The Blue Lotus

Asian & African and Mediterranean International Modern Art Exhibition 2015 Preface

The 12th Asian & African & Mediterranean International Modern Art Exhibition is upon us.  This November (2015) we, once more, celebrate the unity and diversity of artists, venue(s), sponsors and art lovers in the especial series of exhibitions created to enhance artistic understanding. 

The main exhibition is situated in the previous year’s, extremely spacious and well equipped, Shang Kun Luo Qi International Modern Art Museum, within Hangzhou's expanding environs. The annual international exhibition's founder and coordinator, Associate Professor Luo Qi, from the illustrious China Academy of Art has, once more, brought together a coterie of exhibitors and exhibitions of which the main 12th Asian & African & Mediterranean International Modern Art Exhibition is the vanguard.

For well over a decade Luo Qi’s diligence has enabled citizens of Hangzou, Zhejiang Province, foreign visitors, business people and those with interests in art to see a melange of intriguing artworks from a wide range of countries. This year is no exception. Countries as diverse as Canada, France, India, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mauritius, Portugal, Russia, Thailand, and of course from China itself, all feature in a range of exhibitions across Zhejiang Province, as well as taking part in what promises to be the most spectacular, sublime and surely the most thought-provoking exhibition in Hangzhou, yet.

To further the understanding of the scope of this series of annual exhibitions, I could express about Chinese trade routes, the Mediterranean Basin or Nanyang. I could explain that, in antiquity, Chinese peoples were explorers with great armadas of gigantic nine-masted ships, with twelve sails apiece (much larger than the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama’s ships). I could explain about the ancient voyages of Zheng (Ma) He (from Yunnan province), the imperial Chinese armada which between 1405 AD and 1433 AD visited the Straits of Malacca, Sumatra, Ceylon, India and across the Arabian sea. I could persuade readers that Chinese fleets visited the African peninsular, taking back giraffes, zebras and ostriches to China, then to the Swahili Coast, and finally back across the oceans to visit the Red Sea and Mecca. But this series of Luo Qi’s annual exhibitions is not about a singular collective noun, not just Nanyang, not just about the Mediterranean Basin, or even the sea voyages of the greatest fleet the world had ever known; but about Art, its divers originators, their myriad philosophies and their incipient camaraderie.

Luo Qi never disappoints. Whether it is his own stimulating works in his unique ‘Characterism” or ‘Calligraphyism’ style, blending aspects of Chinese and Western artistic practices and ideas, or whether he is collecting, collating and combining various elements to present to an excited public in his curated exhibitions, Luo Qi always demonstrates his ability to surprise and delight. This year’s series of larger and smaller exhibitions are no exception.

I am both proud and honoured to be considered to be part of this annual and ongoing revelation of the practice of art and its exhibition. I consider myself fortunate to be able to rub shoulders with some of the most important ‘makers’ from across the world, and talk with them, about their work. For this I thank Associate Professor Luo Qi, and all his sponsors, large and small. 

MyWriters Event 17th October 2015 reading poetry

Poems Read

My Clever Poem
Because it's all very intellectual here
I thought
That I would read
A clever poem
Not a cleaver poem
I'm not that kind if hack A clever poem
One that had
Deep
Down
Significance
A
Thought
Provoking
Existential
Residential
Exponential
Poem
Profound
Filled with words like Dasein
Lacuna
Semiotics
Maybe
A little Greek
Or Latin
Maybe
Mention
A Beat poet
Or some
Long
Dead
Poet from Latin America I could
Shout
My poem
Whisper my poem
Say
I was a
Spoken word
Poet
A poet
That spoke
Words
How original
Well I would
Wouldn't I
If I was clever enough
If I was Smart enough But as I'm
Not
I won't

China Granted

Through
Oil scented Fumes
I see you Stride
Tall
As gum trees Cuddly
As koala Sprite
As
Kangaroo Sleek Designer Boomeranged To
Hangzhou Dots
Before
Your
Limpid
camel
Eyes
Milan
Still
On your Tongue
In your
Hair
The
City
Is with
You
In your
One platypus Town
A Ned Kelly No longer
On the run.

Gaudi's Breath

She walks
in
Gaudi’s breath
Miro strides
Dali time
sangria
tartness of Spanish red wine
a wild gypsy
free
taking her fill strolling with Picasso Drinking life deep.
She’s Aphrodite, Venus, Eurydice Sauntering boulevards
a mandala child
Paint bright, charcoal
Acuarela angel of paper/canvas.
In tropical dreams Equatorial hills,
I wish her
Free,
gliding, soaring One day
To return Home
To me




until you return
And I have no thing when you are no longer here the children are silent
the dog, muffled
even the sun seems somehow listless and hesitant the moon hides her face
too ashamed to peek between the clouds birds cease their singing
the breeze is muted.
you are journeying distant lands
seeing new sights
while my sight becomes ever dimmer
the more I look into the space where you are not it is as if my soul too has departed
slipped inside your red suitcase to keep you safe
while I remain empty
until you return

Lost in Port Dickson

Trembling tide Caresses Tentative
foot
Tamalian infant Squeals Delighted
Soft sun
Masked
Barely glances
To Brightening sky
Far Driven
Coconuts
Jackfruit
Skins of Mangosteen Grounded
I too
Have been Blown By Oceanic Breezes
Called By siren songs Adrift
Washed Up On some Equatorial Shore
Scents
Too
Foreign
To comprehend
Sun burning John Lewis hat
Unaccustomed Sweat
On white cotton
Thinking Of Camus Conrad

Isabella Bird

Black crows Watching Empty Carlesberg tins On
Beach.




BERSIH 4
I was not there
I could not see Brother and sister Arm in arm
Amidst
A sea
Of yellow,
One legged Attendees
Proudly
Striding
On yellow
Crutches,
A mass
Of Chinese
Indians and Malays Smiling in their pain.
I was not there I could not see Along
The roads Proudly waving Flags
Yellow Blue Red White, Slogans for clean Fervent Words For Justice Hope
I was not there
I could not see
A yellow Beetle car Proudly displaying Its battle scars, Former
Prime Ministers Lending

Support
In humility Half million Plus souls Sharing Moments United
In a way Mere jingoism Cannot.
I was not there I could not see The jigsaw
Of humanity Finally
Fit
The Malaysian Family
Back
Together
At last
Having
Been
Rent asunder By decade
Of Lies
And half-truths.
I was not there
I could not see
For it was a time
For Malaysians
In their angst
A private time
Like grief
Mourning
Over a country
Which might have been Determined
To forge one, better Cleaner.
I was not there
I could not see
But my heart
was with them.