I believe the name is "Peeping Tom" or just merely "Chismosa", that is the correct term for the phenomenon of my obsession with reading people's reading lists or favourite hyperlinks. Just like some people love to consult music playlists created by different people, what gets me going is reading long bibliography lists of fellow strangers.

I have always thought we should reevaluate Chismosa dynamics, its power to build networks between people who have never met before and its ability to disseminate information is unlike any other oral tool of communication.

A few years ago, I was determined to talk about "chisme", also known as "gossip" in English, as a primary operating form of oral history in the artistic ecosystem in Lima. A good friend of mine, Marisabel, recommended reading "Lilia Prado Superestrella (y otros chismes)" by the Mexican artist Ulises Carrión. I read it back then, and I have recently reread it, mainly because I always felt I couldn't empathise with the feeling of displacement expressed throughout his text. There is a certain longing for telenovelas grandeur, a Mexican staple, and reconstructing it in Europe, where Ulises spent most of his life and did most of his work.

Now that I have migrated and experiencing a relocation process, I see chisme not only as a powerful tool of dissemination but ultimately one of the only means of connection with Peru. "Chisme", and its English counterpart "gossip", has always been concocted with misogynist tropes which deem it as a cousin of Fake News and a female-form of domestic communication. I think there is often a confusion between curiosity and means of gathering information, and it is understandable that in the era of Fake News these kinds of reduction, oversimplification and misleading spread of information is abundant. However, just like any kind of generalisation, claiming "all" gossip, and their dynamics, is evil and counterproductive is a blind spot in the dynamics of communication.

To the right, you will be able to find a list of reading lists which I find commendable, fascinating and just simply generous <3