001: On not following rules, library-building, and falling into doing random projects

Dear friends, old and new, of Untitled Projects,

A new website, a blank space, a fresh start. We can begin over a million times. There is no rule that says we can't.

I'm not a big fan of rules. Sometimes that has caused me problems (believe me) and I've had to live with the consequences, but mostly I avoid rules, and I don't believe in set paths. For that reason, I guess, rethinking my life is a way of life for me. Every year or two I go on a small sabbatical to recalibrate and re-map things, but in 2023 I had a particular moment of crisis. I don't use the word "crisis" negatively. I just mean in 2023 I had this strong feeling that something needed to change. I felt every cell in my body tell me (shout at me?) that I wasn't just bored or feeling uncreative, but that I needed to morph and turn into something else. Maybe not something else entirely, but I sensed that I was changing anyway, or being revealed. I was sick of not being who I was meant to be. Whatever that meant, it was a puzzle that led me to Paris to study with an old master photographer, to New York to exhibit my work, to London to learn more about the fine art photography scene (and realizing that wasn't quite my thing), to a small grey town in Japan where I eventually stumbled upon a little library, and this library, finally, provided me with a small piece of the puzzle, and an expanded picture of my new life gradually came into view.

It was about one month into my year-long sabbatical in Japan when I abandoned my plans and started a community library in Singapore, and from there a few shifts happened. I was changed, as promised by the universe and my lovely astrologer (shoutout to Lux who told me I might have a "big change of identity" in mid 2024). I became more than a photographer. But I think it's more than just my identity, but how I experience this world. With the library, my place in the world has become more entangled than ever. As a photographer, my chosen occupation for the last thirteen years, my goal has been to be as detached as possible. I work freelance and have no formal ties with anyone. Even my agency, who represents me, keeps me on a loose tether. It's what I want - to be my own person, to not have to answer to anyone or be responsible for anything apart from my commitment to do good work. I refuse to be trapped.

Or at least I saw it that way, that to be a part of something is to be trapped. But with the library I have come to embrace my role as an accidental community-builder. It's not something I would have set out to do on purpose, but now that I am here, I see why I have to be here. We need to build community because the world is starved of connection beyond the screen. We also need to build more spaces that feel like magic, that gently knock people out of their every day ennui and stupor. I hope our library is a space like that.

To be a part of something is not to be trapped or to be unfree, I’ve come to realise. But it does require commitment and hard work and the ability to be responsible and to show up for others, things that perhaps I've been avoiding in my more-than-a-decade quest to be free of everything.

But with rootedness comes a kind of unanticipated joy. Some days I find myself sitting in the library smiling at everything that's happened since, even the difficult moments, because I find it incredible that I am indeed sitting in a library that first began as a thought, as a desire. It wasn't real, but now it is.

I think I've been saved by a library - gifted things and people I didn’t know I needed, learned things I didn’t know needed learning. How on earth does a small library (only 450 square feet) drag up questions around purpose and meaning and self worth and happiness? I don't know, life can be so strange. All I know is whatever it might be, we must strive against all odds to find answers to the puzzling questions that keep us awake at night. And sometimes an unlikely path, say a small library, might take us there.

Magic and fire

My whole life I've been doing random projects. I've made a magazine, a traveler's bag, a cafe, a radio show, now a library. There are constantly so many things in my head I'd like to make real. Sparks everywhere. And if I don't catch them they disappear, of course, replaced by new ones. I'd go so far as to say that doing random projects is a wonderful way of being alive, because of that spark. That fire. One can't live in this world dulled and flattened by the bureaucracy and idiocy of things. One needs to be reminded that being alive is a special, special, wondrous thing, and that we're full of awesome powers because we can make things, we're creative.

This new website is one of my random projects, which will go on to be a home for my other creative endeavours. It's a place to save words I've written about my ideas and my projects, and a living room for like-minded friends - or even unlike-minded ones - to gather. I guess this is community-building too, an exercise in making friends. In this case I find technology to be such a blessing, because I can write this in Singapore and I can reach people everywhere in this world. It's akin to magic don't you think?

It's magic and fire we need.

A favorite quote of mine goes like this (by Kirin Kiri, Japanese actor):

"It's a strange world. Everyone's always wondering, ‘What's gonna happen when I'm old?’ or ‘What is death all about?’, but we're just worrying for nothing. Because the world is bigger than we can imagine. This world is a 'series of accidents', and what fills this world isn't happiness, but interestingness. Happiness is subjective, but when you are willing to jump into the world, you will start to feel its interestingness. And if you live in this world, you'd better not do things that are not interesting."