blackgirl on mars: notes on a life in copenhagen (or how my alienation brings me closer to people).

Mommy, I Know with Your Dyed Brown Hair & Black Roots You did Your best. Although The years Whirl By— You still A Girl Inside. Dwarfed By Motherhood The only Role You Understand Is at the Side of Your Man. Mommy, I know it’s Hard when No one Can Bridge the Divide Between You & Yourself. (It’s so lonely). Mommy I know Things Confusing Especially With the Fast Pace things Seem to Be moving… It ain’t Easy Being A mother To 3, Especially When One of those Children Is Me. The daughter Of Orphans, You didn’t Have a choice, I know It hard Mommy, 60, Still Hustling, Keeping Your Life Busy, So you Don’t have To look… I know It hard Mommy, With your Hair So Red But your Roots Still Black, I know It Hard Mommy, & I know You tried Your Best. Copenhagen, 2007

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Edward Said would be interested. So would bell hooks, Stuart Hall, Kara Walker...any artist, Cultural Theorist, or human being interested in telling it like it is . NotAboutKarenBlixen is a project which uses Karen Blixen's legacy to create attention and reflection over the relationship between Denmark and Kenya (specifically) and all the parallel worlds around this (generally). It is about dialogue. It is about seeing: How do we see each other? How do we read each other? It is about interrogation and critique. It is about moving forward from this post-colonial state or perhaps even discovering, that this is not possible. But most importantly, it is about entering without attachments to outcome, but committed only to finding truths. Through visual art, sound, performance and new media, this project will build a bridge not only between Denmark and Kenya, but between all whose histories mirror the dynamic inherent between these two countries. Cast in this project are artists who repr...

On this first evening,Visual artists Gillion Grantsaan (DK/NL/Surinam), Ato Malinda (Kenya) and writer and performer, Lesley-An Brown (DK, USA, Trinidad) will be giving a short presentation of their practice together with a small pre-cap of their ideas on their collaborative projects: Real Walks Real Talks, Real walks,Singing cage and Instituting Address. The purpose of these informal gatherings is to get an indication of these artists’ practices, to give way to debate on their method and approach to writing, performance, collage and sound. Not About Karen Blixen is curated by Michelle Eistrup, visual artist in collaboration with Brooke Minto, Art historian and curator in Creative Africa Network and Assistant Director at the Miami Museum, Florida. This work in progress will continue in Nariobi, Kenya and is destined for the RoMaMa Museum in Nairobi in June/July and at the Karen Blixen Museum, and the Post Colonial Route during My World Images Festival 2010. for for more information/inq...

November,2009--Brooklyn photo by Karen Good

Sometimes finding happiness is like finding mangoes in Copenhagen Sometimes you find them-- green like emeralds red like rubies purple like Amethysts But they are not ready yet. It is hard to find ripe mangoes in Copenhagen. But sometimes You do sometimes you stumble upon mangoes like happiness & it is ripe ready to be eaten... devoured.

You are allergic to cats but still you house one an HIV infected cat with no teeth. You take her outside & let her roll under pure sunlight as you sniffle and rub your itchy eyes. I look at you & once again, not for the first time & certainly not the last... declare in my heart that you are my hero & I thank the ancestors for bringing two sisters home, together again in this land called Brooklyn.