The things that aren't seen
I’m learning more and more that the (seeming) absence of a thing is as much of a factor in the presentation of the world as the presence of a thing is.
We hear this in relation to social media a lot: what people choose to highlight on Instagram, Whatsapp stories, or any other platform is not the whole story. Most times this gives the impression that there are a lot of separate elements and we pick certain elements we choose to highlight, but what’s often left out is the relationship between the seen and the unseen parts.
There’s a common view on the way people perceive activities, such that activities and subsets of those activities can be segregated based on the race of people even if those people live in the same location. For example, we have “white music” and “black music," “white” activities like camping, golfing, and any activity involving heights, and “black” activities like running and dancing.
The appreciation of art, especially abstract art, is commonly thought to be a white activity. As a Nigerian, galleries are an imported concept. The art we knew was art that was readily and easily accessible—roadside artists would display portraits and depict our lived environments with the purpose of beautifying our homes. There was also the fact that up until the late 90s, many parents were unwilling to let their children become artists who could end up on the roadside.
So when we started going to galleries to see more diverse kinds of art, usually priced much higher than we saw on the roads, it seemed like it was only certain kinds of people who could appreciate certain kinds of art.
What was unseen?
If Leonardo da Vinci was a young, struggling artist a few years ago, and he got to have his works displayed in a gallery, and I bought that work, that painting would be worth millions of dollars today.
The so-called “eye” that people often said they had or didn’t have, was an eye for potential returns on investment. Investment in the artist’s potential or investment in the times but an investment no doubt. And increasing the varieties of art increased the chances that you could have the next Vincent Van Gogh on your hands which again, would be worth a lot of money.
While the “eye” is great, it was not what was needed, what was needed, like every other venture, was the capital to take risks, the financial flexibility to invest in something you believed in which could have a big return or not, and a culture and history of art appreciation (which hopefully wasn’t impacted by looting and colonialism).
Mission 36: Take in the Whole
Pictures are about the time, the zeitgeist, the scents and smells as much as they are about the people in them. When we look at pictures which we are in, we don’t just look at our poses and clothes, we recollect our feelings at that moment, what we were thinking and who we were with, and we observe the things that have changed since then.
When we look at a stranger’s, we imagine the relationships and note the differences between our lives and theirs. The pictures are about everything in it as well as everything not in it.
It takes more effort to observe what isn’t obvious and can take more time than what is immediately obvious, it also takes more thought to share what isn’t immediately obvious or what we are conditioned to keep below the surface.
But taking in, or sharing the complete picture has the potential to increase our connectedness, to inspire us to go softer on ourselves, to give us the courage to embrace our unique paths, to enable us recognise and deal with unique challenges and make amends more effectively, and to open up avenues to love and care and to be loved and to be cared for deeply.
Like they say, high risk, high rewards.