Many artists, poets, musicians and scholars attempt to establish a definition of 'truth.' But how a culture defines what is true can be so vastly different, there are few universal truths to be had.
Defining truth is part of the idea behind The Truth Booth, which is coming to Lynden Sculpture Garden for one day only on August 19th. The giant, inflatable speech bubble and video recording booth was created by the four artist members of The Cause Collective. It’s on a 24 city US tour, collecting people’s answers to the open ended statement, “Truth is…”
According to Polly Morris, Lynden’s Executive Director, the arrival of the Truth Booth fits neatly into a summer of programming that is already exploring the nature of truth and who speaks it.
"Contemporary artists use history as a medium. And this gets again back to the dynamic concept of the truth and truth’s relationship to interpretation and personal experience," she explains.
With exhibits such as Fo Wilson's temporary installation of "Eliza's Peculiar Cabinet of Curiosities," a wunderkammer and 19th-century slave cabin on display, alongside The Truth Booth, Morris hopes that the juxtaposition of the past alongside the present will prompt questions and inspire more political work.
"This is a very conflicted moment in race relations in the United States and the actual daily living of African Americans in urban areas," she says. "And I think that artists are manifesting a political interest in many ways in making work that puts the imagination front and center in exploring these questions."
