I often find the combination of music and drawing irresistible. Sometimes, the visual expression has nothing to do with the music, and at other times, the song may inspire the images. My drawings are an illustrated backdrop to this powerful lament. I have been drawn to this song since I first heard it as a…
Author: Red Balloon
I am a chronically ill queer artist and writer. I have a number of degrees in higher education and have spent most of my life interested and active in social movements against racism, militarism, misogyny and homophobia. Over the course of my life, I have worked in the world of alternate news, translation, law, teaching, and with progressive cultures, music, poetry, performers, and artists. I speak and understand a few languages and plan to share media in them on this blog. I am a poetry, art, music, and nature lover with an especial fondness for cats!
“Man is a bird without wings and a bird is a man without sorrow.”
This quote from novelist Louis de Bernieres has inspired this series of drawings of birds. In the dog days of summer, we’re forced to slow down in the high heat and humidity. A good time to draw…
Say Their Names! From the Borders to the Camps!
Say their names. Those who are being detained and subject to inhumane policies of family separation, those who die in the arms of frightened parents who cannot protect them, those who are terrorized in prisons built for little children. Say their names… Do not let the amnesia of profit fill the ether.Yes, I have again…
Ouroboros
Ouroboros: The Snake Who Eats His Own Tail I’ve been thinking alot about the state of the earth lately. We are not living here, we are holding the planet hostage. And the ransom is too little, too late… In Greek mythology, Ouroboros symbolizes completion, wholeness, even the infinite. For me it has come to symbolize…
To See the Sea
This post is about a place where I have experienced great pleasure, great awe, and deep sadness — the ocean. I have been fortunate enought to play and swim in the waters of two great oceans, the Atlantic and the Pacific. I have also learned to overcome my fear of the water, to see with…
The Weight of All Our Rage/Red Dress
I recall this poem I wrote during the Oka Crisis of 1990. Thirty-one years ago. Things have only gotten more dire. Oka Nada It was true what the foremothers told us. Words are unrepentant birds which fly off and leave us silent. (Once more we watch the silenced movie. Clear Quebec Sky, still summer days)….
World Refugee Day June 20
Refugee production continues to be caused by war, ethnic cleansing, class warfare, narco states, apartheid, climate change and collapsing economic conditions. In 2015, the world was horrified by the searing image of Aylan Kurdi (3 years old), drowned on a Mediterranean beach, but the commitment to stopping the creation of refugees has not been matched…
My second homeland, the night…
My meditation on insomnia–inspired by a line from Noel Nicola’s Son Oscuro/Dark Son…
Loteria: A Homage to Mexico
A vibrant take on the centuries old game of Loteria and a homage to the beauty and rich power of Mexico!
Linguistics II
(Kaushalya Bannerji, The Faces of 5 O’Clock, Sistervision Press, Toronto, 1996) a poem is a dream with many endings just like words are shapes that have no form but human
Visual Interlude!
After posting more “academic” or learning oriented pieces lately, I decide to change it up! What follows is a work in progress, a Series entitled The Body is not an Apology borrowed from Sonya Renee Taylor’s book of the same name. I was struck by this phrase, because I have apologized for my body all…
El Doble Exilio: Un Homenaje Breve a Nicolas Guillen y la Lucha Liberatoria de los Afro-Cubanos copyright Kaushalya Bannerji, 2008-2019
Copyright/Derechos de Autor Kaushalya Bannerji 2019 Este ponencia se basa en una perspectiva interdisciplinaria, que tiene como su objetivo, un mejor entendimiento del papel de la cultura y el derecho en formar en la formación de la identidad individual, y colectiva de ser humano como ser social. En particular, mi interés en la cultura afro-cubana…
Fractured Feminisms: The Applicability of United Nations Frameworks and Instruments Copyright Kaushalya Bannerji, 2006
In this piece I wish to examine the ways in which women’s human rights have been put forward over the last 30 years by international human rights organizations. The United Nations (the U.N.) provides a key example of international human rights accords pertaining to the rights of women. I use the issue of domestic violence…
Ear to the Ground 