quiet healings we do not talk about

                                              

its a weird time for me. checking out of life seconds at a time . digesting feelings abt my feelings. writing again because i realised i stopped. i think i know why i stopped too. exam season is always like this. i procrastinate until it's too late and suddenly i'm interested in everything but revising. i want to finally read all of marya hornbacher's other books other than 'wasted'. i'm currently finishing off junot diaz's 'the wondrous life of oscar wao'. drinking more green tea than ever except i got lazy and stopped using the leaves and now am going through boxes of twining green tea bags which isn't as good but like i said, i'm lazy. i'm trying to make money too, replying to random gigs on craigslist here and there and they should eventually amount to something. or at least enough. one i signed up for ended up being handing out leaflets at 3am in central london? (i turned that one down). i'm moving out next year.. i hope. mocks in 2 days and i haven't started revising. i should get on that. i'm glad summer's near but i'm scared to lose this life / teenagehood / moment.

sophia

sept/oct mood board

p self explanatory. visuals from the internet i'm feeling atm + a few words i've written.

instagram.com/zszophia
sulacollective.com

melting

watercolours from a while ago

sooo i finally finished my exams a few weeks ago + then some stressful/gross/traumatising things were happening @ school and it basically consumed me until now /// thankfully i only have 2 days left and i'll be on holidays. i'm just gonna spend my july being creative and reading lots. someone was talking abt how reading is such a large part of liberation (makes sense tbh). so just want to be constantly educating myself, learning more and making art. wanna go through rolls and rolls of film + experiment more w/ photo processes, also planning to do collab stuff w/ other art bebes [hmu if yr in london/uk and wanna do art stuff together/model 4 me]. n will be filming a project i'm doing on east asian girlzzzz in london!! otherwise i just want to be free from stress and just love myself for a while cos i need it. i feel so drained, so tired of everything. its super hot these days and my window is always open now, wind flowing through. i feel like i'm melting away w/ everything else in the city but seeing old friends and just being w/ people who really support my truth + get me is so nice and good for the soul. been feeling a lot of things nonstop so i'm trying to breathe now, lie on the grass, usual summer things...


i'm too tired to add lots of links but here are some interesting or important things 2 check out:

• Darkmatter spoken word/ slam poetry on youTube. their work abt colonialism, trans identity, queer identity, politics etc. is so on point, saw them perform @ goldsmiths uni and was blown away
• Shura's music. i'm rly into her songs atm and the video for 'touch' is !!!
• Lianne la havas's new music. her music videos are also simple but so beautiful. excited for the album
• "Colonialism was not just about colonising whiteness, but about colonising the gender binary model." - interview w/ Laverne Cox in the Guardian
• been going through the queer films on netflix. i would recommend if ur desperate/bored but honestly all of them are SO bad. (apart from the classics like 'but I'm a cheerleader') they all have really sad endings or the age gap is reaaally big
• just finished 'feminism is for everybody' - bell hooks (its p accessible to read but also substantial), other things i'm currently reading-- 'zami' - audre lorde. 'women who run with the wolves' - clarissa pinkola estes. 'colonialism/postcolonialism' - ania loomba
• Adult magazine's panel on consent, rape, sexual assault, rape culture (TW)
• Sensei Aishitemasu's youTube channel. her YT desc says "your woke big sister". been watching her videos since december ish. she has taught me more abt race issues, anti-blackness, police brutality etc than school ever could. although lots of her videos are really long, i never notice it tbh

photo i took of emma 2 months ago

places and people

here are some film photos i took towards the end of 2014/beginning of 2015.

phoebe. one of my favourite photos

me by sonia

summer so quickly gone

it's mid august. aka school in less than half a month. exam results on thursday (scary). summer went by so quickly, i swear it just began ??? probably because i disappeared away from friends and into asia for a month and a half. i was working in hong kong for a few weeks then travelling with family to macau, hangzhao and macau. it was mostly fun because i met lots of new people (always gd) and took lots of photos (on film) although generally my creativity and writing wasn't really happening when i was away. working for the first time was really scary / interesting / fun and people were really nice and i got paid so !!!

i go to hong kong every yr because i have family there but i guess i never really appreciated its beauty. Because i had gone so many times, i had grown tired of the city. and then i fell in love with Ward Roberts' courts series- a beautiful collection of pastel colored buildings and uniformed courts. a series i later found out was mostly shot in hong kong. then when i returned this summer, i looked up and realized these wonderful colours i admired in roberts' work so much were right in front of me, painted on all the buildings. i also went to some old casinos in macau and the decor was so 70s glamour (that was probably because that's when they were designed) and it reminded me of lana del rey songs.

this summer i tried to at least go to lots art exhibitions, one was in Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art. others included Matisse cut-outs at the Tate which I thought were playful and lively and very contemporary considering when they were created. AND I went to Jenny Saville at the Gagosian which was incredible to see her art IRL. her paintings are mesmerising and intriguing and to some, uncomfortable. but i love the honesty and rawness of her subjects and that disordered glitchy feel. i don't know how she does it, it's amazing.

another one i went to was Marina Abramovic's 512 Hours. i guess i had high expectations because of all the hype about the artist but really i didn't know what to expect. the experience was really interesting and i'm so glad i went. when i went in, i was quite nervous because everything was silent and i could see Marina right in front of me walking around and talking to other people but when i left, i was at peace, happy, rested, empty yet full. many people were emotional and personally, i think it has to do with the silence and the emptiness and the lack of anything to do. the boredom forces people's minds to think about anything which, if given a long enough time, can turn to darker thoughts and evoke sadder (or happier) memories. when the sound is muted and the eyes are closed and any sense of direction gone, you have only your mind left and so you think and think and think.

Ward Roberts courts series

Jenny Saville @ Gagosian

Matisse cut outs

p.s. i got a haircut and my film will be developed next week. i'll also post some writings sometime in the week. oh and i changed my url to teenagecomplex and saying goodbye to zszophia :-)

S

mood:

#selfie #picslip

cutest/prettiest/yet still cool gif ever maybe?

want to go to dicorcia's exhbition east of eden sometime soon

SEE TEEN BELOW

THE TEEN

Saw CocoRosie again on 30th Sept at Oval Space (some warehouse type place near shoreditch?!)! This time was better because I knew their songs properly and it was really beautiful and inspiring. Gravediggress was my favourite (AND OF COURSE WEREWOLF). I've realized that now 2 out of the 5 or 6 posts I've written on here has had CocoRosie in it oh well. Their lyrics are so interesting (Bianca's a poet soo...) and have so much depth and their melodies are enchanting. Wrote my english coursework about their concert - classic me ("Sophia you need to stop saying classic" says everyone I know). V art themed post probably because I've been doing a lot of painting and art coursework. For half term I plan to do even more. I should get my disposables from summer developed and some 120 film from last easter developed too oops. Will do that and get em all posted in a week or two. Will post some photos I've taken for art/other people/own pleasure. I tend to always blog when I have a test the next day. Tomorrow's biology test CANT WAIT.

Sophia

P.S. Am I the only one who was disappointed with Bangerz (Miley's new album) after all the hype with her singles which I admit were pretty good and catchy?

P.P.S. want to do some photography of strangers on the street (sort of like Humans of New York kind of stuff) but just for fun. Seems scary. We'll see.

art is the only way to run away without leaving home

                      

Finished my art exam this week, created a self portrait that looks slightly like me (note it is the mirror image of myself). Was a bit adventurous with the background. Don't know how to feel when I paint myself. In half term at the moment, don't want holidays to end sigh....

Sophia