GALLERY LATITUDE PRESENTS WHEN IS EMPATHY TOO MUCH?
I fear that we are beginning to design ourselves to suit digital models of us, and I worry about a leaching of empathy and humanity in that process. – Jaron Lanier, excerpted from You Are Not a Gadget, 2010
In this age of pandemic, as our physical engagement with the world has declined, we have increasingly relied on the unending media deluge of audio-visual information to connect with the outside world. Our window into the events and happenings of the outside world has become the screens of our devices. Our locus of understanding has been shifting away from the physical world in steady increments over the two decades, and with the advent of lockdown this phenomenon has exponentially exacerbated.
When is Empathy too much? refers to the inevitable saturation point that we all know too well, as the virtual domain becomes another phantasmagoria of the modern age. This exhibition calls attention to the changing nature of our perception of the world, the changing perception of the self, the sensory shock of digital overload and how this affects our emotional engagement with works of art. All four artists address empathy, and by extension connection/disconnection, adaptation/maladaptation in various different ways; the personal, the social and the political.
About the Exhibition:
Bhavna Kakar presents When is Empathy too much?co-curated by Indira Prasad and Shubhani Sharma, a group exhibition exploring notions of empathy (and lack thereof) in our society following the post-pandemic digital expansion. With its second physical exhibition since the lockdown began, Gallery Latitude 28 continues its commitment to emerging artists, contextualizing their works alongside established artists.
Quote from Bhavna Kakar, Founder & Director, Gallery Latitude 28:
The events of this year have been a whirlwind journey through the spectrum of emotion.We have seen unfathomable suffering and learned to appreciate each small silver lining. This new era of pandemic has tested the core of human endurance; personally, politically and socially. We have seen events needlessly unfold into calamities and I ask myself; how have we, as a society, lost our ability to empathetically engage with one another? The title ‘When is Empathy too much?’ calls attention to the desensitization we have become all too familiar with in these times. We are all caught in a balancing act of maintaining a healthy emotional engagement with society without succumbing to emotional burnout, yet this balance is required now more than ever.
The exhibition explores the role of art as a conduit to convey the human feeling and sentiment beyond the artworks. Each artist in the exhibition explores empathy from a different perspective, ranging from deeply personal narratives to satirical metaphors for the state of humanity.
