|
What are you afraid of?
Fears can rule us, keeping us from trying new things, meeting new people, seeing new places and engaging in life. It’s through risk taking that we learn and grow, otherwise we’re just playing a role, doing what we think we should do, sometimes not knowing what we do like, until well after we’ve become adults. Fears can rear their ugly heads just when we least expect it, triggering a response. We freeze, shut down, run away, freak out, have a mental break down, act rash, end up in an accident or even kill ourselves. Sometimes even over what might seem like the least inconsequential things.
Fears can be minor, passing gas in public, or major, to losing your job due to outsourcing or even Kafka like, being incarcerated for something you didn’t do. Small stuff can put someone in a funk for days while others can handle the big stuff with ease. When the artists for this exhibit started compiling a list of fears, that list soon appeared to be endless, so they invite all visitors to the gallery to add theirs to the list, even write it down and place it in our Fear Urn, so it can be burned and forgotten. Our Scared ****less Wall is also interactive. It lists just a few of the million things that scare us, such as tax hikes, national debt, violence in schools, rape, pillage, robbery, liars, overpopulation, bosses.
Many of the works are installations. Jackie Vincent’s motorcycle accident explores what everyone wonders, what happens after you die? Is it a new birth, a new beginning or just a black void? How did our upbringing affect us? Larry Holle, explores dysfunctional families and skewed childhoods in “This Little Piggy Went to Market.” There is so much violence these days, you never know who or what will be cut next. Religion, sex and politics do run the world and Jason Cosco, Christa Dijstelbergen and John Weiler’s video installation takes you on a journey through some of them.
The world is changing faster and faster every year. The last one hundred years have been a blur and some people just can’t keep up and their heads are exploding. Car bombings, terrorism, unhappy wives, unhappy husbands, co-workers, sons and daughters, moms and dads, it’s the humans who are doing some of the killing but nature takes a bigger toll. We all live by chance and by grace.
You just can’t be safe all of the time. It’s impossible. If you stay home, a car could drive through it. You never know who is sane, who is adapting, who is on the edge, who is about to give up trying. Even survival instinct, or anticipating what will happen next won’t keep you out of trouble. There are so many things out of our control, thoughts lurking in our sub consciousness, manipulation by
others … this exhibits hopes to provoke some thought on these topics, and perhaps even reduce a little tension in the process.
Colleen Skiff — director and curator
|
