The Humanity of Small Things is an online-only exhibition featuring small works created during the recent period of self-isolation by aspiring and accomplished artists from the region and beyond. In the face of something as monumental as a global pandemic, how do we find and regain grounding? When much of the comfortable routines, places we once deemed safe, and grand plans we had tightly embraced have been drastically changed, and even taken away – what do we now cling to?
Created in the solitude of each artist’s home or studio in a time of great uncertainty, the pieces in this show attempt to answer such questions with small expressions of creativity and attempts to seek beauty in the little, the intimate and the fragile – but not any less powerful – phenomena in the controlled and contained spaces we live in; the quiet, fleeting moments that now command our attention.
This exhibition is a reflection on this return to smallness – reflected not just through the size of the works, but how they are metaphors for the objects, people, places and moments that once were overlooked or deemed unworthy, now imbued and weighted with new meaning.
At the same time, the show contemplates on a contemporary art world in the midst of a major shift – a world being forced to move from the glitz and glamour of big, blockbuster exhibits to something more raw, modest and real. It is an invitation for artists to meditate and reflect on our rapidly changing world – the ordinary stories; the small victories; the quiet and neglected voices that had been sidelined now filled with vigor and renewed significance.
As a colossal, historical event sweeps the world at present, as Roy suggests, these small stories are what ultimately make up the skeletons, textures and patterns for bigger and grander things.
Whilst the future may be hazy, we look forward one day at a time – trusting in the hope of tomorrow. Survival, it seems, must begin with these small, humble steps.
Visit The Humanity of Small Things here: gajahgallery.com
When: 19 Jun - 31 Jul 2020,
By: Gajah Gallery
