Knowledge is formed from evidence. In their recent installation at the Christchurch Art Gallery the artists’ collective et al. have set the stage for information to be gathered, knowledge to be reviewed, statistics to be collated and opinion to be formed. The potential for real change is suggested. Yet the room is haunted by a deathly absence, and a sense that although a site has been prepared, the speakers installed, the speeches written, and the voting booths unfolded, it is all too late. One disaster always follows another; now is the time for charity.
As the exhibition was opening in Christchurch the Pope posted a public letter. Charity is often born of such co-incidence. The encyclical letter ‘Caritas in Veritate’ (‘of the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI to the Bishops, Priests and Deacons, Men and Women Religious, the Lay Faithful, and All People of Good Will on Integral Human Development in Charity and Truth’) documents Benedict’s worry that charity has been emptied of meaning. He suggests that it is time for social justice to enter the bounds of the market economy. This is a response to the global crisis of capitalism, and a challenge to those who seek to prop up capitalism by making it sustainable. et al. also remind us that in times of neo-liberal control charity comes to the fore, driven by a mantra to always think of those less fortunate than ourselves. There: witness the statistics. Strangely though, it is the poor who often give the most.
The space of the exhibition is that of a political rally; an environment all too often blurred between the communal forces of religion and the passion of the individual. This rally