Aug
27
The Unthinkable Community
A new essay by Paul Chan, an artist, writer, and friend.
His recent project Waiting for Godot was a re-enactment of the Samuel Beckett play in New Orlean’s Lower Ninth Ward—developed, scripted and acted by Chan in collaboration with local artists and actors, including Wendell Pierce (who played Bunk in the Wire). Both before and after the performance, Paul worked and taught in New Orleans. Some of his students went on to found a now active arts collective called the Front. He recounts their pre-history in this essay which is a kind of larger questioning of how community forms (or wanes) in an era of constant communication. “A voice that desires a reply sounds different than an echo that wants attention.”
