To live life, we suspend the notion of mortality. Life is the illusion that death does not come for us. Life is the illusion of immortality. This illusion should not be threatened. We panic if this illusion is threatened. This threat needs to be eliminated at any cost.
When this illusion is threatened, when this illusion is shattered, panic goes exponentially viral: we demand armies to go to war, to fight battles against enemies domestic and foreign, we desire victory at any cost.
But what if…what if this threatening, all-consuming ‘enemy’ is a virus that remains undetected by our naked eye?
Panic, then, becomes paranoia.
Tallying the infected and deceased becomes a spectator sport. Bets are made. Guns and toilet paper are stockpiled. Should we nuke nature so we can design life from scratch?
In times of crises, what can be the roles of the arts?
And once — some time soon-ish, hopefully — we arrive on the other end of this unnerving curve, will we return to our default settings? Or will we enter a new normal? In this new normality, will we remember, will we have space for memory of what’s now now? Or will we again become complacent to our illusions?
What can we do? What should we do? What are we doing?
Who listens? Who listens to intermittent silence? Can we embrace shared silence?
Do we, that frail we, have the aesthetic as well as the ethical strength to fail, fail again, fail better?
What can artists do? What should artists do? What are artists doing?
It is self-righteous to say that we all should be activists today. It is cynical to say that art is a luxury we can ill afford now. It is myopic to say that the arts have no future.
In the meantime, people panic purchased toilet tissue. A primal fear, perhaps, not to be able to clean one’s bottom.
An artist in Manila — who wishes to remain anonymous — decided to use the toilet tissue scarcity as a hook to start an online exhibition: Paper Panic. This project explicitly looks at paper in the time of COVID-19 and implicitly at how we can connect in a time of enforced social distancing and quarantine.
Paper Panic project exhibits on Instagram new works made by visual artists, designers, illustrators, street artists, poets, comic artists, photographers and architects from the Philippines and beyond working with/on toilet paper to create art in the time of a pandemic. (The project’s Instagram account is @paper_panic_project.)
The exhibition offers a diverse range of voices: from @avggs to @thelatecurator, from @isola.tong to @hulyen, from @osongkalye to @robimmanuel, from @raprapsaraprap to @garapata_ ,from @miggyi to @jj.zo, and from @anakngkamote to @neeleopalvarez.
What can we do? How can we reach out? How can we listen? How can we make others and ourselves heard? How can we help? How can we resist? How can we change?
Can a pen and a sheet of toilet tissue be our medium of choice?
If we have to choose between hope and despair, the choice, no matter how absurd, should be the former. Look at the beautiful video by @nicapurr: sheets of tissue sail through the city, our city.
The project is building and changing its own direction, role, and language since inception because of the [varying] submissions.
Art has the possibility to create something that cannot always be measured: change, discussions, and engagements. It is the expression of the times—fear, anger, anxiety, hope, grief, challenges, inspiration, frustrations, trust and so on–a complex composition of our life. the project tries to have a diverse expressions and experiences during the covid-19 pandemic. — Creator of Paper Panic
An article by Roy Voragen of Kwago Bookstore and Publishing Lab
isipkwago.com — @isipkwago
