Out of Place

#Out of Place

The symbols, icons and memories that define us as a people are being assailed. Assaulted by wave after anaesthetic wave of brutal images, our memories lose their hues and contours, poignancy and power. The icons we drew our strength from now appear as esoteric characters from stories that are turned on their head. The institutions, the temples of humanism we invested our future in, are atrophied from within, and turned into empty shells. Symbols and ideals that guided and inspired us turn awry posing as emblems for exoticized projects.

These erasures and fractures call for new acts of imagination that will retrieve, reclaim, recall and recover. That which is erased can be drawn back, that which is removed can be re-moved, that which is obscured can be brought to light. Historically, on many occasions, art has been an act of remembering and re-enchanting the symbols and songs, words and forms that make a people. It thus becomes an archival tool for resistance, a survival kit of imagination.