Pilachi_Sketch [ BLOG ]

By a seemingly strange sequence of events, I have found the way to release obsession: face it.

You see, for me it is hard to tell what is real and what is imagined; because my dreams are interactive. Usually, as is the case with my writing, I am narrator and participant and observer. There is usually an opportunity to question the outcome and to see what happens based on a series of finite choices or events. More often than not, this involves flying high above the landscape and seeing the world from way above the clouds.

The cues are visual… a colour usually; an object; a detail that is distinctive. It is as though in my mental landscape, I am leaving clues for myself to find in my waking existence; almost as though I am trying to help myself to heal. Read more

I blame the people in my life for not understanding my needs; yet it is I who never expresses my needs in explicit terms for these needs to be understood. Now, I am making a solemn attempt to communicate through my turmoil [ie constant state of being.]

In my family there is a tremendous history of depression—on both sides of the family—and I want to make every effort not to venture too far down that road on my own: and thereby descend into madness also. For the better part of my life, I have found that my personal body, my instincts and my mind have felt so open [as receptors] to the environment around, that I almost have to slow myself down to receive messages and guidance from my surroundings.

Those two variables [mental illness and heightened awareness] define the conditions of a continuum that I face, and try to comprehend, more often than not. Read more

Ghana is changing. Again.

For the better part of the last two years, the common excuse given for the “ordinary frustrations” was invariaby “this is Ghana;” as though this common complacency made unacceptable business practices more tolerable. I am happy to report… that Ghana is changing. Again.

This is not a scathing rant about why Ghana is deplorable; in fact to the contrary Ghana is an amazing, burgeoning population and the veritable “gateway to Africa [all things considered].” I am here because it is my objective to play a significant role in the positive reinforcement of the image of this society in the eyes of the international community. So why am I so obsessed with this oncoming, or rather ongoing change?

With growth rates in excess of 7% per annum, more than 65 corporations moving their headquarters to Ghana in this year alone and a plethroa of Nigerian banks changing the economic landscape in Ghana; trunk roads and feeder roads (highways) connecting the farthest reaches of the society with the furthest reaches of the world… the gateways to international trade are wide open (well, almost). This place is bursting at the seams. Read more

Download Complete Book (26mb)

On the request of the Delegation of the European Commission in Ghana the print publication “Collaboration in Action” and the companion DVD, that Pilachi was commissioned to put together last year, have been re-purposed for digital distribution.

“Re-purpose” is a misnomer if you really think about it: because Pilachi is a digital design studio, so the files all started out digital[ly].

The brief of the project was to prepare a 50 page book and interactive disc celebrating three things:

1. 50 Years of independent Ghana: the first black ruled nation in Sub-Saharan Africa
2. 50 Years of the unification of Europe
3. 30 Years of European Commission and Ghana Collaboration [...hence the catchy title... "Collaboration in Action"]

As you can imagine, this was a tall order; so we flipped the script a bit. Read more

We came back to Jamaica to try to make a difference in the way that we as Jamaicans relate to each other; and also to influence the way that the rest of the world relates to us as Jamaicans: the people, the nation, the notion, the myth.

Having spoken with a series of similarly mis-shapen movers and mis-shakers, the unanimous decision is that Jamaica needs the positive influences of the creative professionals on the ground: the people who are able to independently fuel the coffers, so that social development becomes the necessary not-for-profit community-service-without-the-sentencing.

We are all parts of a singular daisy chain and all feel that politics, public sector governance, private sector corporate governance, all the way through the informal sector… the priorities are incorrectly placed and thereby make it vary easy for the susceptible to fall prey to temptation and corruption (read: every single one of us).

Without a moral compass and / or positive role models, how will we know what is the right way; how will we hold onto the things that we are sure are the right ways… if the people who drilled these positive morals into us: our mothers, elderly grandmothers, principals and old-time-teachers… are all desperately poor, exploited and / or suffering at the hands of the people and systems that we are taught to look up to. How do you blame those who fight back in negative ways… how do you not become one of them yourself?

If the road to hell is paved with good intentions; where is the off-ramp? Read more

Anger surrounds and subsumes the very essence. Without warning; the selfless self suppresses desire and blandly assumes the role of the profligate and purposeful parasite. [alliteration not withstanding.]

The words “erstwhile” were once used to describe things that lay outside of the realm of recollection. The self who abandonned dreams and became a vacuous remnant in the shadows of doubt. So much has happened since then. And yet, here we are again. Read more

Architecture in Jamaica is a profession that has limited opportunities for the local population of architects, and even fewer opportunities for the architecture students who graduate each year. I also understand that the Jamaica Institute of Architects is also no longer as cohesive as it could be.

I have not joined the association. I am not sure how I would join… who to speak to… nor why [to be honest]. Maybe they have good parties… but I neither drink nor socialize.

With hundreds of student applicants at the local architecture school, from across the Caribbean, The 50 or so accepted each year accomplish quite a feat; and with fewer than 3 or so employees in most prominent architecture firms in Jamaica, the graduating students find themselves in an ackward position. Are we training our students for export? If so, to where? The Eastern Caribbean? The US? Read more

It has been evident to me for more time than I have had confidence to accept it, that I am–or so I am told–a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. This is not that big of a problem for me these days; as I am trying to help others to come to terms with the continuing “quest for where [we] belong.”

We are all on that quest, searching in good and bad places as Tori Amos says “looking for a saviour in these dirty streets, looking for a saviour between these dirty sheets… raising up my hands, drive another nail in… just what God needs, one more victim…”

But that is not what this is about. Read more

Last night, quite by accident, I came across a news presentation on a local cable-access-television station by a lady who I grew up calling Auntie Barbara. She is a cultural icon, by the very nature of her contributions to the arts and by the frank, honest and decisive descriptions of the Socio-Economic [insert appropriate adjective] that Jamaica is and increasingly becomes, with time.

In her presentation, filmed at the Conference Centre, she told the story of a “Small Boy Selling Star;” which would appear to be quite a sensational news headline without a bit of context. The “Star” is a tabloid newspaper, which is in this case, was on sale by a minor: a common and unfortunate occurrence here in Jamaica.

In her account, she was quite celebratory about the innovation of this particular young man who through experience, adapted his method and approach to avoid the challenges and effectively sell the newspaper with surgical precision. In and of itself, this story was interesting; however the twist added a deeper level of appreciation, when she described that the young man proclaimed that he was failing at school, especially in math. Read more

The interplay that often results from professional or academic co-creation often leads to an emotionally charged moral grey area that quite frankly disgusts me.

What is the end goal of lateral pursuit?

Why is it that I am so very strongly turned off and feel this wretching feeling when I consider the ramificiations of student-teacher and boss-employee relations? I am not sure… but the very thought of either combination usually makes me want to extricate the inner recesses of the most vile and putrid sanctum of my bowels.

Is this ethical overload? Is it profligate self-righteousness? Is it the very bitter aftertaste of bad experiences, being the participant observer in failed relationships spawned by the vertically aspirational and laterally mobile and the decisions made by those who felt the need to sleep their way to middle management?

Quite frankly… I am the least objective candidate to evaluate this subject. Read more