Whenever I recall René Magritte’s words: “Art evokes the mystery without which the world would not exist”, a feeling of excitement and frightening, swamps my chest. It is the sensation of knowing that even though we are human beings, with the capacity to see, listen, feel and act upon the world’s injustice and goodness, there are still being blank spaces that no other forces but only art can fulfill. Likewise, and in a very paradoxical manner, I came to understand that. Also there is no chance to evoke that mystery, not art itself, without the curiosity in a human being, without a genuine soul, that has the sensitivity to identify the world’s realities and extrapolate them into beauty; thus, evoking emotions, actions, and change in one’s life. And I do believe, that every single one of us has met already that curious genuine soul, or at least is fortunate enough yet to meet it. I vehemently state it, because I did, because I have witnessed myself a change in the way I perceive the atrocities of the world. Moreover, how I experience kindness, empathy, humanity, and hope is through someone’s art, through someone else’s eyes.
This statement certainly does not aim to undermine the influence that other people have had in the way we live or see the world. This is because each person leaves us with memories and learned lessons, even if sometimes they are just fugacious. But how many opportunities do we have to meet that particular individual who might completely provide us with a new life perspective, and encourage us, to act upon those things we might have never thought to act upon? I guess that is one chance in life, and it came to me three months ago.
Surfing online, and in a search for inspiration to write about visual politics in South East Asia and human rights issues, I suddenly bumped into a visual storytelling website. This person’s work immediately captured my attention. The portraits of different people, and places somewhere in the middle of Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines, were all be embraced in a mood of calmness and hope but also full of energy. That is what I felt while wandering into this individual’s art. Week’s after my assignment was submitted, on a very normal day, I got to meet that person very randomly in a social reunion. After that, suddenly I found myself deep diving into this person’s worldview. Besides, I came to understand the ideas behind the political lenses of this human’s art: ideals, that contained the precepts of humbleness, social awareness, deep sensitiveness, and empathy as basic rituals in daily life. Moreover, after discovering the life-story behind those photos, I was inspired not only by the artist per se but by the courage of a human being to take curiosity as part of one’s life. To leave the first-world comforts back home and take on the precious opportunity that as a human, that person was given. The opportunity of exploring, living, connecting, expressing, and unintendedly, transforming.
After this life experience, as I ought to call it, not only the way I take upon problems or challenges has changed, but the way I see some specific world’s aspects too. Now, I perceive human suffering, perhaps, if not completely without a realistic view, but with a more positive and pro-active manner. I have been inspired to take action, and I have been encouraged to keep concentrating all my energies into my life passions. If there is something that I should mention before finishing this narrative, is that there is a clear and bright line of myself before, and after looking through this human’s eyes.
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