HIDDEN TRUTHS: DISRUPTING UTOPIA explores the multiple meanings that exist within an image by deconstructing the binary between the utopian and the dystopian. The images in this exhibition expose their ambiguous nature when examined in conversation with one another. The pieces selected are intentionally self-contradictory, ambiguous, and often misleading. Each work initially draws the viewer’s attention to its aesthetic qualities; however, once context is applied, an alternate understanding is revealed.
We use the words utopia and dystopia as theoretical constructs. Utopia is the imagined concept of an idealized place, though not necessarily with a physical manifestation. The term utopia is derived from the Greek prefixes ou- (“not”) or eu- (“good”) and the root topos (“place”): simultaneously, the “good place” and “nowhere land.” Dystopia is not always an apocalyptic landscape, as it has been painted in literary and artistic traditions; a dystopia is instead a failed utopia. Dystopias resemble reality. In this exhibition, our collection of images has been chosen to disrupt expectations and illustrate the fluidity between a utopic concept and its dystopic reciprocal.
Like any utopian concept, the passage of time is at work here. HIDDEN TRUTHS: DISRUPTING UTOPIA challenges the viewer’s initial perception of a work of art. In Ways of Seeing, John Berger discusses these judgments and argues: “the way we see things is affected by what we know or what we believe.” In order to alter the way we understand works of art, this exhibition reframes the utopic and the dystopic as an amalgamation rather than as opposing forces. Access the galleries below to reveal the tension that exists between these spaces. In one moment the image may seem utopic, the next, dystopic–or some space in between.
