“I’m Not Gonna Say Sorry for Something I’m Not Sorry About”
Grappling with Guilt, Power and Systems of Abuse
I produce a podcast about art called Artipoeus. The format is this: I visit a contemporary art exhibit, describe what I see and how it makes me feel, usually tying it into a personal story as well as current events in the world, using the art as a bridge to connect the individual to the global, because I believe art has that power — the power to help us understand ourselves and the world around us, and what we’re doing in it. I’m searching for meaning as earnestly as everyone else, and I find the path of art to be a more colorful route. I also use independently produced music to help me tell my story, because who doesn’t want a soundtrack to their lives?
My latest episode is about Monica Bonvicini’s Guilt at The Koenig Galerie in Berlin.
I find art to explore in various ways — from posters in the subway, newsletters, occasionally private invitations (although I discourage those because I’m totally subject to bribes), and even, occasionally, on Instagram.
I saw the installation photos for Monica Bonvicini’s exhibit at The Koenig Galerie in Berlin on Instagram, and thought it would be a great subject. I had just mentioned Bonvicini in an earlier episode, so the connection was nice, and I was looking for a good framework to use some music from a Grime DJ and producer I had been talking to on Twitter. Bonvicini’s big bling-y work seemed like the perfect fit.
To be honest, going by the photos I had seen on Instagram, I thought I was going to hate the work — I’m not a fan of literal work, and I was prepared to say so. But when I got to the gallery, I had one of those rare experiences where I understood the entire piece all in one go, in the pit of my stomach, and it hit me hard, like a punch.
Sometimes, the art or the subject or the story I find to tell about it triggers an internal exploration that can go very deep. Bonvicini’s piece took me to some deep, dark places. I had a lot to think about, a lot to drag out into the open and examine, and I didn’t like what I saw.
The audio prompt from the Grime mix I wanted to use was from the EP Battle With Bass Remixes, instigated by DJ BPM, a female Irish DJ who invited mixes using the vocal prompt “my brother, I think you got it all wrong — I can do what you can do”. This was a vocal sample of Zimbabwean journalist and activist Soneni Gwizi used in a different sound art piece, Claudia Wenger’s project “The Women Sing at Both Sides of the Zambezi”.
It was also this vocal prompt that guided me on my particular descent into exploring guilt. I was thinking about how people are so often made to feel guilty for claiming the same rights or even opportunities as others. In this case, Soneni Gwizi is talking about her physical handicap — someone in an interview has told her that, because of her physical handicap, she can’t do her job as a journalist. But the way it’s said is that she should feel bad about it, as though she has no right, as though that, by pursuing her career, she is taking a job that should go to a more able-bodied person. It’s Affirmative Action guilt, and it’s so often used as a tool of oppression.
I was also thinking about how men carry guilt vs how women carry it, and how incredibly kind men are to themselves about this stuff. This was mainly prompted from watching this TED talk with Paula Stone Williams, which is great overall, but what struck me most was the phrase she repeats “I didn’t know what I didn’t know”.
This led me to examine things in my own life and the guilt I carry, who gave it to me and told me it was a good idea, and why. Can I say, “I didn’t know what I didn’t know”? Can I get away with that?
(Before I go on: this is not to say that I haven’t done shitty things in my life — of course I have. Sometimes deliberately, sometimes by accident; I’m human and I’ve made mistakes. But my shitty actions, the things I have actually been guilty of, do not leave much of a residue of shame because, in every case where I could, I owned up to it, apologized, made reparations when possible, and accepted that I am unforgiven in some cases, and will probably remain so. Forgiveness is a gift, and in some ways given unrelated to the transgression. I’ll take it when it’s given, I don’t hold a grudge when it’s not because otherwise, what’s the point of apologizing?)
But this other guilt — the guilt of things going wrong, the guilt of not being financially stable, the guilt of relationships not working out, the guilt of being almost 50 and single, childless and without a conventional career, the guilt of not fitting in, the guilt of dreams never realized despite best efforts, the guilt of failed love, the guilt of loudly calling bullshit, the guilt of being “difficult”, disruptive; the guilt of reclaiming my time, of claiming my space, of defending my body and my boundaries, the guilt of saying no… all of these kinds of guilt that I have been carrying for 50 years is the guilt that I’ve been staring at, picking apart, bringing into the light, trying to find the rightful owner of… except, with these kinds of guilt, there really isn’t one. It is just a yoke of GUILT — 62 tons of it — that has weighed me down, weighed down especially women and minorities. It’s Original Sin guilt, and it’s fake news.
Because while I was working on this episode of Artipoeus and thinking about these things, I also happened to watch this news clip:
Which got me thinking: how many babies are aborted because of the color of their skin? Or because their parents have different religious views? Or because the baby is gay or trans? How many babies are aborted because of rape, or because of physical or mental under-development? And, worldwide, how many babies have been aborted simply because they’re female?
At this point in my life, this gets me upset less on a personal level than on a global, historical level for all girls who grow up into women who carry the weight of cultural, collective guilt simply because we’re female.
Some of the guilt that I carry(ied — because I’m still learning how to put it down and leave it there — this is all pretty new to me), was also handed to me by my family, by teachers and bosses, by people who withheld the tools of empowerment through dismissal or neglect or simply not answering a call for help, and it is this betrayal of intimates that is the ugliest, and hurts the most, this abuse by the people you look up to, try to learn from, trust and believe.
Because just after I finished this episode of Artipoeus, this happened:
I’ve never been a fan of Tony Robbins, but I was also never a detractor. He frankly seemed relatively harmless to me — a pretty run-of-the-mill motivational speaker with admirably healthy teeth. This video has of course exploded all over the internet, and Robbins is now on his way to becoming the victim of his own misogyny, which is just desserts. The most painful part of this video to watch, for me, is Robbins pushing his hand against Nanine McCool’s, demanding to know why she’s resisting him (um… because you just invited her on stage and asked her to push against you???), and then saying “I’m not gonna say I’m sorry for something I’m not sorry about”… as though she has done it to herself.
I’m also not a big fan of revealing creative process, nor of including a long essay to explain a piece of work. But this episode of my podcast is about so much more than art in a gallery — as is the piece of Monica Bonvicini’s work itself — that I needed more room to explore it, to say it. I’m not sorry either.
Because this episode is about systems of abuse, and that’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot in this #metoo moment, this #blacklivesmatter and #march4ourlives moment, this Trumpian, AfD, Putinesque, supremely patriarchal moment… and how guilt and shame are used in these systems. It’s about the structure of patriarchy, how it’s abusive in the same way as an emotionally abusive partner or parent. And it’s about collective guilt — who owns it, why do we have it, and when are we going to put it down?
You can listen to the current episode of Artipoeus on Soundcloud, iTunes or aCast. If you’re not a podcast listener, you can read the transcript of the full Artipoeus episode on Medium here (paywall).
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