encourages multi-faceted thinking
it is not binary - there is no good or bad,right or wrong
when people consume shite like the x-factor/BGT there is only a good/bad option
and the audience gets to cheer and sneer accordingly
with the occasional guilt placater thrown in to make them feel like good people
‘oh i thought this non-commercially attractive person would be awful but it turns out they actually have a modicum of talent so now i’ll pretend i always liked them and feel better about how vapid my life is’
we are being conditioned all the time to think in these stupid binary terms, in black an white while the world is so grey - because when things are either/or there is nothing to question, the status quo continues because ‘that’s how it is’ - only it’s not at all how it is
there is empowerment in uncertainty, in questions and ultimately in change
a weak belief that does not stand up to challenge
is not made strong by clinging blindly to it
we cannot protect something for the sake of preserving it
hiding a disease will not cure it
and society has many tumours we must work together to remove
art builds communities and strengthens individuals
it must not be allowed to be used as a tool to divide us into artists/people or cultured/not-cultured or pretentious/down-to-earth
we are all humans and our living experience takes us through hundreds of different points of identity, change, growth, experience, output, gender, sexuality, thoughts, beliefs, faiths, ideas, creativity, loves, culture, political alignment…
we must never believe we are static, we must never believe we have binary identities
we are multi-faceted and we are fluid and we have to understand that so is everything else in the world
life and art are not two separate things
an we can no longer let them be treated as such
divided by the walls of the gallery, the concert hall, the university - these are all mausoleums built to pretend there is still life in dead art, swimming pools of formaldehyde to preserve the corpses of material that has ceased to be relevant
now more than ever we must surrender our divisions, learn to cooperate and share, we must learn autonomy and respect, we must learn to concede defeat on certain points and take only the best aspects of ideologies forward to something better - because time is running out for us if we continue to exist in the outer edges of our venn diagrams
i can promise you this - it’s more fun in the middle where people meet
Do not say: that man is not an artist. By setting up such barrier between yourselves and the world, you simply expel yourself from the world. If you thought him no artist, he might think you no human, and that would be a worse reproach. Say rather: he is an artist because he is human. We may do what he does more perfectly and be honoured for it, but what we do is something universal, human, something practised hourly in the busy streets almost as much a part of life as eating and breathing. Bertolt Brecht
