The Rupture: No condition is Permanent is like a mirror that presents a harsh but true reality. Created in a “curatorial sprint” by Tessa Giblin and Carol Yinghua Lu, the duo echoes the words of Mark Carney: “we are in the midst of a rupture.” Here, the exhibition does not mark where we are at but rather a “jumping off point” to which a rupture emerges. Captured by artists across different cultural contexts, from Ukraine to The Philippines, the exhibition collects works that challenge established systems and unanimously insist that “the world is ours to change.”
Notably, multi-channel video installation Wishful Thinking, 2026, created by Roman Khimei and Yarema Malashchuk, caught my eye. Across different rooms of the gallery, we are met with a fictitious future of Russia’s war against Ukraine. With Ukraine’s Soviet-era actors playing Russian soldiers, Khimei and Malaschuk present vignettes of “the psyche of the oppressor.” For instance, a man lays on a hospital bench, with his lower body covered and decorated with tubes and bandages. With the long-angled video positioned above a gallery space bench, we feel as if we are in the same room. We presume the man is a Russian veteran and in this quiet and solemn interaction, he answers in short telegraphic sentences. When asked “do you have any regrets”, the interviewee goes quiet. After a long pause, the question is repeated but the man does not answer. Perhaps reminded by trauma of war or unable to answer from the pressure of duty, the interview ends. Although these videos are based on the current position of Russian-Ukrainian war, Khimei and Malashchuk portray the morbid certainty of the future, based on the present, in which the “possibility of repair in the future remains uncertain and deferred.”
Erased Slogans, 2008-ongoing, by Kiri Dalena is a series of archival inkjet prints on Hahnemuhle Photo-Rag. As one of the first works you will encounter in the exhibition, its meanings are suitable to the exhibition’s overarching theme of acts against established systems. Borrowed from archival newspapers, photographs depict protest placards of activists and public representatives. What unites all these photos is that every placard is blank, as they were erased in The Philippines during the 1970s authoritarian regime of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. Commenting on the ongoing struggle of students and workers during that time, Dalena focuses on these Erased Slogans to present a tabula rasa or blank slate for future generations, who are united by a passion for change.
Image by Berk Usar for The Student.
