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HOPE

 

Gurur Ertem, social scientist and performance studies scholar, added HOPE* to the Words for the Future collection. In her essay she writes how in the light of the disruptive political events in Turkey, it appeared: "Hope is something that occurs in very dark moments" John Berger had said, and, it did. Ertem started collecting a Syllabus of Hope of sorts: 'Are there any reasons to be hopeful despite the evidence?' 'What are new ways of seeing in the dark?' -In HOPE, Ertem explores some first responses to these questions through a strong political and poetic perspective and writing.

 

"Hope, I wish there was more of it, but reality is an obstruction" (He laughs) "No I take that back." - Ogutu Muraya gifted storyteller and theatre maker at the start of our conversation on hope. Ya, how to keep your hopes up? In order to explain me how he relates to hope he takes me to the history - or rather his-story - of Kenya. He eventually ends with the stories of the heroes of his latest piece I Always Feel Like Running; Kenyan runners, that each in their own way kept going for the finish line, no matter what. It makes Muraya wonder: 'What keeps you going despite it all?' Two weeks later I see his older piece Fractured Memories in which he performed his poem ZERO. In it he celebrates zero as a space that contains e-v-e-r-y thing, and at the same time understands zero as an empty space from which anything can spring. He doesn't say the word but the poem breathes it between all lines: HOPE.

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Below I share with you one of the Words for the Future publications in PDF.

A reader opens the printed publication on the two biographies of the contributors, but (unlike here) one side is upside down, in order to read the other side the reader needs to turn the publication around. This emphasizes the fact that it is another perspective on the same word.

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* HOPE is the 5th word in the series of 10 (as you can see under Words for the Future). For now I made only the PDF of this publication available. If you have interest to view one of the other publications or to purchase a single word or the whole series please contact me.

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