Seeds 001-002 redux

002 When young I possessed a desire to be up to my elbows in the stuff of the world. I was interested in things and events, and wanted to be immersed in the subject matter of objects and history. This was an impulse to be fully immersed - not to control change and manipulate outcomes.

My first thought was to be a curator, one who thinks about objects, history (the past and the present) and meaning, and interprets this for others. This impulse came up against the failure of the reality. There was a paradox, and architecture seemed to be the answer.

Architecture actually does impact on the ‘stuff’ of the world, it allows you to plan and enact change in the universe - but the canvas you operate on is very limited. The architect’s fate is to insist on certainty and rigid control over outcomes, which means they have to banish uncertainty. This necessitates a less ambitious programme and agenda for the work, as this ‘stuff’ - the physical matter of the world - is highly resistant to change and control.

001 Alternative vocations still beckon - the curator, the historian. The reality of these professions is that they are fatally constrained. Intention and imagination and desire may propel the individual into such a vocation but the reality of it fails to immerse the practitioner in the midst of fascinating things. Instead one is enmeshed in the bureaucracy of museology, interpretation, meaning and more often than not a tired identity politics. I still possess a desire to be a curator of sorts, but not actually a curator: a writer.