Uchronia et Uchromia
External Pages, 2021
“The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions hidden by the answers”
– James Baldwin (1962)
“The moment you begin to paint, you begin to construct. Art has to be the quest for something.” – Sam Gilliam (2007)
External Pages is delighted to present their tenth exhibition of a newly commissioned piece by Rhea Dillon titled Uchronia et Uchromia which runs from 8 November – 21 December 2020.
Uchronia et Uchromia is a new interactive artwork by Rhea Dillon. By taking the form of an online questionnaire, the net artwork highlights the process of being questioned in the context of the Black experience today.
This title combines ‘Uchronia’, meaning an alternate history or hypothetical time period, with François Laruelle’s ‘Uchromia’ which is “to learn to think from the point of view of Black as what infuses color, in the last instance, rather than what limits it.” There's a phonetical resonance too, as it sounds like uchronia ‘ate’ uchromia, which suggests the violence Black people are subject to as well as the ways in which Black culture is exploited.
Questionnaires are a tool used by many institutions across society such as entrance exams in education, which operate as gatekeeping mechanisms. By adopting this framework, ideas of power, control and inequality come to the fore. Referencing how her own experiences shaped the artwork, Dillon emphases that the endless supply of questions that demand existential and fugitive thinking represents “the interrogation of a Black person in our society: there are hardly ever any answers, or information.”
The interactivity of the artwork speaks to Françoise Vergès writing on the invisibility of the Black and Brown cleaners in the capitalocene: “The performing male neoliberal body has another kind of “phantom” body that enables his limitless performance.” The questionnaire acts as its own kind of limitless performance, as to experience the exhibition the viewer is required to answer questions with no indication of the quantity or duration ahead.
Once the viewer completes the questionnaire, they can download a personalised poster of (their own) fragmented language, referencing the composition of asemic and concrete poetry. A custom-made font, ‘Nemesis’, has also been produced for the piece by graphic artist and designer Effie Crompton.
The beginning of this text quotes two great practitioners. Dillon engages with other artists and thinkers throughout the questionnaire in this plight for her own questions deserving answers as well as those left unanswered in books, papers and poetry from the likes of Pope.L to Mildred Howard to Bhanu Kapil. Dillon’s questions are an inescapable confrontation between the ontology and the ontic of each individual sitter. It is not merely to get answers but to encourage discussion to grow and expand filtering into your homes as an ever present, ever aware and eye opening probe for the fundamental question: when you don't know where to begin, where do you start?