CUNTemporary

THE DIVERSITY MACHINE

Bodies fled in discomfort – from the discomfort of some noisy city or quaint little town that treated their bodies as uncomfortable units taking up unnecessary space. I imagine the agony of inhabiting a geography that drives you to the perimeters of its center without your consent. A geography that forces you to live out your truths and your pleasures underground, never on its surface, and only ever sinfully and shamefully on your own body. A geography that either smothers you or slowly pushes you further and further away until you are obliged to leave. It was exasperating yet exhilarating to take that obligation. And so, five years ago, I packed my little underground existence and brought it here.

London. The bodies here are esoterically always rushing after something. The geography of the United Kingdom is named so for it is the Kingdom of the greatest internal divisions united in one location. Nothing and nobody agrees with each other. The trains don’t like their tracks, people don’t like the trains and the tracks beg to be repaired incessantly by people they don’t like. The buildings quarrel over their shoulders touching and the tenants quarrel with the 28-year old fitted carpets inundated with the debris of love affairs, disputes and squabbling bugs. The bridges heave under the burden of the furious trains that carry annoyed passengers to and from their joys and sorrows. A gigantic clock at Westminster Bridge serves as a memorial for the billions of minutes that have died in the Battle of Boredom and Elbow-space on public transport.  Whilst all this disagreement and scurrying is taking place the clouds are in a constant duel to obliterate the sun.

The United Kingdom is named so for it is also the Kingdom of the greatest differences amongst bodies.  ‘Diversity’ is the word for a geography that allows all types of bodies to inhabit it without the obligation to leave. ‘Tolerance’ is the word for the right to stay – as you are – although you are actually obliged to leave. ‘Equality’ is a curious word – it is the assumption that all bodies have the same rights, but in truth, it is just another word for tolerance. Its peculiar how this wonderful ‘diversity’ allows all these bodies to move freely in this geography. For even though the streets of London are in complete disorder and disagreement, there is some bizarre system when it comes to the bodies that walk these streets. They go about their urgencies without a word whilst a sadness curls the edges of their lips. The atmosphere is thick with the murmur of the billion “excuse mes” of accidental bodily collisions. This rhythm is of outmost importance in maintaining the diversity machine.:

Once a year this machine comes to an halt. On the 31^st of December, every year, the bodies forget and forgive themselves. The diversity engine is temporarily suspended and the trains, passengers, houses and bugs stop their bickering. Suddenly, frowns are replaced by smiles, bodily collisions release a merry “happy new year!” and rules, manners and etiquette are at rest with the machine. The injustices of this geography are dormant for an entire day. We forget that in Croydon the streets are highly populated with bodies that trade sex for money as much as they are populated by bodies that take sex without the trade.[i] We forget that 7% of us live in one of the 240,000 households of overcrowded accommodation.[ii] We reassure ourselves that there are almost 2 million bodies living in poverty in London so we surely aren’t doing that bad. We don’t compare ourselves to the 610,000 children who are lacking basic everyday items because on this day we can all – the poor included – travel for free.

It’s a magical day this 31^st of December. The hope and promise in every word exchanged. Tomorrow will be the beginning of all things good. And we pat ourselves on the back for the amazing progress we have made. Isn’t it great that 1/3 of the bodies in the United Kingdom that identify as women now have access to management positions? Ironically, that is almost the same amount of women that will be sexually assaulted or beaten in their lifetime.[iii] But we shouldn’t despair. Education is emancipation it has been said. And for as little as £9,000 a year 70% of graduates with an arts-related degree will be women.[iv] This is great news as it might balance out the 83% of artists in the Tate Modern that are men[v] and the 80% of professors in higher education that are also men. It might be a little more difficult if they are from an ethnic minority as only 7.3% have made it to the level of professor. The great thing about London is that these bodies will be amongst 63% other people that were born outside the United Kingdom so they will have plenty of stories to share.[vi]

These are just some of the strange disagreements in this geography that most bodies have arrived at to search for the equality grail. Five years later I find myself in the east end of this geography amongst a truly incongruous muddle of bodies and buildings. I feel at home amongst the mix of poor, creative and frustrated Londoners that remind me of an Orwellian Parisian slum: “a gathering place of eccentric people – people who have fallen into solitary, half-mad grooves of life and given up trying to be normal or decent. Poverty frees them from ordinary standards of behaviour, just as money frees people from work.”[vii] It took me a while to figure out why most of us fled and what most of us were after.

From the Headquarters of CUNTemporary, we stand in solidarity with the hundreds of institutions in search of the equality grail by promoting visual art from queer and feminist bodies.

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