This text was written for the duo-exhibition 'are we having a good time?'
and was co-authored by Mishael Oladipo Fapohunda and myself.

are we having a good time?

Wed, 28 Aug

M: wanna go for a road trip?

M: gotta get an answer real quick if so though. returning the car in a few hours.


Sat, 31 Aug

            I: sorry i didn’t get back to you friend! It was a day yesterday

Fri, 20 Sep

            I: missed you!

this poem speaks of physical action and forms of writing to accompany the things you see and hear, it speaks of writing words to be seen and read, at times spoken, it speaks of misunderstandings, improvisation, reading, of whispering, of collage as a form.

Thu, 26 sep

M: yo you good?

            I: hey yeah i just got back home!


M: where were you?

            I: spain for a week in a tiny village

M: was just gonna say I’m reporting my bike stolen, anything special you had to do? frame number?

            I: yeah frame number but also add anything extra that you bought for the bike!

            I: like a new handlebar or the bag on the side and all that

we have our first online meeting. post-meeting the gallerist asks us to take the documentation photos of the exhibition.

Tue, 1 Oct

            I: did you go there?

M: yo

M: yh it’s so damn nice.

opacities can coexist and converge, weaving fabrics. to understand these truly one must focus on the texture of the weave and not on the nature of its components… it’s important to give up the obsession with discovering what lies at the bottom of natures.

Tue, 8 Oct

            I: 14 images

M: haha brilliant

M: where is this?

            I: Tate Britain

            I: [suspense emoji]


M: ahh

M: my guy is getting the bag

            I: shit man he sure is

            I: is it even worth it being an artist if you’re not getting that kind of bag

            I: we actually never spoke about your crisis

this poem speaks of common stupidity, ignorance and the naivety of the gullible fool.

M: my current crisis is should i send these people all this info about me just for them to say nah I’m not giving you shit:

M: ahh gosh that was just about being ***** and ******** about many things in life and career

M: you know the drill

            I: hahaha well that sounds like a typical one

we meet on the free version of zoom, rescheduling the meeting every 30 mins, whenever the timer runs out. we tell the gallerists that the translucence is an integral connection between our practices and that we’ll send our bios, sketches, a title to the show, all the other details straight away. the moment the meeting ends, we get on our own call to discuss the discussion.

            I: got an answer from the grant

M: did they give anything?

            I: nope

            I: not to me

knowledge of what’s really my own is a bit foggy at this stage after partaking in a fair bit of vigilante recompensation.

M: otherwise fuck em it’s wild they ask for all that info

            I: but maybe to someone else

this poem speaks of the backdrop of a financial system in which the materiality of price is emancipated from any even illusory reference to physical property, aspects of materialisation within art might be read as a response to crises in the process of establishing value.


            I: I’ve been thinking Mish - I might want to do the paper works sort of more traditional than the hanging system - I might want it on the wall [screaming cat emoji] [suspense emoji]

…the sacralisation or sanctification of art is what defines the gap between modernity and tradition. you can easily sense that what determines the price of a very nice car, a very nice piece of furniture, doesn’t belong to the same order as what determines the value of a modern artwork. and that gap is emphasised by the nature of the artwork: something raw, something that is reminiscent of remains, something that is ripped, ravaged or made hideous, is something that belongs to a different order of enjoyment and beauty - which obviously breaks with the refined world of good taste.

it’s a solid argument

… you and I are situated in the uncanny valley between a unicorn and a donkey. we agree on our roles.

Voice call

21 sec 13.35

            I: my connection is a bit bad

M: haha yh it’s a bit shit

            I: hahaha ‘HELLOO – I’M IN AN ART GALLERY!!!’

            I: call u in a sec

M: [crying laughter emoji] cool

this poem speaks about expenditure, how to keep them low for a larger profit gain in the long run.

Fri, 11 Oct

I: Went to a shop called *** ****

I: Do you know it?

I: They were very aloof

I: which made me think about *** ***


M: ahh yess

M: hahaha did you spend a lot?

            I: nooo bought a little bit to test it out first


this poem speaks of the isms we intend to dogmatically dislodge. it attempts, by form, to negate tendencies to flatten the matter by documentation, to negate the dissemination of illusions of a flat and linear temporality by capture. by momentary, electronic suspension.



M: yo

M: could you record this sound for me please 

M: [Sends Instagram reel]
 I: don’t understand
 I: haha

M: the sound of the beeping bike in the background

            I: ah
 I: you mean the lime bike

            I: I bet I could

            I: Just gotta pretend to steal it right?

M: pretend?

when you walk through a town like this - when you see how the people live, and still more, how easily they die, it is always difficult to believe that you are walking among human beings. all colonial empires are in reality founded upon that fact. the people have brown faces - besides they have so many of them! are they really the same flesh as yourself? do they even have names? or are they merely a kind of undifferentiated brown stuff, about as individual as bees or coral insects? they arise out of the earth, they sweat and starve for a few years, and then they sink back into the nameless mounds of the graveyard and nobody notices that they are gone. and even the graves themselves soon fade back into the soil.

Thu, 10 Oct

Video call

2 min 12.44

Voice call

30 sec 12.46

Voice call

No answer 12.46

Fri, 11 Oct

Missed voice call

Tap to call back 13.36

Voice call

no answer 15.26


for some reason I get to thinking about the commodification of contrived and concocted discomfort and the inherent paradox of the difficulties of deciphering the difference between demonstrations of having the right kind of bad time and the real thing.

M: you seeing more shows today?

M: i think it’s brilliant that it’s both promo for his album and an ad for old spice. can’t knock him for his hustle.

            I: 4 images

            I: had the pleasure of seeing this irl

            I: And took a picture of the back to clear the mystery

M: haha gesso’d to fuck!

            I: you were right!


on our next zoom meeting we tell gallerists that they must really trust us and that we’ll send our bios, sketches, a title to the show, all the details immediately. the moment the meeting ends, we get on our own call to discuss the discussion.
post-meeting one gallerist asks us if we can make the poster for the exhibition.


this poem speaks of expenditure, how to keep them low for a larger profit gain in the long run. it talks about artists as an avatar of the global dominance of whiteness, a whiteness enriched by strategic inclusions, a whiteness that is the animated face of the global flow of money. it speaks of expenditure, how to keep it low.


Fri, 22 Nov

            I: what is this amazing image you’re making

            I: oooh maaaaan i miss u guys

M: you too habib [heart emoji]

            I: are you free for me to call? [heart emoji]

M: yh


Mon, 2 Dec

            check up with mish kl 4 britisk

            tid / kl 5 dansk tid Monday, 2 Dec - 

            16.00 - 17.00 View details and 

            RSVP


            call Ihs 17:00 – 2/12/25


Voice call

53 min 22:43


Tue, 3, Dec

            I: hahahahaha

            I: man that was the wildest text

            I: I’m not gonna lie I didn’t understand a lot of what the guy was saying until I read the email correspondence and that was so insane I mean omg
M: that’s the main bit

M: lol let it sit and return to it some days later

M: i need to do the same

M: but what a G



Wed, 11, Dec

M: it’s J’s birthday btw x

M: [heart emoji]

M: ahh fucked it

M: i left the posters at my studio

            I: ouch, really sucks

M: can you help me find somewhere to print 20 A3 posters tomorrow

            I: you mean here in London?

            I: I can try!


by some degree of accident I’ve come across a review of an art piece that deals with the trade of relics; a
review wherein the historian Le Roy Ladurie himself is comparing the trade of relics to that of modern art
today. he writes: “Californian historian Patrick Geary might well laugh at the gullibility of medieval clerics
when they paid solid gold for a piece of foreskin from a confessor or the stubble of an apostle. but do we
really have the right to be ironic? the trade in art in our time, which is fully justified from other points of
view, is it, in turn, completely guarded against common stupidity and the naivety of gullible fools?”

this poem speaks about having a good time


Thu, 12 Dec

            I: listening

            I: all ears

M: snippets from how we’ve kept in contact whilst we’ve swapped out our diasporic homes, sound recordings, text, instagram links, edited… our thoughts, our readings 

            I: I’m going underground in a sec

            I: just so you know

M: lol hold that thought

            I: I don’t think I understand

            I: ahhhhh

            I: me in uk u in dk?

M: yesss

            I: do you mean like a screen or prints or how

M: dunno, maybe vinyls, something to think about. also just a thought.

Fri, 13 Dec

            I: yeah could be fun!