www.samhamilton.org

01/11/2024

This my beloved grandma Grace. The first picture is one i took of her around 2012 in a park, proudly sporting her Free Palestine badge. The others are pictures she took in Gaza in the 1980’s and maybe the 90’s, featured some of the Palestinian friends, colleagues, and students she had during the 4 years she lived and worked there in the 80’s as a nurse (yes, a single white women, living - and loving living - in Gaza in the 80’s - deal with it) for the red cross, and subsiquient visits after that. She was a prolific traveler her whole life, and a few years back when she was about 98 (she’s 103 next month!) i asking her if she could go back to one place she’d visited, where would it be… the answer was immediate and uniquivocal: Gaza. She loved that place and so much, and friends and community she’d found there. She spent the remaining decades fighting for it too, even becoming a treasurer for a British wing of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. She’s been one of the brightest beacons of light in my life. A force of nature, love, critical awareness, creativity and criticality. I love her so much, and among all the other reasons for wanting to see and call for a free, liberated, and safe Palestine, is for her. 🇵🇸

11/27/2023

What an incredible pleasure and privilege to have spent a week with the phenomenally talented & .andrews at Mere’s very special Tauanui Marae in Waimana, Aotearoa NZ (Ngāi Tūhoe mana whenua). The week was focused on the final bilingual libretto (english and te reo Māori courtesy of the great ) for the final chapter of Te Moana Meridian as a major live opera performance work slated to premiere in late 2024 at in partnership with . Work that was only made possible thanks to the generous support of ’s essential catalytic funding for the project in 2022❤️🙏. Im so thankful for it, and to finally be embarking and this opera ive been dreaming of since late 2019. I’d also like to extend a huge thanks and infinite aroha to te Whakātane hāpu, the Boyntons, Te Poho o Tamatea, and the extended Tauanui marae whānau for the abundantly warm@and generous manaaki (and the whenua dor the delicous p**i and cockles!🤤). Arohanui and tīhei mauriora to you all💚. Thank you also to for the killer new gold costumes! ⭐️, and, of course, to Holland and Mere for your creative brilliance, care and generosity, friendship, and the massive dept of inspiration this work owes you both. The opera is going to be fierce as f**k because of you two. —- finally, an important note on context for all those non-NZ folx: yes, this portion of the project took place on indigenous Māori land; yes I have several Māori collaborators, and yes these things are important and respected dimensions of the work. But no, i am not Māori, and nor do i or the project reflect or represent te ao Māori in any way. There are many reasons underscoring all this, but the projects primary focus is in considering how to build better multilateral relational modalities to shape and render political and geopolitical policies through. Work that starts, and ends, with constructive engagement and collaboration. As my own default political and cultural background, the relational dynamics between Māori and pākehā (whities of colonial settler decent) offers a rich - albeit sticky - framework for launching such an inquiries