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I love people who do not fit into traditional categories. People who defy definition because defining them would require putting them in a group of peers and they are peerless. People who challenge and inspire you every single time you are in their presence and who drive you to lengths you had not imagined possible. Ilhaam Behardien is definitely one of these. I once described the first course I took with her as ‘The Ilhaam Behardien School of Fasten Your Fucking Seatbelt’. Because it was just that.
The advert that found its way, miraculously, onto my computer screen read like it was written for me. The course was called ‘Defining Yourself as an Artist’. It described what I had always been looking for, a course that would help me find my voice as an artist and a format for me to funnel my creative energy thru. But Ilhaam’s course should come with a warning. Just like the video screens of doctors on the way into Space Mountain at Disneyworld that warn you to ‘turn back now or proceed at your own risk’. The course warning label should read: Those who pass by this portal must be ready to break patterns, and moulds and stereotypes and break down barriers and bridges. To face your fears and your inner voices and the music and the light. To open your eyes and your heart and your mind and Pandora’s box and search for hidden truth and naked honesty; to grasp the Wizards ring and the brass ring and take hold of yourself by the scruff of your misconceptions and wage battle against your own demons armed only with art and soul.
Day one I arrive, imagining I know something. About art, about myself, about my voice and if not the form of art, I know what I like and have some idea what I am like. I am, of course, wrong.
One of the things I love about Ilhaam is the way she looks. She has a smooth round face like the perfect face of a Russian doll, with giant eyes that expand regularly to full volume like the squeals that punctuate her expressive voice. Her skin is as white as milk and she wears a veil. Not a wolf in sheep’s clothing, more of a parallel universe in a simple piece of cloth. I, of course, had my own ideas about women who wear a veil; Ihaam would quickly dispossess me of these.
Our first task was to analyze, as a group, the images each of us had brought and seek to define each person by the unwritten links between the images they had selected to show. This immediately made me uncomfortable. I hadn’t understood the assignment; I hadn’t really brought anything telling or deep, just pretty pictures. I was slow to realize that this said more about me than I cared to admit.
Over the weeks that followed I watched myself cycle through my defenses one by one: ‘I’m not like these people, I am difficult to define’ = contentious. ‘I have been everywhere and done everything’ = closed. ‘I am interested in the theoretical root, the conceptual abstraction of pure art’ = I have no idea but I know I’m smarter than you. Each of these barriers brought new challenges and tears and each week Ilhaam would chip away at the veneer till what started to shine thru was the simpler, more obvious truths defined above.
Art isn’t scary the way mountain climbing is, for instance. With mountain climbing you prepare your muscles for the ascent and you strengthen your nerves by repeated practice on increasingly challenging pistes. The trick about art is that the only thing that prepares you is to dive into the abyss with no defenses. To open yourself up completely in every way to be led, skinless, and artifice-free wherever art wants to take you. The hitch being that only if and when you drop your defenses enough to listen, will it speak to you.
This sort of thing is, of course, much easier to see in others. So each week in class I began to see how beautifully things were falling into place for those who had been able to hush their ‘inner critic’ and just follow the flow. Beautiful things emerged. Giant caress-able balls of crocheted angora with hidden secrets; tiny, golden, slippers with millions of pins protruding in every direction; raw cartoons of rats being crucified. But I was still stuck…
Then one week I started working on fax paper, briefly detailing the thousands of conceptual art ideas floating around in my head in a running commentary: motion-sensitive jewelry; survival suits for school kids; head-pieces that mimic animal survival techniques in social situations. Each idea I worked through to a final, finished product in my head and then described in class. This finally felt closer to my true artist self somehow. Pure concept without the process of execution. Non-retinal art that exists only in my head and the listener’s (check out immaculateconceptualisation channel on You Tube). Exciting and limitless conceptual exploration with no boundaries. Just as I was taking flight the course ended. And then something new happened. Ilhaam and I began collaborating on an exhibition.
Each week we would meet for a few precious hours and we quickly discovered that working together something quite powerful began to shift. The complete synchronicity of understanding meant that we could each question and vocalize in a way we hadn’t individually. We worked with live mould and crystals and salt and photography and computer enhancement and a body of powerful work dealing with issues of the women of Gaza began to materialize.
In the process of working together Ilhaam and I found a deep level of communication that binds us together irrevocably. I have the utmost respect for her as an artist, a thinker, a woman and a friend. This morning at 6:30AM we shot images of her, veiled and immersed in the icy waters of the tidal pools in Seapoint. With this project, as with all others, she was fully present, focused, fearless and generally ‘balls to the wall’. As always with Ilhaam the result was unexpected and the experience revelatory.
I have no doubt that meeting Ilhaam has changed the course of my life, or that she will forever be a part of it. She reminds me that life is about that, the connection with another human being that goes beyond words, beyond pictures and beyond all limitations.
Love you girl.