Rapoon - Melancholic Songs of the Desert

Handmade paper folder with metallic screenprinting. Limited edition of 500 copies. These songs were composed during the last days of the Bush/Blair era and reflect the feeling of isolation and disconnection from any part of the political process and any sense of identification with the prevailing air of hostility and intolerance generated by this pair of religious xenophobes. The unjustified war in Iraq and the subsequent lies and propaganda engendered a feeling of revulsion and powerlessness. Once again it was “unpatriotic” to criticize or protest against the government’s actions, and there was a rise in nationalism and extremist views. These songs are a retreat into the one place that no government has yet found a way into, the free and open spaces of the mind. They are spontaneous and mediative reflections looking for an inner peace in a world made ugly by hatred and war. They symbolize a kind of “walkabout” and a reconnection with a lost sense of belonging spiritually, intellectually and physically with the world we inhabit. In a broader sense they also re-affirm long held sympathies with the thoughts of writers and philosophers such  as Camus, Sartre and Burroughs, and the profound wisdom of eastern philosophies such as Taoism and Zen.

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