writing

A Summer of Reading – a refusal of productivity

| Sheree

With the warmer weather and the slower pace, I’m so ready to lean into the lazy, easy, light and breezy days of summer.

My six weeks off the clock summer holidays are just around the corner. I can taste the sweet sweet honey of rest. But I’m not quite there yet. Still things to complete, anniversaries to celebrate and forms to send off.

But it’s close. I can smell the cut grass and strawberries and syrup already. The long drawn out of days of doing fuck all. Hell to the yes!

Reading is top of the agenda. Summer self-study of topics and issues that are making me buzz. I’ve already started my crime fiction reading as I get back into the DCI Ryan Mysteries Series from L J Ross, all set in the north east.

And now tonight, with an hour to spare before pick up I dive into We Refuse by Kellie Carter Jackson. This is just what I need coming off the back of completing my black mothering and fugitivity chapter. But it also is adding fuel to my fire of refusal and divesting from racial capitalism.

I’m only a few pages in and my heart is singing and I’m thumping with energy in the recognition of finding my space, my safe place where my desires and wants for freedom on my own terms is not weird or unachievable. But is very much necessary.

#onwards

who has #womensrights?

| Sheree
Neil Kenlock, 1970, Resistence Exhibition, Steve McQueen, 2025

In March the United Nations issued a report about Israel’s systematic use of sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence against Palestinian women since October 2023.

Those who shout long and hard about #womensrights have said fuck all about this abuse.

Perpetuating a system of oppression through gender-based violence and undermining self-determination is not coincidental.

But those who profess to be standing up for #womensrights say nothing.

Sexual and gender-based violence perpetuated across the Occupied Palestinian Territory is a strategy of war by Israel to demoralise and destroy Palestinians.

Those who shout long and hard about #womensrights have said fuck all about this abuse.

Israeli forces have destroyed sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities across Gaza. Medical support and equipment for safe pregnancies, postnatal care and neonatal care are decimated.

But those who profess to be standing up for #womensrights say nothing.

Women’s and girl’s reproductive right and autonomy as well as their right to life, health and dignity have been erased.

And yet these people, mostly white women, such as JK Rowling, who harp on about #womensrights and the so called threats posed by transgender people, say nothing about the Palestinian women and girls who are subjected to violence right now.

The deliberate starvation by Israel of Palestinian people has a devastating effect on pregnant women resulting in anaemia, malnutrition, miscarriages, stillbirths and undernourished newborns as lactating women cannot produce enough milk.

And yet these people here for #womensrights say nothing.

It would seem that those who claim to be champions of #womenrights pick and choose who has rights as women, fuck it, as human beings.

Where to start …

| Sheree

At the same time as trying to break free, create and embody a life of my own making, on my own terms, I’m still embroiled within this insidious society called white supremacy culture/ racial capitalism.

At the same time as trying to get free, and so spend my time doing what I want to do rather than what I’m expected/supposed to do/be, I waste energy in pulling away which I’d rather spend in pushing forward, pushing on.

At the same time as trying to be free, breathing deeply, resting and dreaming of other possibilities, I’m still meshed into the lives of other people, who are not interested is taking flight or even dropping the protective cloak of scoring victim.

At the same time as I take flight into the unknown, I realise my resolve and reserves have been depleted in the fight, in the pleasing of others, in trying to fit in, in trying to be loved on my own terms.

At the same time as trying to save myself, I know now that I have to let go of my hold of you. The hold on what could have been instead of what is that is crying through my bones and blood’s knowing.

when the world is burning, what can we do?

| Sheree

when the world is burning, what can we do? we can make fucking art. that’s what we can do!

“You can’t help it. An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times.”

― Nina Simone

sometimes i feel so small and insignificant. and what can i do that would make a difference? the world is burning. people are being exterminated. genocide over and over around the world, not just Gaza. Sudan, Yemen, Syria, Democratic Republic of Congo. genocide is history repeating itself. just in the last few days, a landmark Aboriginal-led inquiry has found that british colonists committed genocide against australia’s Indigenous population in victoria in the 1830s. why has it taken so long for this to be vindicated when the people themselves know when they have been dehumanised and persecuted? nations/ governments commit genocide because they think they can get away with it. no one seems to hold them to account.

what can I do when, as an artist, when the world has gone to shit? make art. that’s what i can do and that’s what were supposed to do.

it’s out duty to reflect the times. but the world is making it really hard for us not to do this. the world is working really hard to silence us. to suppress us. to keep us operating on fear and to box us in. all these social media platforms are owned by oligarchs who own and control us. we are discouraged from telling the truth. and when we tell the truth is is filtered, distorted and manipulated.

and yet. i remember. we need art. people need art. art helps use process our feelings and emotions. through art we can learn, heal and feel. art helps us to be in touch with ourselves and each other. art connects. art helps us reflect.

art gives me the words or the language for the things i didn’t know i needed to express to process to reflect to share. here in my little space on tin-ternet, i’m not bought or controlled. i’m not silenced or afraid. i embrace my duty as an artist to make art by any means necessary.

i hope you will join me in creating and reflecting the times. let’s not sit in our fears but connect in our strengths.

Confronting Fascism

| Sheree

What are you most worried about for the future?

Resistance, Steve McQueen, National Galleries of Scotland, 2025

the undercurrent has always been present, simmering like lava just below the surface ready to rise up at weak points, at moment of disarray and hopelessness. hate shimmers like jewels to those who have little but promised more. clinging to the sharp edges of hate because it’s something to feel, to use as a weapon against others instead of the self. hate with fear, a lethal concoction corroding within as well as without.

1936. October. With a chill in the air, the blackshirts ruffled through the East End of London, snaking their territory, their Ayran rights. With Police fronting, they still couldn’t take the streets. Jews, Irish, Communists, Blacks, Labour activists, workers unite. Stand firm. Shoulder to shoulder, they shall not pass. Blackshirts, angry scrunched up faces, hearts riddled with hate and fear, shall not pass.

Find me in the backyard

| Sheree

This weekend you’ll find me in the backyard.

It’s nothing major or anything spectacular. All the the time I’ve lived here which will be coming into it’s third year at the beginning of July, the yard hasn’t really featured on my radar. Yes maybe to put the washing out or store my bike. But as a place to hang out, like an extension my home, no way. Maybe having neighbours who allowed their dogs to pee and shit in their backyard which is joined to mine, separated only by a short fence, was a put off. It was a smelly place I didn’t want to be.

Now we have the sun, the fresh air and the morning bird song, I find myself flocking to the backyard as soon as I wake. I throw open the kitchen door and give thanks for seeing another day. I’m setting up a table and chair and having my morning coffee in the backyard while I visual journal. It’s helping me with my mood. I feel as if Mother Nature is holding me once more as I go through a health issue that is making me stay close to home.

I know I’m privileged to have an outdoor space which is private. It’s waiting for me to put my mark on it. Of course that will involve colour. But for the moment, with my permaculture hat on, I’m just observing and interacting within the space. I’m sitting in the backyard and marking where the sun is and moves. I’m dreaming into the space and opening up to how I want to feel while in this space.

At the moment, I’m feeling expansive within the space, within a contained way. It feels good to feel the sun on my skin and the breeze moving through my hair and clothes. It’s being outside as well as being inside, as my kitchen is just there for a refill. I’m also close to Miss Ella’s bedroom window and I can hear her talking to herself or watching TV, chatting to her friends. The backyard is my sanctuary and I want more.

There is something here in terms of fugitivity. There is a quote that I used just the other day when I finally completed my chapter on black mothering and fugitivity. Hold on let me find it …

In Stolen Life (2018), Moten writes, “Fugitivity … is a desire for and a spirit of escape and transgression of the proper and the proposed. It’s a desire for the outside, for a playing or being outside, an outlaw edge proper to the now always already improper voice or instrument” (131). BECOMING FUGITIVE: refusing what has been refused of us dr. sheree mack

That desire for the outside, I’m feeling it on so many levels. I’m choosing to lean into it. No matter where it leads, I’m enjoying how it feels. I’m enjoying that sense of freedom, out from the enclosure. Continue.