Sights & Sounds: Alice Otieno
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Today I’m introducing a new portion of Common Discourse called Sights & Sounds.
Every Friday I’ll be asking a guest to contribute images from their camera roll—whether they took the images, saved them from somewhere else, or took a screenshot…no rules. I’ll also be asking guests to share one piece of sound—a song, instrumentals, voice memos, recordings…also no rules.
Hoping this a nice sensory break throughout the week from all the reading. Enough words for now, just look and listen.
Alice Otieno is a multi-disciplinary creative living and working outside of London. Her primary focus is within fields of photography, writing, and research. Currently she’s working as a Jr. Creative Strategist at MOUTHWASH Studio. When we first encountered Alice on are.na and were blown away at the level of intentional curation and research she was doing on the daily. It was clear that she had a spot on our team and it was barely a question. In my opinion, she’s one of the best and brightest young minds I’ve had the honor of working with. I feel lucky to call her my teammate and friend.
From Alice:
a collection of stills, screenshots and collected imagery from 2020-present
in the limbo that we’ve been held in over the past two years, an immediate result of that has been to wait. these images were, and still are, a testament to that.
2020–the year i got my attention back. ironically in an age where it’s one of the most valuable assets, and everything is constantly trying to take it away from us. Philosopher Simone Weil draws parallels to the words “waiting” and “attention”, noting their shared meaning in French. attention is a gift, to attend to someone or a thing is to devote yourself to it. these images and moments are a reminder to stop, to gaze, to move—intentionally and without haste. life always has a way to remind us that we have never really arrived, that there’s more we are yet to discover and learn. in the midst of that, beauty and truth are found.
— Alice Otieno
Sights
Sounds
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