I have always been panicked by the thought that there are things happening around us that nobody notices. As a child I loved a quote from the Bible, displayed on the wall of my Sunday school: “God sees the sparrow fall.”
Art for me bears witness to the things we might fail to register, at least consciously. The beauty of vegetables growing in rows in a garden (Van Gogh’s drawings). The allure of domestic objects (Annette Messager’s sculptures). The pleasures of being in a body (Pipilotti Rist’s video installations).
Art loosens expectations, it defamiliarizes, and it softens categories. This is especially meaningful when I’m trying to think about the big questions in life, via science or politics or psychoanalysis – because everywhere, in every sphere, we need flux and flex, as never before.