The Life You Can Save, Katherine Chong

30" x 18”. Laser-cut plexiglass, sumi ink, alcohol markers, vinyl, 2023.

We are constellations of in-groups and out-groups, familiars and strangers. We flock together and turn against one another with the most arbitrary of notions. Prejudice runs rampant along such imaginary frontiers; we adopt worldviews tinted red and blue. Gender, age, race, ethnicity, sexuality, education, religion... pluralistic identities that sustain our diverse cultures have become irreconcilable differences. We are absorbed in the satisfying righteousness of our own ideas; we retreat into echo chambers that sate our appetite for affirmation. We claim that we listen to others, but we have made up our minds before they ever parted their lips.The cropped faces in the background embody our dysfunctional status quo, shattering into polarizing factions. But even as the dichotomy sucks you in, “us vs. them” is still a two-dimensional trope of reality. Look beneath the cracked sky: two small figures are putting all the commotion behind them. Legs hugged to their chests, feet dangling over the precipice, they look forward and toward each other. They receive the entirety of us as individuals, coexisting in this world.