Not So too Much of Much of Everything
NaoKo TakaHashi (2007)
The narrator of Not So Too Much of Much of Everything takes the reader on a breathless journey through the air-conditioned rooms and arid streets of the modern Arab metropolis. The narrator’s sexual freedom is confronted by rumour, suspicion and threat. Every move the narrator makes, whether in solidarity with Arab women, street cleaners and bar staff, or confronting male hostility, is misread; her identity repeatedly forced upon her, manipulated and rendered paranoid.
Based on personal experience of a three month residency in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, Not So Too Much of Much of Everything is written in the style of a factual report, and explores ideas of dislocation, mistranslation and gender politics. Moving from confusion and isolation to corporeal anger, the artist’s residency and the everyday frustrations of making work in a new context are cast as a modern allegory of alienation.
