Traveling Words invites AAIR residents to share what they are currently reading and thinking about during the lockdown. This is the second chapter in an online series that reflects on new meanings that images, words and sounds can carry throughout different times of uncertainty and separation.
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Anna Housiada is reading “The Life of Plants: A Metaphysics of Mixture” by Emanuele Coccia:
“Plants are at the bottom of the hierarchy of living beings, a decoration for the culture of the superior ones. This book encouraged me to challenge this hierarchy and to consider what is there to be learnt from the plants. It is a philosophical guide to the botanical world introduced as a domain of metaphysics, even magic; a space that brings bits of knowledge together and demonstrates a poetics of interconnection.” -
Hatice Pinarbasi is reading “Sorcières: La puissance invaincue des femmes” by Mona Chollet:
“Mona Chollet speaks especially of the power of the woman dismissed by misogynistic capitalism: she disturbs thanks to her powers. The massacres of witches are crimes, these women who are put aside or who are eliminated are an ever present and poignant subject. In this lock-time, I am looking for a key to open a door of hope, to a world healed thanks to the magic of nature.” -
Zinaïda Tchelidze is reading “Beautés du monde invisible” by Larousse:
“I question the concrete phenomenon of the encyclopaedia, which clearly defines things, classifies them and prevents the imagination from arising. The customized cover thus illustrates my reading, my research around the thin line between the real and the imaginary, the visible and the hidden.”
The full version can be found on AAIR's website.