Shoebox is on a trip this year: from Bachelor of Fine Arts in The Hague to fellow in Arabic Studies in Cairo. The contrast is stark, not only in terms of language and culture, but also on a personal level. After four years in safe-space art schools I find myself engaging with academics, students of law, politics and other worldly – real – pursuits. Few doubt the relevance or the hard work that goes in to these things, compared to studies in fine arts which to many is seen as pointless and the epitome of privilege. 

Because of this new and different environment I find myself questioning the importance of art and perhaps moreso the importance of studying it. It’s becoming difficult to hold on to and justify because what I am doing now is so far removed from what I have done for the past four years. People drop names of presidents I’ve never heard of and discuss political issues in countries I’ve never heard of. Important things. The world is fucked, I know that much, but beyond that? 

A couple days ago we got to meet Salwa Bakr, who said that a writer’s main job is to live life fully, because without rich life experiences what could a writer have to say? I wanted to follow up and ask her about what that means in relation to studies based on self-expression but I was too shy in front of a boss like her. 

If studying art is useless, would that be because studying something else is more stable career and money wise or because studying something so vague as contemporary art is useless in itself? 

Shoebox could be a way to confront these issues. 

Art is important. Culture is important. Anti-elitism, inclusivity, openness, these are things that I wholeheartedly believe in. At the same time, when I spoke about art and Shoebox and Relational Aesthetics to a friend of mine he told me it sounded like any other highfalutin art speak he’d ever heard. Statements like these: Shoebox aims to be an open, inclusive and anti-elitist space, carry weight and the question is if we actually have the authority to issue them. Is Shoebox not in some ways already an embodiment of exclusion and elitism?

This quote from Mike Brown’s 1972 I don’t know what to think about anything (it don’t matter, nohow) seems relevant: 

It’s (art) a way of living and thinking, a way for me to transmit to you the totality of my being and for you to transmit your totality to me. /…/ Artists should forget about art a little and start wondering about what they were born onto the earth for, where they stand in relation to everything that’s happening in this world, and whether what they are doing is as meaningful in a total sense as, say, planting a row of cabbages, building a chicken-coop, or going for a walk in the bush.

Dennis Farnsworth, Shoebox, July 2024

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The open call is still running. Deadline by 9th of July but late submissions accepted. To be printed in late August / early September of 2024.