#293 Words Will Never Hurt Me

64x85 cm each | Filler, oak frame

This work was produced as a temporary installation at the Tablet exhibition at Risør Kunstpark, Norway in 2020. The words on the panels were made out of sticks and stones found outside the gallery. After the exhibition the work was finished in my studio.

In the old nursery rhyme which the work is based on, it seems as if words are soft, stretchable and floats on top of the hard kernel of reality. Like they’re possible to ignore by choice and ultimately have no physical impact. But is it true? If the self-conscious self - the subject - is a phenomenon of language, i.e. that it is only within a strict sphere of language that a delimited and cohesive self can exist, then it is primarily words that can threaten it, and vice versa the physical reality that can be ignored by willpower. "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but only words will ever hurt me" would be more appropriate.

The call for perseverance, to endure the social circumstances even if it´s toxic is the power calling to preserve the status quo. Ideology is managed through language and to challenge power structures we have to challenge language. To understand that words might mean different for sender and receiver is useful, but to judge a statement only by the intentions and not by the effect, is deceiving and harmful.