20
2008
The Importance of Being Fearless
I am currently working on an article for a website about the importance of being fearless (I will post the article I write, up here when I am done). I’ve always been inspired by people who have amazing amounts of courage and when told to shutup they just get louder. I thought I’d share an artwork which took my breath away (the best kind of art is art which literally knocks the breath right out of you) or at least I’d post up an annotation I wrote so I could remember this artwork in the years to come and these are my thoughts on Lynette Wallworths ‘Evolution of Fearlessness’, 2006.
Annotated Bibliography:
Lynette Wallworth, Evolution of Fearlessness, 2006,
One artwork from my research
‘Hell is the absence of Hope’
- Biblical reference
‘Being brave takes fucking balls’
- Libby King
I first walk into a small, black dark room and are confronted with a rectangular long-screen which is the height of a tall person. There is an outline of a standing body in black mist. A white round light appears in the right near the top of the screen of which you have been asked to place your hand, palm down. A woman emerges from the dark mist and puts her hand against yours, then, speechlessly she mouths the ordeals she has been through. It is in her eyes and the lines of her face you can feel and see the pain and suffering she has endured but also the hope inside her eyes which, miraculously, still burns. A white book sits to the corner of the room of which the stories of each individual woman are documented and can be read and most importantly heard and remembered.
Lynette Wallworth who installation artist working predominantly in new media, in her 2006 work ‘Evolution of Fearlessness’ which is discussed in the above discrption, located ten women from many different ethnicities and countries who had been through horrific ordeals of abduction and rape, concentration camps, inhumane beatings and gang violence. Ordeals, which, would cripple most people. But suffering is not the main focus in Wallworth’s installation; it is each woman’s remarkable ability to hope through their endurance of hell and to use the hell they have lived as a way to understand and have compassion for the suffering of others.
It is in these women’s ability to hope that they become fearless; it is the unification of a universal fearlessness to hope when others would despair; to talk when others would become silent. ‘Suffering has no voice anymore although its reality remains lived and intact’, (Marandi, Harry). Although each woman’s suffering is symbolically speechless it no longer remains silent. As a culture if we cannot undo the silence we have done perhaps it is time we recognize a new language, a language which is fearless to fight against it. Perhaps it is these ten women who are speaking this new language of fearlessness who will begin to show us how, not only to speak this language but to use it to fight against this silence which creates such fear. ‘Silence is not just a product, but also a major source, of fear. To overcome fear we therefore need to discuss the undiscussbles that help produce the fear in the first place.’ (Zerubavel, Eviatar).
The ten women in ‘The Evolution of Fearlessness’, 2006, are the mother Teresa’s of everyday life. Who, regardless of the hell they have lived and seen, heal themselves through the hope they have in humanity. It is in their ability to speak out about their suffering and the hope they have discovered through their ordeals which makes them not only fearless but free. Their ability to help a humanity which hurt them reminds me that, victim does not only always become the bully and forgiveness is more powerful than hate. ‘The right words can change the word.’ (Charlotte [in] Charlotte’s Web).
It is said in the bible ‘hell is the absence of hope’ but I believe, after much thought, hell, is not only the absence of hope but of memory too. Martin Luther King once said, in a letter from his cell in Birmingham jail ‘We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people’, April 16, 1963. Ten women in the ‘Evolution of Fearlessness’, 2006 remind us of the power of speech and most importantly the power of ‘fearless speech’. Ten women, who refuse to let fear make them become afraid or to stop them from fighting and speaking in this age of fear which has created so much deafening silence. ‘Much Unhappiness has come into this world because of… things left unsaid.’ (Attributed to Fydor Dostoyevsky)
here are some links to some photos:
http://www.aucklandtriennial.com/artists/wallworth.asp
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Comments
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This is exactly what I needed to read. Wow. I’ll never be truly “fearless’, but just saying the word out loud is inspirational.
Thank you… so much.
thats soo awsome to hear Kathy! In my own art practice (I am going into my last year at uni in Visual arts) I make art about the importance of being fearless, of conversation and the of the power of storytelling and speaking. So I have a few other articles about the place I shall post up once I edit them a little more.
Thanks for your comment it made me day!