This project by the French artist JR really inspired me. In Rio de Janeiro, he took photographs of Brazilians living in shanty towns called favelas and pasted their pictures on the sides of their houses, their eyes facing the city. He said he did this so that the people in the city looking up at the favelas would not just see the cheap houses but the eyes and humanity behind them. The project originated because JR heard about the controversial death of three street kids. One of the photographs pasted on a large stair the mother of one of these boys. The black and white photographs present haunting large eyes and weathered, care-worn faces. They are both beautiful and confronting. His project has now grown and a display has been put into, and on, a large art museum in Rio de Janeiro. The woman whose picture is on the front of the museum said she grew up and still lives in a favela and that she and her children have never been able to come to this museum before. But now intermingled together are those from the city and from the favelas. And now, too, an arch in the city, which JR describes as Rio de Janeiro's Eiffel Tower, is covered in photographs of women's faces. He reflected on what a powerful symbol the arch being held up by these women was.
I am captivated by this artist's ability to make a difference by simply following his craft and vision. All he has really done is paste a few photographs, and yet he has caused confrontation, communication, and perhaps the beginnings of reconciliation and rebuilding among people groups. He has forced the city to see these people's faces. He has given these women a voice and dignity. He has listened and declared worthiness on their stories.
Listening. How would the world be changed if we would all listen--listen with undivided attention to one another? I was in a workshop exploring ensemble with Dipankar this weekend and one exercise he had us perform was about listening. He divided us into pairs and had person A think of something very close to their hearts and share it with the person B. He then told person B that they didn't give a damn about what that person was telling them. Thus, we ran about the room trying desperately to get the other person to listen to us. We then switched roles and repeated the exercise. Afterwards, we both sat facing each other and he told us to listen to one another as we had never listened before--no affirmation, no questions, simply listening. In sharing afterward people said that when they were not listened to they became angry, disheartened, and that they actually disconnected with the thing they were trying to share--it no longer became about what was close to their heart but it was about screaming to be heard. But when they were listened to--then they were able to share our hearts, didn't feel the need to impress, felt able to pause and say what they really meant. They felt valued--and our sense of connection with one another grew simply because we felt heard.
I heard things in that workshop that I had no idea were there or that I needed to hear. He asked us why we were there today. A very simple question--one I thought was pretty straight forward. These are all people I know very well so I thought the question was mainly for Dipankar's sake. But then people shared things from their heart that really shook me about what this group meant to them and about their journeys in life. How easily we look past the simple empowerment of inviting people to be heard.
I believe that the more stories we hear the more human we become and the more possibility is awakened for us in our life. "Stories entangle in words and rhythms the power of the original experiences, making possible the release of that power whenever the words are spoken once more" [Dan Taylor Tell Me a Story]. The more stories we allow into our lives, the more empowered we are.
And what truly is what we believe and live by every day but story? I was thinking today about the news. I try to read the news now every morning--and some of our only news about troubled countries comes from blogs that journalists write on when they can. There is no definitive news. There is only story. Then I look at the health and environment section. Science is so variable and changing--it is based on experiment, on observation, on experience, and it tells a story of how to see the world--a narrative that will be added to and changed. Scientists take what they see in the world and wrestle to explain it. (Perhaps the scientist and the artist are not so different.) Faith is handed down in stories--in oral tradition, in books, in testimonies. History is the stories we've written about the past (though often I hear it is the story of the victor.) We live by these stories. Not to say they are not true, only to say they are experiences filtered through imperfect, finite human beings and given to us. And I would perhaps say in many cases they are the richer and better for that.
["And in all things that live there are certain irregularities and deficiencies which are not only signs of life, but sources of beauty. No human face is exactly the same in its lines on each side, no leaf perfect in its lobes, no branch in its symmetry. All admit irregularity as they imply change; and to banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality. All things are literally better, lovelier, and more beloved for the imperfections which have been divinely appointed, that the law of human life may be Effort, and the law of human judgment, Mercy"
-John Ruskin]Listening to each other's stories intently so rarely happens, though. In fact one person in our workshop said they felt uncomfortable having someone's undivided attention because they felt so guilty using up the person's time. But I think that when we do not share our thoughts and stories, our thinking grows inward--and like an inward growing hair or nail it becomes poisonous. We need others to keep us from losing sight of reality.
I think art is a form of listening. It's slowing down to observe. I think it was Emerson who once wrote about being a writer and how it is a thankless ambition of slowly gathering one observation after another. Isn't it said that genius is being able to scrutinize the obvious? What more is photography but teaching others to see the details you see in the world around you? What other place do you sit, listen, and watch another person's story with no other distractions than in a theater? I think the call for me as an artist is to slow down and see, to slow down and listen.
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