camellias out the wazoo !!
and thoughts on time
09/04/25
Its the heaviest day of my period and walking from job A (9am to 6pm) to job B (7pm to 11pm) after my colleague made me cry has been a fairly bleak affair. By way of coping, I absorbed myself in thinking of all the creative ways I could use camellias; something I have done many times before. Sure enough the time flew and, aided by this album, I became happily disassociated from the busy Camden chaos.
My minor obsession with this common Springtime flower began around February last year during periods of antidepressant induced mania. Most of what I made was pretty bad and not useful for my masters, and my experiments with camellias came to represent that intense and traumatic period. For these reasons, I left it all neatly tucked in a proverbial box once I stopped the drug last May (and then barreled into 6 months of withdrawal symptoms). The album I am currently making is something of a controlled, gentle and loving look into that box, and so I have been interested in the idea of revisiting my experiments with camellias to create a visual world.
I was drawn to camellias for bittersweet reasons (if you have read literally any of my posts this should not surprise you). Although tropical, camellias are a very common front garden bush all over the suburbs of London. They herald in the Springtime, blooming hot pink and sex red in full force before dropping to the ground at their most perfect. I don’t need to tell you why someone who was obsessed with the thought of dying in their prime was drawn to these flowers which littered streets in abundance.
I rushed home with armfuls to make pigments out of them (one of my many new hobbies at the time). The pigments themselves were a beautiful pinkish purple- although none of the many pigments I made were ever used because I got fabulously, relentlessly distracted. One of these distractions was the petals themselves which became transparent and malleable once soaked in boiling water. I made scanner stop motion and photography with them, put them on my windows to dry in place, made cyanotypes with them and even filmed myself putting them all over my face (I don’t really know why to be honest, was just trying stuff out).
Most of what I made during that period of mania was pretty unusable and it was easier to abandon that and everything else that went on in that period. But it is in keeping with my album that I should revisit these experiments now that I am in a strong enough place to do so. I had already decided I wanted to do a photoshoot with soaked camellia petals all over me. Yesterday when I was looking for a nice picture to go with my post I trawled through reams of shit and did a quick edit of one or two scanner experiments and I realised it looks kind of actually SICK. And now my thoughts are just racing with new ideas. It gives me the same feeling as when I have a crush (but better cus I am trying to leave the simp life behind somewhat).
so-
THESE ARE MY CURRENT CAMELLIA IDEAS:
~~ Soaking the petals to make them transparent and malleable.
~~ Using the soaked water to make a dye and dying some fabric to make an outfit for performing in. And maybe some tote bags? merch?
~~ Using the petal water to make a pigment to paint onto the album booklet.
~~ Covering myself in soaked petals for a photoshoot (experiments pictured above).
~~ Making more scanner stop motion with the soaked petals.
~~ Making more scanner photos with the soaked petals.
~~ Drying the soaked petals flat and making more cyanotypes. And maybe cyanotype the tote bags? meeeerch?
~~ Preserving the soaked petals in beeswax just for the lols.
I’ll be making substack posts for these explorations as I go. Thats all I want to write for today.
***
12/04/25
I am very ill. Whilst zombified in bed with a lemsip, I listened to the newest track of my album. I’m not yet 100% sold on it but it did make me cry at the start so I will persist. Its like 20 minutes long so it will take some thought, but there is lots of potential. Emotionally and conceptually it is strong, I just need to sit down with it- something I’ve not done enough!
My camellia experiments are ticking along and I am close to working out the best way of making the petals go malleable and transparent when I want them too. Future Freda listen up: the trick (I think) is to freeze them and then pour boiling water onto them from frozen. I have yet to try boiling them and I also need to see if they keep better in or out of the sun. I have been making plans and notes and taking photos to document my experiments properly but at the end of the day I work chaotically so this is the best documentation we’re gonna get. Next Saturday Daniel will come over for a photoshoot (hence my need to stock up on flowers in advance). I am very lucky that there is a ginormous camellia bush overhanging the pavement on the corner of my street. Gosh I’m really into camellias at the moment.
I have been thinking a lot again about time. If you are a true fan you will know I did my dissertation all about time and that (you should read it, its really good). I really like being a nerd and doing a masters was ultimately very fulfilling. I even wanted to do a second masters before doing a PhD, and if universities weren’t crumbling in this country I might have dared to dream of becoming a teacher.
At the moment though, I am interested in what knowledge seeking looks like outside of academia. Writing a dissertation about how we can resist the oppression of capitalist, colonial clock time whilst trying to meet a deadline set by a racist and capitalist institution felt a little at odds with itself. If I’m going to keep exploring time outside of clock time, then I should do just that and resist clock time based institutional temporality.
Working with camellias really tickles my mustard because I am working on their time. There is no hard deadline but instead a rough period when I know the flowers will be around. Because of this, I find I have a burst of motivation. The same goes for my plan to release the album next Spring; its not a hard deadline but a rough period. Its very important to me that I incorporate time structures outside of clock time into my life, even if in very small ways. AND if I want to release it some other time then I just will. Working a nine to five has really got me feeling like clock time’s little bitch so I am keen to do my own creative projects on my time- that is, the elastic time of creative energy.
I was reading Karen Barad and BQF’s conversation in Bodies of Sound: Becoming a Feminist Ear (words can’t describe how essential and incredible and affordable this book is). This was pretty exciting as I linked their work a lot in my masters, I squealed and grunted a lot whilst reading it- sorry to my housemates and colleagues who had to be around that. Barad was advocating for a slow approach to learning, saying ‘give yourself permission to with even what you’re learning, as a practice of learning, to really reall slow it down and to walk around in every sentence… this temporality of learning and slowing down thought is in some ways going against the grain of capitalism and I think its a really important practice’. I am really excited to see what learning looks like outside of rubrics and deadlines. To follow the tangled threads of my curiosity across mediums in unfolded and nonlinear temporalities. To speak colloquially and poetically, to ramble repetitively. To think beyond my desire for academic approval. I’m lucky I have access to academic books and journals through working for goldsmiths so it will be nice to make use of that too.
I think this blog is an attempt to unfold the learning process somewhat. I’ll be the first to say its more for me than anyone else. I share it because:
whats the harm in letting people into the unbeautiful, chaotic, nonlinear process of making
it helps me work out what I do and don’t want to share
i want to get more used to sharing things (i get so complicated about it) so this is a good way to ease into that
its helps me get my thoughts in order and its nice to document as its happening and not in hidsight. narratives change in hingsight. theres no narratives here just thuogst
okay i am lying diwn but i feel i might faint somherw so its tiem for bed x
13/04/25
Maybe I will do a listening party whilst showing some art for the release! IDK!
Another idea. I just came across Bone Music where music was lathe cut onto discarded X Rays. I have been thinking about sustainable alternatives to physical release. Could be cool to lathe cut a song onto discarded material- even if it sounds noisy, it could be an awesome physical manifestation of the project?! Record made of ice :o
25/04/25
Its been a while and I think its time to release this post into the wild as I have totally lost interest. My progress has slowed as I turn my energy to seeing friends, partying, writing songs and playing violin for people.
I have a gig coming up:
https://www.greennote.co.uk/production/matinee-show-freda-dsouza-nika-mo-sophia-hansen-knarhoi/
PLEASE COME!
Speak soon x