Philosophy
Conversations between Aviva Rahmani and Felicity Stone, Art Thinker:
1) In your performative work 2 Nice Jewish Girls (1972) you explicitly reference your religious identity and although you have described yourself as non-religious do you think your background of Judaism has coloured your ideas, and if so how?
Like much of my work in that period, the issues that interested me were dependent on what was accepted in the culture. Like the Pocketbook Piece (1969), this work played with the pressure women felt then to hide the details of our identity and above all, our pain. Language has always been important to me, and the word “nice” was loaded then. There was a trick joke then boys would ask girls: “Are you good or are you nice?” Whatever the answer, the double entendre turned on whether a girl was faithful to the preeminent social standard of chastity or to the codependent pressure to acquiesce to sex outside marriage. “Nice” and “good” were paradoxical descriptions. It was impossible for a girl to be both socially acceptable and please a man. Either way, the answer would be twisted to humiliate the girl for her cultural failure and social inadequacy.
In both works, the act of speaking the details of loss—in my case a divorce, in Marni Gud’s, the death of her parents, by opening private letters and diaries to strangers felt very radical. No matter what, women then were expected to not only hide but shoulder all pain. The pain or loss of others we loved were as much our responsibility as any loss beyond our control, regardless of the contingencies or realities. In the movie 9 to 5 (1980), Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Dolly Parton took that trope into a revenge fantasyland, where women not only cast off the responsibility for injustice but appropriated the role of judge and disciplinarian. Way more than a religious identity, 2 Nice Jewish Girls referenced our cultural identity, in which family connections and the sanctity of marriage were very prominent.
Judaism as a religion influenced me in several ways that weren’t referenced in this work. One is the role of mysticism, specifically Kabbalah. Another is Tikkun Olam, the mandate to repair the world, something Mierle Laderman Ukeles has spoken about as a major touchstone in her own work. Still a third way, is how Jewish children are taught to ask thoughtful questions at the Seder table and then listen carefully to the answers.
2) Why do you think we’ve become so out of touch with the concept of “oneness” and Gaia that we all come from the same matter and energy? It seems you have always had an affinity with indigenous people and their cultural ways. Is this related?
I blame the Industrial Revolution, in which whole populations were taught to become cogs in a capitalist machine as factory workers, often a dirty and dangerous way to make a living. Condemnation to such a dehumanizing role, especially in the mean conditions for workers in urban settings from the nineteenth century until recently can only be sustained by disassociating from one’s one experience. Even today, for example for many service workers, the required tasks are mind-numbing and require living in impoverished circumstances, devoid of natural beauty. That’s a pretty grim life to feel at “one” with. The notion of Gaia is totally about how natural systems work, but most of the human population today is shut out from experiencing that wholeness. In 2018, the UN estimated 55 percent of people worldwide live in cities. Eighty percent of Americans live in urban settings. Globally, the distribution of trees and other amenities accrues to wealthy residential areas. It’s pretty difficult to sign on to Gaia if you never see a tree. The systems approach of Gaia to environmental consciousness, therefore, is a relatively abstract idea for many. I was privileged to see and have personal relationships with many trees throughout my life, so Gaia always felt like common sense about the natural world to me. Traditional indigenous cultures live in careful balance with their habitats. From childhood, I devoured all I could about indigenous thinking because it seemed to articulate and expand my own experience of the world. As an adult, I have tried to carefully listen to native elders and learn more about a respectful attitude to all life. Something indigenous people and the Jewish idea of Tikkun Olam have in common is the importance of humility in all aspects of one’s life relationships.
3) You write of the concept of “What the world needs is a good housekeeper.” What prompted you to think of it in these terms?
One of the great translation sins in Western culture is the mistranslation from the Aramaic original to the King James Bible of the idea that we have a responsibility to all life, a pastoral concept described as “husbandry,” to the idea of manifest destiny, a monarchical and ultimately white supremacist idea that Europeans are entitled to plunder the Earth with impunity. Statistically, we know that across the globe, women tend to shoulder the better part of care for the home. But the term “housekeeper” is often regarded with contempt. My experience of my own mother was that she was a meticulous and tireless attendant to the serenity and orderliness of our home, no matter what. I admired the artfulness of her dedication. So to proclaim that quality so exactly in my terminology is what we all need is to rescue reality from the jaws of patriarchy and prejudice.
4) Do you believe that human greed is inherent in our species or do you think, in the long term, we will be able to tame our appetites for consumption and thereby destruction?
Children and young animals seem inclined to generosity. Socially, greed isn’t a very sophisticated strategy. So I think we need to consider how we are taught to consume and follow the money to note who benefits? Montessori education sets out to deconstruct what the culture at large teaches. That is not what the ordinary worker who often lives with crushing debt learns. I think the first task is re-education. That doesn’t mean living a life deprived of pleasure or even some luxuries. But it does mean stepping back from the merry-go-round of acquisition and ruin.
5) When you watch the news and see the various calamities of pollution, climate change and habitat loss, how do you stay hopeful? “Ignorance is bliss,” but when you don’t have ignorance where does your resilience stem from?
I am equally against ignorance and Pollyanna hope. Humans have always had a Janus face of goodness and evil. I think facing reality is an act of courage and integrity. The task for me isn’t to escape. It is to divine and embody solutions. That requires endless education and contemplation, schooling, and directing my passion to reconcile extremes. It’s often quite difficult and I despair. Then I take a nap and carry on.
6) As part of your project REQUIEM following the death of your father, you undertook a year-long form of daily meditation with an intentional shift in focus from grief to joy. Has that year had a lasting impact on your psyche to this day? Do you still practice meditation?
Well in that year, I learned that doing a good deed for others supports our immune system and reduces depression. The conclusion of that performance was to consider how a meditative and mindful attitude is a restorative lifestyle. I often forget but then remember and keep trying.
7) In the article “Blowin’ in the Wind,” you write, “This is the fast phase of climate change, accelerating geometrically. The planet will adjust to over-consumption dispassionately.” Many people believe that God will save us but here it sounds like you accept the reality that there is no such force of protection and things will play out in a logical sense and humans may not survive?
Most humans will not survive the follies of those in power. And even those in power will not be untouched, even if they have no conscience at all about the collateral damage of their beliefs and behaviors. I think pushback requires phenomenal stamina and wisdom, impossible for any one person, impossible to come from heroes and heroines who might be lauded for their uniqueness. Pushback is a task for everyone at every scale. It’s all very well to believe in God but even in the most hidebound religious views, passivity in the face of evil can’t be much of a defense on a Judgment Day.
8) In the year of the pandemic you lost several good friends. What strikes you about the goodness they have left in the world?
I will always recall the good of what they did in their lifetime. Like all loss, death demands bowing to grief and that is in itself a lesson in wisdom. What is more heart-breaking to me is how unnecessary their deaths were. During the pandemic, we were plagued with arguably the most evil administration in the history of the world, supported by almost half our population, who casually threw aside countless opportunities to save hundreds of thousands of American lives on the altar of his own petty narcissism.
9) I have read that you enjoy reading science fiction in your spare time. Perhaps dealing with the terrifying realities of current human affairs in your artwork means that reading about other worlds, or at least other versions of our own reality, offers some escape and respite?
I am a fan of dystopic sci-fi, in which someone unlikely rises to an impossible opportunity to save the world from horrible inevitabilities. This is despite my antipathy for heroes and heroines. Right now, I’m reading Kim Stanley Robinson’s, The Ministry for the Future, which is unreasonably optimistic about possibilities despite very grounded realism about human behavior. Sci-fi is a way for me to retreat to ground zero and imagine the unlikely as inspiration for the possible.
“From childhood, I devoured all I could about Indigenous thinking because it seemed to articulate and expand my own experience of the world.”
— Aviva Rahmani
“It’s pretty difficult to sign on to Gaia if you never see a tree. The systems approach of Gaia to environmental consciousness, therefore, is a relatively abstract idea for many.”
— Aviva Rahmani
“…what we all need is to rescue reality from the jaws of patriarchy and prejudice.”
— Aviva Rahmani