Exhibition poster © Daejeon Museum of Art

Polish poet Adam Zagajewski, a Jewish writer born during World War II, was forced to leave his homeland and wander from city to city throughout his life. In his poem From the Beauty of Strangers, included in A Hymn for the Many, he speaks of the hope that oppression and solitude can be redeemed through others, praising the spirit of communal coexistence.

The extreme behaviors that we encounter directly or indirectly—such as addiction, cowardice, or suicide—arise from an underdeveloped emotional life. According to Adlerian psychology, feelings of inferiority can be alleviated through labor, love, and community (relationships); it is through these processes that one finds a sense of self-worth.٭

There once existed beings and things that did not belong to the category of “you and us.” Today, however, through the proliferation of media, we have come to recognize new forms of community such as multicultural and mixed-race families, and we increasingly personify nonhuman entities, including plants and animals, as companions.

《Things We May Not Dare to See》 defines the emergence of self-awareness as the act of “forming relationships with others.” The exhibition seeks to capture, in layered ways, the connections we have refused or failed to see between ourselves and others. We are but parts of a greater whole.

Through this exhibition, it is hoped that the younger generation will cultivate a wholesome communal sensibility and an earnest willingness to reach out and question the Other.


٭Alfred Adler, What Life Should Mean to You, Eulyoo Publishing, 2019

References