. Each has a different destiny. When there is the expectation, there is the mountain.

A: You will insist on the mountain?

S: They insist upon it.

A: And what of this mountain? The great can ascend to any height.

S: That is indeed the mark of their greatness. And yet, even the great have to succumb to the reality of the mountain. Why do they have to succumb? Their energies would have brought more to fruition if the mountain was not there.

A: Humanity will always create the mountain. They do not want to let anyone do anything.

S: This is the reality. Ayn Rand wrote about this in ‘Atlas Shrugged’. Dickens wrote about it with the Circumlocution Office. This is what society generally is. The obstruction. The odds are ever against you performing and achieving. Because they do not want Revolution. They do not sincerely want progress. They want you to follow the herd.

A: Why not follow the herd. It is easier?

S: The herd are full of hate and stupidity and ignorance. The herd are uncouth, arrogant and evil. You would follow this? You would have a man follow this? The man follows his own way. And this is why we are a rarity in this world.

A: It is fashionable to attack the people.

S: One follows goodness. Read their newspapers. Watch them. See their actions in the world. Then judge. They have failed in goodness. Evil has overtaken goodness in this world. The ideals we have been brought up upon, they do not have these ideals. And then, it is not only the People that we judge and criticise. It is their leaders that they have chosen too. The whole system is corrupt. The mountain too, this is corrupt. It is evidence of their corruption. And yet, still we climb the mountain. As is often said, it is there. It is the reality of the mountain that calls for its conquest.

monsters of the jurassic deep or heroism does not take a holiday

26.07.2026

The day was ending. Quickly, quickly, I was writing a list of things I had done today for A. It had been a day of art, nature, relationships, politics, literature, scholarship and social duty.

Reading news.
Shaving.
Phoning friends and family.
Contacting professional acquaintances.
Crossword, Scrabble and Jigsaw puzzle online.
Breakfast with parents.
Languages learning. Short stories and news in Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, Spanish, French and German.
Reading psychology articles.
Messaging friends and sharing writing with them.
Reading history.
Listening to Hindi music.
Natural History Museum exhibition, ‘Jurassic Oceans: Monsters of the Deep’.
Window shopping in the Natural History Museum shop.
Natural History Museum garden visit. Took a photo of a family there for them.
Chinese lunch at Chopstix.
Buying books at the bookshop in South Kensington: – Art Deco – 100 years of Fashion – Rare Plants by Kew Gardens – The Language of Trees – History of Illustration – The Great Tree Story
Ice cream in Macdonald’s.
Sitting in St Martin in the Fields.
Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller ‘Landscapes’ exhibition at the National Gallery.
Watching the Palestinian protest in Trafalgar Square.
Shopping: buying sunglasses on a 70% sale.
Embankment Gardens visit.
Meet up.
Reading Skandar and the Phantom Rider.
Breaking up a fight where two young men were beating up a lone youngster.
Dinner at home – Chicken Biryani.
Writing.
Sketching.

would ask me about breaking up the fight. I had just got off the bus for home. Two lads were beating up a third lad. They started just as I had crossed the road from them. I was carrying a heavy bag of books on top of another bag I was carrying. I was rushing for home because I was very hungry. It was dark. I couldn’t see much, especially as I was not wearing my glasses. I was tempted not to get involved. It was dangerous. But I would not think of myself as a man or a Punjabi if I did not get involved. I shouted at the top of my voice, an order. ‘Stop what you’re doing or I will call the police! Stop right now!’ They looked at me and they stopped what they were doing straight away and walked off. I looked over to make sure that the kid that was bullied was okay. He was. He was grabbing his stuff that had fallen to the floor. Someone else would not have helped. A woman was there on the other side of the road where they were a few metres in front, just watching and not doing anything. But I was not a woman. I was a man. And I was not any man. I was The Tiger. I am the bravest. I am the warrior. Sometimes, people tell me that god sent me to help them. Just in time. It is not true. I myself am god on this earth. My name is the name of god. It is the duty of the strong to protect the weak. It is the duty of god to protect the People, the Oppressed. Thanks or no thanks.

Golden Girl Bridgette K Schnider (Degree Show 2026, The King’s Foundation of Traditional Arts)

25.07.2026

When listening, it is much more pleasant to have someone that talks with some bounce in their voice, some energy. Fortunately, when Bridgette introduced herself, her voice was abundant in this dynamic quality of bounce. We had both come in together at the very beginning of the exhibition in the morning on the opening and she shot a hello at us all on the front desk as I was filling up on the water on the table in this inclemently hot weather.

I met her very shortly afterwards at her corner in the exhibition and asked her to give me some direction to her work. There were two rows of exquisite open boxes along the wall which had been chased in gold. The boxes were full of sumptuous designs and objects such as sea shells and butterflies. ‘Gilding,’ she declared, or something of the sort. She was a gilder. She was the first one that I had ever met in my entire life.

‘What attracts you to gold?’ I asked her. She told me that gold was full of light. And that the light would last into the darkness of night. The artworks would glimmer with gold, catching whatever light was left. I did not investigate further and forgot to mention that one of my nicknames at home was actually ‘gold’ as well (‘sona’). For her, it transpired, gold was the day and the sunlight. Gold was the guardian of light.

Gilding, it emerged, was something like a magical alchemy. It involved an array of esoteric qualities like squirrel’s hair for the tip and rabbit skin glue. The whole practice of Bridgette’s degree course seemed to revolve around such rare materials – the Mughal inspired paintings that she had in one corner involved the use of a single hair to get at the details of the miniatures. In this gilder, I was confronting something of the spell caster. And perhaps it was magic to catch the sun in gold and the morning in the night with these works.

Aside from the Indian miniatures, which included a lovely falcon that had been presented amongst the rich and unique hues of (malachite?), Bridgette’s work was influenced heavily by Japanese gilding and by the Baháʼí Faith, which was evident on a closer examination because the boxes were accompanied by quotations from the religion.

The pieces were composed as boxes. Bridgette told me that this was because there was both an exterior and an interior which could be admired, the hidden and the visible, more to see and explore. And, as I thought, as the boxes could be closed, we had the closed and the open, the entrance into and the shut door of art which was still art itself. Was this an exploration of the visibilities and invisibilities of art? Was it a comment upon the content of art?

One piece particularly aroused my admiration and attention, which was the butterfly box. The butterflies echoed the box because they had two ‘wings’ and shared a mirror symmetry. The butterflies invoked the idea of the soul since the Greek word ‘psyche’ for the soul also meant butterfly. I wondered what Bridgette made of the soul although I did not ask her. Were these souls flying or landing on the branch in these butterflies? The barrenness and bareness of the branch contrasted strongly with the opulence and the elegance of the butterlies, nature versus the man made. The butterflies themselves lacked senses, eyes and antennae. They were abstract and disembodied forms with the blues of heaven and the spiritual set amongst the gold. They were a symbol of metamorphosis and change, perhaps again referencing alchemy from this gilder, the transformation of base metals and nature into gold. Gold as the ultimate apotheosis, the ultimate aim of the alchemist. Gold as telos, as perfection and completion.

The butterflies re-emerged in ‘Going Home’, which aroused more questions about whether the previous butterflies as souls had been landing or flying, whether they were coming home or flying away from home, whether they were orientated or disorientated. In this, the butterflies seemed to symbolise Bridgette’s own situation. She was an American artist that had been studying in London. Was she going to go back home or was she going to keep on flying through this world here?

‘Crown of Rememberance’ seems to share the same maze like insinuations in design like ‘Going Home’. If the structure is a maze, it appears that there is no escape. It is a self-contained world, the world of gold and art.

In ceramics, Bridgette dazzled with her colour schemes and her designs. There was many a beautiful piece which I could see in shops such as ‘Liberty’s’ in London.

I had another word with Bridgette just before I left. She works extremely hard at her craft and is evidently multi-talented as an artist. She is full of ambition and drive. I was impressed by her and her work and wished that I could do something to open some doors for her. In her outfit full of stars, she was clearly living in the same celestial sphere as the golden butterflies, but also here with us on this grey earth. Such is the reality of the artist that flies in the skies, the reality of the alchemist that deals with the base metals hoping for the magic and the transformation of gold.

Bridgette’s Contacts:

Instagram: colorandgold
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MA Performance: Screen Screening 1 – Central Saint Martins, UAL

Review by Dr. Suneel Mehmi

Platform Theatre, London, England

Wednesday, June 10 • 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM

My Mum has an Art Studio, by Zhang Jiaqi

MY REVIEW:

In India, the goddess of art and culture is Saraswati, a mother goddess. It is The Mother that gives inspiration and art. Similarly, this story sees the powerful figure of the mother as the instructor and enabler of creativity for a daughter that is suffering from creative fatigue.

The mother is shown as the greater voice of experience from an Asian culture which values and respects elders. She is also full of vitality, a quality that the daughter aspires to and therefore, one suspects, this is missing in her life. The mother seems to be the young one and not the daughter. The scene which clinches this impression is when the mother is encircled by a group of young dancers and dancers in the centre, entrancing all eyes with her energy. Therefore, just like the Mother Goddess, the Mother in the film is power. The power of creation. The film is the worship of The Mother, similar to Hindu religion.

The Mother’s studio was amazing, full of busts and plants, showing that she was one with nature. The daughter also describes the mother as amazingly beautiful, which invokes the Freudian idea of the desire for the mother too.

The mother’s role is set amidst a homecoming. Does the Mother represent China and its continuity of culture over thousands of years? Is there an idea that unity with the Motherland is the secret to creativity?

SUMMARY:

A daughter who hasn’t been home for years comes back exhausted and uncertain after graduation. Facing her first major life choice, she doubts if she should continue painting and struggles with reality.

At home, she notices her mother is different. The woman who always waited for her is now building her own life. In this gentle spring, they take a short but profound trip. The mother leads her to a hidden studio—a secret space she built for herself. During their time together, the daughter finally sees her mother’s persistence and growth, which helps her rethink her own path.

This is a journey of self-discovery and mutual understanding, a transformation for both mother and daughter. It is a homecoming and a rediscovery of the mother’s growth. In each other’s eyes, they show their true selves and complete a change of understanding and companionship.

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Cast:
Daughter: Junhuan Cheng
Mother: Jiahan Bu
Dancing guys: Lytia Liu, Argo, Cheryl Ding, Jingyi Yuan, Xinxin Zhang, Frank Liu, Guosheng Sun, Zeyang Li, Changxin Ma

Director and Screen Writer: Jiaqi Zhang
1st Assistant Director: Xinxin Zhang
Script Assistant: Argo
Director Assistants: Xiaoya Wang, Hanchao Yang
Production Manager: Cheryl Ding
Production Assistant: Jingyi Yuan
Production Runner: Changxin Ma
Director of Photography: Songming Cai
Focus Puller: Frank Liu
Camera Assistant: Kai Wang
Camera Technician: Jiqin Zhang
DIT: Liangyu Huang
Gaffer: Yuyang Chen
Lighting Assistants: Guosheng Sun, Changjun Zhou, Fengchun Yu
Production Designer: Sers Shi
Art Director: Runyu Li
Property Master: Hai Zhao
Art Production Assistants: Muyi Fu, Zile Wang
Sound Recorder: Zeyang Liu
Editor: Jiaqi Zhang
Colorist: Xilin Zhang
Sound Designer: Die Lai
Composer: Junwen Wu
Poster Designer: Jiaqi Zhang
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Berglas Effect, by Todd Chen

MY REVIEW:

This is an ambiguous meditation on the theme of domestic violence, which is what joins together all of the characters. Characters mirror each other in attempting to end domestic violence (against women), or attempting to revenge it. But their attempts culminate in murder itself, suggesting that there is no escape from violence (although feminist criticism might argue something very different here). In many ways, this is a comment upon human culture. There has always been an argument between peace and war, between violence and non-violence. The two are structurally connected, however much one tries to separate them. And in this sense, the film is a Derridean analysis of how much unites what is thought of as discrete. How there can be no separation.

The title refers to the sleights of hand and illusions that the film makers are creating with the script.

There were technical faults with this film which I am pointing out because these are students and therefore this is constructive criticism. One, the subtitles disappeared into the white at some points. I cannot understand (Chinese?) and therefore I missed some of the dialogue. Second, the face of the main character was blurred in a few scenes.

SUMMARY:

Berglas Effect is an attempt at a film creation in the suspense and crime genre with dark elements. This work depicts a series of consecutive tragedies triggered by domestic violence, in which three characters are drawn into the vortex due to their respective obsessions, and ultimately no one achieves true liberation.

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Cast: Zhang Xu, Wang Hu Lei Lei Ben Zhang

Director: Song Yan Ze & Chen Jia Cheng
Actor Assistant Director: Huang Yin Luo
Script Supervisor: Li Guan Yuan
Production Manager: Wu Si Rui
Director Of Photography: Williams Zhang
Gaffer: Zhu Yan Tao
Production Designer: Song Shao Pu
Art Director: Wan Jing Ning
Special Effects Makeup: Cheng Zhuo Ya
Recording Supervisor: Chen Yu Fan
Production Sound Mixer: Wang Tian Jiu
Editor: Zhang Peng
Sound Designer: Chen Ruo Jing Chen Yu Fan
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UPHILL, DOWNHILL, by Wenhan Qin

MY REVIEW:

This mountain is a metaphor for the uphill climb or struggle of life, and how one can get lost or disorientated within it. These youngsters climb the mountain to try and connect with the heavens, with alien life forms, with an advanced intelligence and the gods of the sky. However, they become lost. There is much pressure on them. They do not form that connection with the heavens that they so desperately want.

This is a young person’s idea of ambition. Ambition, however, should not be to connect with something greater, something that is not human. Ambition should be to connect to others, to one’s relations. In the film, the young man cannot connect with his mother. He ignores her phone calls and argues with her. It is relationships that ground us to this world, our origins that remind us who and what we are, where we are and where we are going.

Instead of asking strangers for help and thinking that they won’t just leave you to die (when that is what they will do, because you and everyone is expendable to them), and treating our nearest and our well-wishers as enemies, we have to accept that they expect things of us and we have to try our best to achieve those expectations. For our family and the ones that love us, we are not expendable. We are not just our careers. We are the ones that they love. And that should be enough. Why is it not enough? That is what you have to ask of this society.

SUMMARY:

A phone call from Xiao Xiu’s mother threatens to drag him back into a life he can no longer control. Desperate to escape, he retreats to an isolated mountain rumoured to receive mysterious signals. There, he encounters a young content creator and an obsessive inventor — each searching for a different kind of answer.

When one of them disappears, the mountain transforms from refuge into maze, filled with dead ends, unresolved choices, and a reality that keeps closing in.

UPHILL, DOWNHILL is a poetic film about young people stumbling through early adulthood — fleeing their fate, and anxiously hoping someone will show them the way.

–
Cast: Xiao Jiang, Huaiyi Zeng, Duo Hu
Director: Wenhan Qin
Assistant Director: Litao Li
DoP: Luyao Liu
B-Camera Operator: Peng Zhang
Focus Puller: Yazhou Cui, Chuandong Wang
Camera Assistant: Weizheng Li, Xiao Wang, MKX
Production Designer: Junyan Jiang
Art Assistant: Xiangcheng Wang
Sound Recordist: Jia Hu
Sound Assistant: Yongwei Zhang
Script Supervisor: Shiran Xu
Production Assistant: Dakang Lu
Still Photographer: Mingyuan Liu
Editor: Wenhan Qin

Thanks: Anne Beresford, Gabi Tropia
–

Last night, I dreamed I learned how to swim, by Yuyan Zhang

MY REVIEW:

Jealousy of the mother is apparent in this one, particularly the sexuality of the mother. The sexuality of the mother and modelling upon it is related to the burgeoning periods and sexuality of the teenager, suggesting that the film is possibly an examination of female role models in the construction of young girls and the firing off of mirror neurons in the brain and how these relate to vision (this is a film) and action.

The mother is also controlling. Therefore the expression of her sexuality is seen as a form of power perhaps. And this is why the young teenager is jealous and attempts to acquire that power for herself. One wonders what a feminist might make of this characterisation, that sex is power for women. Is this a stereotype? Or is the film debunking this stereotype?

The teenager is a spy and this is therefore about the construction of a scopic regime and surveillance, perhaps the idea of Foucauldian panopticism. The scene that is therefore of particular interest is when the young teenager cuts off the swimming costume that covers her whole body (like the panopticon) and exposes her body. There is the tension between exposure and revealing. The final ending has this too, when we are finally exposed to the sexual development of the daughter, although through the implicit rather than to the bodily. The aesthetic is revealing through concealing, showing through hiding, manifesting through veiling. I’m sure someone has written about this in terms of sexuality, that there is the dance between showing and telling.

SUMMARY:

Sixteen-year-old Xu Muze is forced by her mother into swimming class, anxious over her delayed first period. By chance, she sees her mother secretly dating the swimming coach and watches her become a different woman in a dance hall. Water mirrors her fear and longing. In a dream, she finally learns to swim, but can never catch up with her mother. She wakes to her first period. After seeing her mother, she truly sees herself for the first time.

–
Cast: Harmonie He, Jun Liu, Xiaobao Zhao, Benben 
Director: Yuyan Zhang 
1st Assistant Director: Qiren Xu
Script Assistant: Xinyi Li 
Production Manager: Diman Luo
1st Production Assistant: Tong Lv, Jiaying Wu
2nd Production Assistant: Yongqi Su, Zhuyue Hu 
Director Of Photography: Jiacheng Chen 
Camera Operator: Jeff Zhang
Focus Puller: Tuoran Li 
Gaffer: Shuhao Wang
Best Boy: Tianwei Bao
DIT: Yaokun Mo
 Art Director: Cong Le
Art Assistant: Ruimin Li 
Stylist: Xinjue Wu
Hair and Make-up: Xiaochen Zhu, Yanping Zhang, Yixin Chen 
Sound Recordist: Zhixuan Zhao
Boom Operator: Xiaoni Huang
 Sound Designer: Yufan Chen 
Colorist: Shiqi Sun
 Editor: Yuyan Zhang
–

Puann-hì, by Ding Wei

MY REVIEW:

This one appears to be gauging the contest between Western drama exemplified by Medea and Chinese traditional art forms which are interlaced throughout. It is about the idea that acting is about courage, what it means to be a woman that is not docile and weak, to be able to speak up and express oneself.

This was the most technically beautiful film for me, with its choreography and dream-like sequences.

The film investigated the theme of domestic abuse and, moreover, the man was the powerful villain because he was the landlord and held the financial power. Therefore, one might see the film as an exposure of the patriarchy and its misogyny driven by feminism.

SUMMARY:

A Minnan girl named A-ning, who studies far from home, is rehearsing for a production of *Medea*. Returning home during the holidays, she finds her homeland both familiar and isolating, uncertain where she truly belongs. The struggles of real life often make her long to become a powerful woman like Medea in the play—but in Minnan, Medea is dismissed by her grandmother as a foolish and selfish woman. She can’t help but wonder: without a dragon-drawn chariot, without myth, what kind of “revenge” do we need in the 21st century?

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Cast: Faymin, Ding Yunchen, Huang Jiale, Li Weisi, Chen Xiufeng
Director: Ding Wei
Assistant Director: Li Yihan
Producer: Li Fan
UPM: Kilin Lin
DOP: Cai Songming
Camera Assistant: Jin Xiao
Puller: Huang Jinqi
Gaffer: Peng Junjie
Lighting Assistant: Tu Erqi
Production Designer: Fang Woni, Hu Jingtong
Art Assistant: Feng Yu
Stylist: Feng Yu
Sound Designer: Tang Chenhui
Sound Assistant: Peng Haiyun
Script Supervisor: Chen Yufei
Editor: Ding Wei
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Xiang Qian Kan Qi, by Cong Le

MY REVIEW:

Castration (the Freudian losing of the teeth) figures as a major theme here, perhaps the castration of the individual by the state, since we are talking about a performance for the nationalistic Olympics here. If castration is not about power, what is it about? It is a powerlessness imposed by the powerful, the oppressors in the state that control representation. This was perhaps the essence of the body horror that we saw here, the hair cutting, the teeth being pulled out, even the contortionism of the heroine.

This was the most lavishly shot out of all the films which made me wonder how the budget was so big! The choreography made the film very beautiful.

This film seemed to be about the idea of disappearance in the body. Teeth disappearing. The body of the heroine disappearing. The lack that the state creates in the body…

SUMMARY:

Amid the Olympic fever of 2008, in a dance troupe with a strict hierarchy, the girls were compared, selected and replaced amid the undercurrents of competition. Qianqian tried hard to fit in with the rules, but the honour she eventually gained was to completely disappear from the most dazzling stage.

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Cast: Xuanyu Zhang, Xuanyushan He, Peixin Li
Director/Writer: Cong Le
1st Assistant Director: Zhiyuan Li
2nd Assistant Director: Yuyan Zhang
Script Supervisor: Yi Lu
Choreographer: Xinyi Du, Jiayi Ding
Unit Production Manager: Fujiwara Kai
1St Production Assistant: Siyu Chen, Yujing Yang
Director Of Photography: Yinghai Hu
Focus Puller: Shiyong Li
1st Assistant Camera: Yingqiang Liu
Gaffer: Jun Yuan
Best Boy: Fadong Li, Zongyang Duan, Qun Yuan
Digital Imaging Technician: Ziwei Goh
Art Director: Zifan Wang
Prop: Fei Gao, Hui Tian, Chaochao Zheng, Zhenjiang Lu, Hongling Zhao
Costume Designer: Haoying Zhang
Stylist: Zhao Chen
Hair And Make-up: Zhiyang Li, Zeyu Wang, Yixuan Zuo
Sound Designer: Yiran Ma, Zikang Wang
Sound Mixer: Zikang Wang
Boom Operator: Yehan Li
Composer: Monstar Cao, Yiran Ma
Editor: Cong Le
Colorist: Shangbai Jiang