Three wishes

Virginia Khuri

When I was a child one of our invented games consisted of each player making up a list of three wishes a week, wishes which though not impossible were deemed by the group improbable -such as being discovered as a new musical genius, being offered a trip on a raft down the Mississippi, or getting top marks for penmanship. The one to whom most wishes were granted during the course of the school year was declared the winner. I don't remember who won, or even if any of the wishes ever did 'come true', but I was thinking of this game recently in connection with thoughts of the future of LIP. What would be my three possible, but improbable wishes for it as it enters the 21st century? What would be yours?

Top of my list would be a central meeting place, occupied if not owned by LIP on a more or less permanent basis, a place like my studio where members could drop by for a cup of team, but where, unlike my studio, there would be ample spa e for monthly meetings of at least twenty people and wallspace for 12-16 individual exhibitions a year. Ideally, it would also have enough space to run workshops and host small talks. But its most import function would be as the hub of our dispersed LIP community, its centre of being. Where does one find such a place? Improbably, but not impossibly, I imagine someone 'out there' with space to spare, a shop owner, perhaps with extra unused storage space who would like to put it to good use, or a landlord with a vacant premises who would like a responsible 'building-sitter' to occupy it for a time, or best of all a lone occupant of a large house who would like some daytime company ....! Well, it can't hurt to wish - especially if there is a chance that just one of you knows of someone who knows someone who might just know of just such a place.

My second wish would be an avuncular, generous patron who out of love of photography would sponsor either this newsletter, or an annual publication in which members work could be published to a high standard. We did have such a sponsor once to whom we own the production of Show several years ago. It would be a good gamble for someone who might wish to go down in photographic history. Is there anyone 'out there' who knows someone who knows someone who might know...?

And lastly but not leastly, I would like to see an exhibition of LIP work hung in a 'proper' gallery space and granted the public attention which it deserves. I would like to know that such an exhibition could take place every five years or so. It would be an exhibition in which the values on which LIP exists would be proclaimed, the result of co-operation rather than competition and 'showcasing' not simply 'creativity', but the honest responses to life experience by truly individual imaginations which LIP exists to foster. I have the feeling that such 'human' work would be an antidote to the sensational but alienating work with which we are all too familiar. Are there are gallery owners, museum curators etc. 'out there' who know...?

If any of you know anyone who might know someone who ... please contact the Editor!

© Virginia Khuri 1997



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