this week i had my first research interview for my book entering and exiting. i spoke to a retired chaplain (push picks forthcoming) who did a lot of end of life work. while the focus was on food and appetite, naturally the conversation led to many philosophical questions around preparation for dying. she described a dramatic shift in the 80s when hospitals went from a place to be saved to a place where measures like do not resuscitate became adopted. we discussed appetite in a new form: the waning interest, the decision to stop eating, and its impact on patient and family.
have you ever fed someone who is at the end of their life? what did they eat? i'm curious.
this project has been so gratifying and deeply moving. i'm asking myself constantly how can we create more dignity at the beginning and end of our lives. can it be both traumatizing and blissful? i hope so.
i understand this is a trigger topic, especially at a time where we are bearing witness to so much untimely death. thanks for joining me in the conversation.
in other news, push is launching a store later this month. the store will be filled with artist works that are secondary parts of their practice. for instance, you're known for performance practice but you also carve spoons. creativity never lands in one place and i love exploring what we are not "known" for. that's the stuff you'll find in the push store so stay tuned.
speaking of being in tune, i had the pleasure of dining with this week's guest, Raul Zbengheci a few months back when the sun was out and the fall had just presented herself. we spoke without missing a bit about our paths and ambitions in new york. i love his commitment to culturally groundbreaking communities and work and his devotion to the city. without further ado...
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Raul Zbengheci is a Romanian-American producer, organizer and director. If contemporary art and culture function today as an archipelago comprised of small islands, Zbengheci situates himself in the waters between them, following the currents and floating softly between different mediums, influences, and technologies. He works in the gaps between visual art, emergent technologies, contemporary performance, and public, site specific art.
Raul Zbengheci is currently the Deputy Director at NEW INC where he leads programming and strategy for the renowned art, design and technology program, including organizing NEW INC’s first festival, DEMO23, which took place in June of 2023.
He has produced and curated projects with the Whitney Museum of American Art, LEIMAY, Performa, MoMA PS1, PROTOTYPE Festival, Times Square Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and The 8th Floor, among others.
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what kind of life do you want to live?
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I want to be free, I want to be open, I want to be in peace. I want to get there alongside all other people on the planet struggling and fighting for liberation (yes, liberation for Palestinians, urgently!) and the chance to even imagine being free, being open, and being in peace. New York is a beautiful place because it might be the only place on the planet where being eccentric, being radically true to oneself, being nonconformist, breaking rules -- all that is accepted and celebrated and part of the fabric, I want to be in that kind of mix with others. I want to live a world-opening life, where my actions help make the world feel a little bigger, a little more inclusive, with a bit more potential and I want to cry often, my eyes filled with world-opening tears, losing breath when the world feels bigger than originally imagined. (the opposite, of course, world-closing tears, happen when it feels like the world is closing in on you and usually associated with somebody or some structure doing that).
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I'm working on a new game called 10KC (10,000 Currencies): Role play for emergent creative organizations. It's a tabletop role playing game where players imagine, design, and play out new forms of cultural organizing that feels adaptive and responsive to the time we are living in. Kind of a combination of Dungeons & Dragons and Model UN, I'm trying to create the conditions needed for moving beyond capital-backed, charity, and donation based structures for supporting cultural creation. I'll be premiering the first phase of 10KC --the character creation process -- at Worlds in Play, a five-day gathering of play practitioners—game and theatre artists—exploring new forms of agency in storytelling and experience.
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The Tale of Three Jewels (1995), Michel Kleifi, the first feature film shot entirely on the Gaza Strip, showing lyricism and imagination in the face of military occupation.
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I swear, I Really Wanted To Make A “Rap” Album But This Is Literally The Way The Wind Blew Me This Time, André 3000, November 2023. Better than all of your ex-boyfriends' soundcloud drone/ambient/noise tracks they've been making in bushwick or idk portland oregon or austin texas lol.
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raul's article of the week
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I'm going to plug my Sweet November, a dish I've been making yearly ever since I moved to New York and has become, in many cases, the last remaining throughline between past friends, lovers, and identities.
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White Wild Indigo!
Bee favorite, survives harsh conditions, attracts elfin butterflies and block-spotted moth :)
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Not bread, but a bread line -- where my parents had to wait 4+ hours for their ration during the Soviet Communist occupation of my home Romania. I was born during the revolution to overthrow the dictatorship, so I've never experienced it myself, but it's very much in my DNA.
"How important are we? We are dust. I was also thinking how interesting it is that in war, when everybody was making art that reflected what happened, Henri Matisse was painting flowers. I finally understand that. The way to fight is not to reflect horror and put your spirit down. It’s to create something with beauty that gives you hope."
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and a few picks from push...
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What's worse than physical pain? Love pain is "worse than hell" according to Marina Abramovic. NYT Mag has blessed us with this longform interview- i loved the examination of making art from a place of happiness.
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What circuit is your brain on?
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are you familiar with the eight circuit model of consciousness? this page gives a great introduction.
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summertime gallery's radio show
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collaborating with your kids
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rooftop institute has a beautiful book exploring the ‘instructional art’ between artist-parents and their children.
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we hope you are staying warm and that you enjoyed another installment of push picks. as always, if you like what you read, forward it to someone or encourage them to sign up. it would mean the world to us 🌎
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