Richmond BC, Canada #richmondartgallerybc
Within the public sphere, the voice is vital for expressing untold stories, collective identities, and political perspectives; when the voice is quieted, we tend to think of censorship or the marginalization of oral histories. Codes of silence radically overturns this illusory binary with videos in which the voice is muted, withheld, or unexplained in ways that cultivate interiority and intimacy.
Codes of silence is inspired in part by scholar Kevin Quashie’s notion of quiet. He argues that in the face of violence, suppression, and erasure, African American communities have had to prioritize public-facing, politicized types of communication, often to the detriment of more inward-facing modes of expression. While acknowledging the necessity for the discourse of resistance to be bold in its aim for maximum legibility within the public arena, Quashie underscores equally the radical potential of cultivating expressions of quiet. He employs quiet as “a metaphor for the full range of one’s inner life.” Moreover, quiet can offer a kind of protective safeguard “against the dominance of the social world; it has its own sovereignty.”
Expanding broadly from this idea of quiet, Codes of silence presents four multifaceted videos that invite us to pay attention not only to the moments voices are present, but to also to those moments of rich quiet. These videos by Shirley Bruno, Aleesa Cohene, Caroline Monnet, and Cauleen Smith are presented in tandem with a selection of paintings by Toni Onley, Leslie Poole, and Harry Stanbridge from the permanent collection, which resonate with the exhibition’s themes, creating an ambience of contemplation.
