Amos Eno Gallery - “Unstable Language” Online Exhibition

Our understanding of the world around us is based on language, the filter through which we understand ourselves and others. Our understanding can be skewed by governmental, media, and other institutional actors through efforts to redefine terms to forward a biased agenda, censoring or distorting facts, and framing perception through propaganda. The ultimate goal of these institutions is to engineer our behavior so that we act in ways compliant to and complicit in the perpetuation of systems of dominance and control.

Saying or doing something that challenges the status quo has the potential of altering what can be thought of as acceptable. This is why societal norms are fortified by powerful systems, including threats of shaming, prosecuting, and abusing anyone who seeks to rock the boat. Paralysis from how overwhelmingly intricate and pervasive the system can seem is the intended effect. One doesn’t have to fully understand or take on…