we want to know
carletta joy walker arnold sachar robert roth
1. Where do we learn to compare ourselves to other people?
2. What does it mean to be brilliant?
3. How does enjoyment become talent become something to be utilized become a job? How does enjoyment become no talent and one becomes ignored, encouraged to try something else, encouraged to keep on trying?
4. Is it more difficult to say one is angry than to act angry? If so, why?
5. When is it, is it, ever okay to make a mistake? When is it, is it, ever okay to "organically" self-discover mistakes?
6. How do people work collectively when they are separated by racial, gender, class, status realities?
7. Is it always necessary to have an opinion?
* What does it mean when a good friend enthusiastically asks me to join them in a creative project and then when I go with them to public events such as films or poetry readings they consistently make harsh criticisms of whatever is going on using terms such as boring, unmoving and uneven?-Arnie
8. What is respect?
9. If we know Kent State, do we know Jackson State?
10. Are the effects, the realities, of a society that is socially, culturally, economically and politically white-dominated the same as the effects and realities that result from people's individual racial bias or prejudice?
11. What is beautiful?
12. Where do we learn to devalue/put down ourselves and others? What, if any role does this play in the function of our lives? Do we, why do we miss the irony/contradiction between these attitudes and the ones that believe in the equalizing of power relationships and the dissolution of hierarchies?
* What happens when you're brimming with enthusiasm, make an offering to the world and no one listens?-Robert
13. Do we seek approval? From whom?
14. What does it mean when you get a grant/prize/award? Does it help finance your work? Does it exercise control over you? Does it affirm that you are on the right track? Does a "gift" to one come at the "expense" of another? What does it say about you if you don't get one? Who are the people making the decisions? Who do they represent? Do your answers change based on your receiving or not receiving one?
15. What is a bad neighborhood?
16. What is ordinary?
17. What is the difference between the 10 to 15 ivy league schools; the colleges that are not that, but are not considered community colleges; historically Black colleges, Jewish colleges, Catholic colleges, Women's colleges; and the colleges considered community colleges?
18. Are oppositional movements in large part a quest for excluded people to achieve power and prestige roles in mainstream institutions and frameworks?
19. How do we celebrate someone without diminishing ourselves or someone else? How do we celebrate ourselves without diminishing someone else?
20. How do we choose who to sit next to?
21. How does setting (classroom/gallery/media program/public forum/?) effect response (critical/supportive/encouraging/competitive/disparaging/?)? How does presenter (adult/child/student/peer/co-worker/boss/teacher/male/female/black/white/English-speaking/Asian/?)?
* What does it mean that every time I write and speak I hear voices saying boring, unmoving and uneven? I freeze into terrified paralysis. Do these function as control words?-Arnie
22. Is critiqueing, evaluating, etc., inherently critical?
23. What is a good neighborhood?
24. How do we define a person such that we can do something to them?
25. Why do we compare people?
* Is there an aspect of definition/of defining that is inherently stifling? When it involves a person is it always to some extent limiting and is the opposite true i.e., is definition liberating? Which came first; where is the balance?-Carletta
26. What are the functions of intermediaries and middlepeople as they relate to art, literature, business, sports, film, etc.?
27. What does it mean to be called upon to be an expert?
28. Why do people purporting to challenge old values, build new values, often adhere to evaluation concepts like good and bad or average which reinforce/bolster the very system they oppose?
29. Does someone feel confirmed or negated when they are celebrated by the cultural machine?
30. If museums have better representation along racial, gender and class lines how are they transformed? How do they remain the same? Does a transformation reinforce the ways they either remain the same or change?
31. Why is someone "good enough," "interesting enough" to be assaulted, jailed, economically compromised for attending a demonstration, but "not good enough" or "not interesting enough" to be on, or have their own radio spot or television program or newspaper column, etc. within that same alternative movement?
32. Why is competition acceptable in certain areas and not in others? Which areas are acceptable for you?
33. Is there a difference between an informed and knowledgeable business manager and a skilled and inspired poet?
34. How does improvement relate to what one enjoys doing? Who is improvement for?
* Why do I Robert have no questions to ask myself?-Robert
35. How does it feel to be always told one's place, either directly or indirectly?
36. Is refusal to adjust to standard definitions and roles a form of maladjustment and immaturity or oppositional protest? What is the ability to adjust?
* Why do I ever respond/act on answers to questions that have neither been asked or answered?
-Carletta
37. How do we perceive people's race, gender, class that is different from ours? How do we perceive height, hair color, skin shade, accents that differ from our own?
38. Does your voice change when you talk to a person you consider famous? Does it change mid-conversation if you recognize the person as famous? How does it change?
39. What is the difference between a "work of art" and the expression of someone's joy and sorrow that is not considered a work of art? Who makes these distinctions? Why are they made?