Coincidental Inspiration by Way of Danger and Perspectives: Inspired by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Graphite on paper, animated
The Creative Meanderings #7: Coincidental Inspiration by Way of Danger and Perspectives
…art is like a coincidence, a place for perspectives to weave themselves together, to grow open in their difference.
For the past 6,868 days or so, I’ve been breathing. In the past 6,868 days or so, most inspiration has come from coincidences. Those moments when unrelated elements of the world weave themselves together without control or expectation. Those moments when perspectives collide, and the world begins to make a bit of sense.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie came into my life when, one day, a rather small book with a mostly purple dust jacket found its way to me. This book was Adichie’s Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions. A childhood friend wrote Adichie asking how to raise her new daughter to be a feminist. Adichie’s answers range everywhere from the beginning of the first suggestion, “Be a full person.”, to the beginning of the last suggestion:
“Teach her about difference. Make difference ordinary. Make difference normal. Teach her not to attach value to difference. And the reason for this is not to be fair or to be nice, but merely to be human and practical. Because difference is the reality of our world. And by teaching her about difference, you are equipping her to survive in a diverse world.”
After her words to Ijeawele, I turned to Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus, then placed Americanah on the top of my reading list. Reading her stories was like ingesting nutrients: my brain chewed and absorbed the writing. With each word, the world I knew grew.
Almost one year ago, I took a Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) from HarvardX. “Religion, Conflict and Peace” approached cultural studies and religious literacy not through doctrines of religions and cultures but through perspectives and stories. The class began by encouraging students to contemplate our “situatedness,” a term inspired by feminist, science, and technology scholar Donna Haraway‘s “situated knowledges“. “Situatedness” is the concept that knowledge and perspectives “arise out of particular social/historical contexts and therefore represent particular rather than universally applicable claims.” (Text from course content.)
A perspective or piece of knowledge is not universal–it belongs to a person, situation, culture. The culmination of our perspectives and knowledge, the fact that every perspective is rooted in its perspective-taker’s experience, that is universal. To illustrate the importance of diversity in perspective, “Religion, Conflict and Peace” encouraged us to watch Adichie’s TED Talk “The Danger of a Single Story.” This is where the first flicker of coincidence began.
Growing up in Nigeria and coming to the United States for university, Adichie observed singular stories dominant cultures have, reducing whole cultures and people to a single narrative. Her ability to weave stories kept me enthralled and kept my eyes and mind open. Her talk concludes by expressing that,
“when we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise.”
Then the coincidence flourished, weeks after I watched “The Danger of a Single Story,” as I walked past our house’s living room and found my family watching Chimamanda’s TED Talk. I had not shared the talk with them. We had all come to it on our own, by way of our own stories and perspectives.
And so I found myself watching the talk over again, only this time, it didn’t just spark awareness, but inspiration. Inspiration that sticks with me as I observe the world, the past, the present, and what humans just might become.
In this world, so incredibly full of people, we seem to forget that we each have a perspective. Sometimes, we find ourselves communicating with each other, as people as cultures, by asserting perspectives onto one another. And sometimes, we seem to forget that no one else can, or ever will, share the same perspective as us, no matter how hard we might try.
Yet, through art and story, our perspectives have a chance to connect. Through words and images, we have the chance to perceive bits of each other’s minds and feelings, cultures, and hopes. In this way, art is like a coincidence, a place for perspectives to weave themselves together, to grow open in their difference.
Creative Prompt: How Many Stories in a Single Moment?
- Find a public space full of at least three people, and name the space (i.e., “park,” “restaurant,” “library”).
- Count how many people are in the space on a piece of paper.
- On the same piece of paper, record–in nouns and verbs or quick sketches–what the space is and what people may be doing (for example, a park, trees, walking, meeting, running, fighting, picnicking, crying).
- Take 20 minutes to try and make up a different perspective each person could have about their experience in the space (for example: what is the person on the bench thinking? Or why is the baby in the stroller crying?).
- Now, represent the space only with the made-up perspectives through a list of words or descriptive images until the original descriptions of the space disappear.
- Share your observation.
302 days done, 63 to go.
NadiaCDM 