Panacea (2018-2019)

In existential circles it’s often said that no two people have ever sat in the same room. This is because our own unique life histories and genetic makeups color the way we perceive the world around us, so that the same objective data point is interpreted differently by me than it is by you.

This is existential isolation in a nutshell, the fact that an insurmountable invisible barrier exists between each and every one of us, that no matter how close our physical proximity may be, a psychic distance remains in that you don’t have access to my subjective life experience, to my inner world, except insofar as I explain it to you, and I don’t have access to your subjective life experience, to your inner world except insofar as you explain it to me. And again my explanation will be interpreted by you based upon your own unique life history and genetic makeup and your explanation will be interpreted by me based upon my own unique life history and genetic makeup.

Panacea is trying to reach out to the people I know, my friends, and what surrounds them. I try to enter their own worlds that somehow we share but are very difficult to visualise, process and understand. This series recognises and honours continued individuality while building community, it allows differentness and sameness to exist side by side. This sort of connection allows both entities to be first accepted but also modified in small and big ways. Through this process of modification, people get to know each other in profoundly intimate ways, they fuse through shared experiences and through their commitment to seeing things from the other’s vantage point rather than forcing their own vantage points upon the other, and the result is that perhaps two people can sit in the same room after all.