Thursday 6 May 2021

Hothouse

 


I can't think of a single show I've had where I didn't wish I had more time or circumstances were ideal or more conducive to making things or that things were different. This show was no exception. In any case before this becomes a vent-fest I guess I'll just share my exhibit notes for this series, here:


‘O Tiger-lily,’ said Alice, addressing herself to one that was waving gracefully about in the wind, ‘I wish you could talk!’

‘We can talk,’ said the Tiger-lily: ‘when there’s anybody worth talking to.’

Alice was so astonished that she could not speak for a minute: it quite seemed to take her breath away. At length, as the Tiger-lily only went on waving about, she spoke again, in a timid voice—almost in a whisper. ‘And can all the flowers talk?’

‘As well as you can,’ said the Tiger-lily. ‘And a great deal louder.’

- Through the Looking-Glass, Lewis Carroll


It’s safe and warm inside a hothouse.

Everything cold, parasitical and destructive is kept out, and conditions are ideal for blooming and growing. 

Who gets to be in the hothouse?

Is it just the rare and exotic? The strange and unusual? The strikingly, outstandingly beautiful? 

What about the everyday, garden-variety species? The “weeds”?

By-the-wayside can be beautiful, too, and worth preserving.


Life in a hothouse can be pretty laid back. 

Everything you need is provided for and all you have to do is grow and look your best. And be yourself. 

You have a place here because of who and what you are. 

It’s not a bad way to live, if you’re a homebody and have no interest in what goes on outside of the hothouse walls.

But if you’re the type whose seeds need to travel on the wind, this may not be the environment for you, however much you’re welcome to stay and are, in fact, highly encouraged to, these days.


Maybe you’re better off getting to know your fellow “inmates” and hoping that sooner, rather than later, more of you join you in this safe haven—until the day everybody has a place here where they can feel wanted, and protected. 

~


If you have a few minutes to spare, an aptitude for first person shooters or a penchant for talking to plants, may I invite you to visit the Hothouse.


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