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Transcript
Hi, everyone, thanks for tuning in. This
Leela Sinha:morning, I'm thinking about an article I read about photography
Leela Sinha:from an indigenous perspective, and the language of photography:
Leela Sinha:of taking, capturing, shooting, and the gun-like violence
Leela Sinha:embedded in that. And I'm thinking about one of my oldest
Leela Sinha:friends, who when he talks about creating photography talks about
Leela Sinha:making a photograph. I never really thought about that. And I
Leela Sinha:don't know if he learned that at art school, or if he learned
Leela Sinha:that inside himself. But it would fit his deep gentleness.
Leela Sinha:Making a photograph. And in this article, they talked about the
Leela Sinha:ways in which indigeneity has had to re-encounter photography
Leela Sinha:in this modern context, in this colonized world. And what it
Leela Sinha:means to decolonize photography, starting with the definitions of
Leela Sinha:decolonization, and the definitions of photography, and
Leela Sinha:how we do it, and what we do it with, and what it means to make
Leela Sinha:a photograph about a thing. And liminality. And they talked,
Leela Sinha:there was this one sentence where they said, that "men and
Leela Sinha:women and LGBTQIA plus people" as though that was a whole
Leela Sinha:separate category And I felt this click in myself, and
Leela Sinha:thought, yes, yes, that to me, queerness is a word to describe
Leela Sinha:personal liminality. But it's also more than that it's a...
Leela Sinha:it's a... it's its own place. I talk about being genderqueer.
Leela Sinha:But even using the word gender attached to queer makes it feel
Leela Sinha:like I have to somehow genderize my queerness; like there's a a
Leela Sinha:way that I have to describe myself as tugged between two
Leela Sinha:bodies, when in fact there is no "between two" to be tugged. I am
Leela Sinha:all of those things that people think are masculine and
Leela Sinha:feminine. And I am not many of the things that people think are
Leela Sinha:masculine and/or feminine. And... and. And. It is the most
Leela Sinha:embedded part of my identity in the way that I know men who say
Leela Sinha:that they are "so men," and women who believe that their
Leela Sinha:whole me-ness is wrapped around womanhood. And I never
Leela Sinha:understood that. But I do understand my whole self being
Leela Sinha:queer. And I'm thinking about the way that queerness and the
Leela Sinha:concept of queering things which came into common usage, just
Leela Sinha:about the time I was coming through college. I was
Leela Sinha:privileged to be able to be at a college that offered some of the
Leela Sinha:first formalized Queer Studies classes. And I was privileged to
Leela Sinha:be able to take them, and to start to reconceive my entire
Leela Sinha:academic and intellectual journey with this centeredness
Leela Sinha:of queerness. And now, of course, I sit and try and queer
Leela Sinha:everything around me because otherwise it doesn't fit me, it
Leela Sinha:doesn't suit me, or it doesn't interact with me, like it's
Leela Sinha:okay, that some things around me aren't queer. And some things
Leela Sinha:are truly neutral. They don't, they don't need queerness
Leela Sinha:embedded in them in order for them to be for me. But so many
Leela Sinha:things need that element of me in them somehow; need to know
Leela Sinha:how to talk to being not just outside the lines, but outside
Leela Sinha:of everything normative and expected and simultaneously,
Leela Sinha:deeply normative and expected. Like this is a thing that has a
Leela Sinha:place in our culture, and I belong here. And when I take
Leela Sinha:this idea, this thought, this practice of queerness into work,
Leela Sinha:I can't help but remember my internship supervisor, Brian
Leela Sinha:Kopke. I hope he's resting and painting and walking and playing
Leela Sinha:his flute well, by which I mean deeply and without any regard
Leela Sinha:for what other people think of it.
Leela Sinha:I think of my internship supervisor, and how he
Leela Sinha:introduced me to the idea of doing our supervisory meetings
Leela Sinha:at this sandpit that had been converted to a dog park on the
Leela Sinha:edge of town. And so we would take his baby Golden Retriever
Leela Sinha:puppy and get in his car and start talking as we drove to the
Leela Sinha:sandpit. And then we would walk and walk through the trees and
Leela Sinha:up and down and through the gorse. And talk and talk and
Leela Sinha:talk and laugh at the dog as she got muddy, and got curious and
Leela Sinha:scrambled in and under and over and around things. And we would
Leela Sinha:walk and talk. And then when we were done, we would walk back to
Leela Sinha:the car and towel off the dog and get back in the car and
Leela Sinha:drive back to the beautiful church building, and go back to
Leela Sinha:the rest of our work. But what I learned from that, more than
Leela Sinha:that I like walking in the woods with a dog, and that that's a
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:thoughts and ideas and feelings
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:and practices that maybe aren't moving in the stillness of the
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:office, it's also a great way to get actual privacy. And it's
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:also a great way as it turns out, for someone with ADHD, to
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:get a lot more focus on what his intern is saying. He made no
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:secret of it. What I learned from that is that sometimes the
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:work is better done interleaved with other things in the world.
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:Sometimes two things do go together, even if they don't
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:look like they do. Sometimes, you don't know what wisdom is
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:waiting for you in the middle. Which, you know, actually, I
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:knew I had known for a long time. This was not unfamiliar. I
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:did an interdisciplinary undergraduate degree. I was
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:constantly connecting and reconnecting one subject matter
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:area to another until finally I just made it official. And the
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:reason that this is up for me now is that I think it is time
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:for us to think about what we need to interleave what we need
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:to mix what we need to weave together what we need to
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:uncompartmentalize. As leaders, it is very tempting to expect
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:and hope that people will compartmentalize themselves and
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:their lives, that they will leave their feelings out of the
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:workplace, that they will leave their work at work and go home
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:to things that are not related to their work. But if you have
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:ever stayed up late tossing and turning about the passion of
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:your life, which is also your livelihood, you know that that
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:is not a thing. And so we just try to pretend that it's a thing
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:for some reason that I can't figure out. And instead, what if
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:we recognize the deep integration of everything with
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:everything, which is how life works. When people get pregnant,
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:humans, our bodies swell, and change and rewire to favor the
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:fetus over the health of the gestating parent. And what does
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:that mean concretely? It means that if your fetus wants to, it
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:has the power to kill you. And that is one of the reasons why
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:we only carry our fetuses for nine months. Because it would be
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:a lot more logical developmentally, if we carried
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:them for twelve. But if we carried them for twelve, they
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:would take so many of the resources from the parent that
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:the parent would die before the fetus was born. And so our
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:compromise is kind of like a kangaroo. We carry them around
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:on the outside for the next three months. We are wired
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:deeply with our environments, into our environment. And it is
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:true that we extract resources from our environments, but we
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:have to do it in a way that doesn't kill them or us. And we
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:are wired deeply into our businesses. When we found
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:something, we are integral to it and it is integral to us at the
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:beginning. And yes, our goal is to create something independent
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:that can run around the world without us. That will
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:potentially carry on after we're gone. And in order to create
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:something that is truly sustainable, we have to remember
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:our deep interconnection with it and it's deep interconnection
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:with us and that is on the macro and the micro level. So in
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:addition to that deep interconnection out there, the
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:big one, the what is the purpose of your business? And is it
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:destroying the world? Or is it nourishing it? question. There
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:is also the small question, the set of small questions, the
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:question of how do we make our lives and our being and the way
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:that we are in our business, be sustainable, be deeply
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:integrated? How do we change from sitting in an office where
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:we could be overheard, and we can't really sit still. And we
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:can't really have our feelings, to going to the sandpit where we
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:can walk, and talk and shout and cry, and throw the stick for the
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:dog. Sometimes that is literally the solution. Sometimes you need
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:to take meetings off site. Sometimes you literally need to
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:take meetings in an unexpected environment. Sometimes you need
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:to do things for one another, that don't fall strictly inside
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:the bounds of what we think of as appropriate for business.
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:Sometimes we bring someone lunch or dinner. It's not your job,
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:but we are all each other's business. Sometimes you can't do
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:that. Sometimes you don't know what their needs are. Sometimes
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:it's just going to make it worse. Which means you have to
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:know each other well enough not to do that. And to leave the
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:space where the spaces belong. And sometimes, sometimes it
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:means giving someone agency and independence. Sometimes it means
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:explaining your reasoning so that you can give them agency
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:and independence. Sometimes it means admitting that there's a
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:little bit of a black box to the way you're running things. And
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:that's on purpose. And explaining what you're doing and
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:giving people the freedom to come or go as they need to.
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:Sometimes a lot of things. And sometimes it means asking
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:yourself what should be shared? What should be sacred and quiet?
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:When it is appropriate to capture something? And when you
great way to get things, moving:
Speaker:are simply going to make a photograph.