Noted. Artist and publisher Elaine W. Ho has already hit-and-run her residency in Bangkok, straddling into 2566 years after something miraculous, she ran.
Bolt, bolt, bolt. They kept reminding her of the danger of moto accidents while she was here, and there was an accident scandal that hit and crash-ripped metal into our hearts terribly, a Ducati monster, stupidly on the run. What we’ve learned in the last few years, if anything, though, is that crisis only bares that which has been in our midst all along, like Easter egg miracles planted by Buddhist school children in Christian schools. It is an era of exposure. The Books of Corruption Revelations. As she gets off another ride, she passes it off with a bitter cocktail, ‘It’s always dangerous to live in Bangkok anyway.’
Please note, I have not been a writer since 1995, though take from a selection of biographies this minor contextualisation of a particular temporality known as “Publishing on the Run“:
Elaine W. Ho wanted to be a writer when she was growing up and was always encouraged and told she could do so until one fateful failure at the age of 18. A piece of suspectedly ‘foreign’ flavoured writing cast her into the ranks of an elementary level English course, crushing her dream and changing her path from that point forward. She continues to struggle with lessons in failure on a frequent basis, though the counter to that is that she can now write from time to time, in the most free and unlearned way ever.
And so during this period of unexpected Thai fermentations, I have begun thinking about writing again, simultaneous to embarking on a number of print productions for various causes both personal and beyond personal. One of these, a collaboration with Namkheun and the Black Book Assembly, shall result in a ‘zook’ and new artist chapbook, forthcoming Spring 2022. We may not see one another in the flesh again for some time, but there is a great degree of corporeality under investigation.
Territory you said. That’s the thing. With whom does one share which territory, and how do they intersect? The one way streets cut through me—they have those names on them. But there’s not much territory to speak of any more. I’ve been careless. Lost too many friends. Or did they lose me?
— Mackenzie Wark, I’m Very Into You
___
Elaine W. Ho’s participation in the Publishing on the Run residency in Bangkok, Thailand, has been made possible with the support of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council Cultural Exchange Grant. The views and opinions expressed in this project do not represent the stand of the Council.